Before winter was over, summer had already been paid for. After years of watching generations of her family members hustle backwards, Yani was determined for things to be different. She wanted to pass something down. Pass down something more than just debt and a funeral bill. She wanted to hand down a legacy of ease and a worry-free lifestyle for those that came behind her.
Yani has no children to create this space for so she constantly observed others to see, who would be the best choice to leave what she has worked for. Although, she did not have an overflow of liquid cash, she prided herself on the assets she had secured. Who would appreciate the foundation she was laying well after she would be laid to rest?
Never sure about how this would play out, yet she continued to work hard to secure a better future for herself and her loved ones. Soon she would learn that her family couldn't see the big picture and wanted pieces of all she had, now not later. They could care less about the big picture and wanted what she had dead or alive. Instead of them seeing Yani as a visionary, she was being lined up for the ultimate betrayal from those who shared the same blood.
We grew up together; Yani and I. We were more than best friends, more like sister/cousins. Her dad died when she was a baby. She didn't speak of it too much though, a mention of him here and there. You could always see the pain in her eyes when she spoke of him... Like she was imagining how it would have been if he were there to raise her.
Her mom? She was young, feisty, and ready to beat Yani's ass about ANYTHING. It's like her mom saw her younger self every time she looked at Yani and because of that she didn't trust her. They looked like twins; it was wild to witness how much they favored.
Growing up, it was just us two hanging out and having fun although Yani had two sisters and five brothers. However, only Yani and her older brother had the same parents. They only shared their father with the six siblings. Yeah, her dad had six baby mothers... 6! She knew all her siblings though, so it was pretty cool to attend so many different family gatherings with her. When she was ten, her brother called her to tell her not to go home. He told her to go to my house because they had been evicted. It was normal for Yani to stay with us, even on school nights. Sometimes it was just easier for her to get to school, especially if her mother worked late and her older brother was out with his friends. But this time when she asked could she stay over, she had tears in her eyes. She told me what her brother said, I told my mom, my mom called Yani's mom, and one night turned into the rest of the school year. We grew so much that year. We had so much fun, and you know what they say about fun times... They fly by.
the summer rolled around, and we were eleven years old, and it was time for Yani to go back home. Her mom had another place, actually this place was closer so we could walk to see one another whenever we wanted. This place was much nicer than the old one too. Yani was different though, this experience of being HOMEless changed her. She was much more focused on her future. She never wanted to have someone in control of her livelihood. I remember when her mom came to pick her up... the look in Yani's eyes. It was like the lack of trust her mom had for her was multiplied by infinity in Yani's eyes. She no longer trusted that her mother could properly take care of her. So yes, she moved back with her mom, but she never felt like she had a home. She never felt like anywhere was home until she purchased her own. Nobody could throw her out of her own place. Nothing could come between her and this goal she set to reach by 18 years old. She technically had 7 years to make this happen and that is exactly what she did.
Yani worked before she could even drive. She tried everything she could think of. Her mother worked for the government and that is as far as she dreamed for Yani and her brother. Her brother would follow suit but not Yani; she had lost so much faith in her mom that working anywhere her mom suggested was a good place to work would have been a horrible place for Yani. She did not take heed to anything her mother ever suggested, even if was really good advice. Their relationship took a turn, it wasn't bad because Yani was never disrespectful towards her mother. She respected and loved her mother; she just didn't trust her.
We were 17 when Yani told me she was ready to start looking for a place. Not an apartment or a condo, Yani wanted to buy a house. She wanted land and a small home that would be hers. Something she could leave to one of her future ten children. She wanted to create a family bigger than the one her father created but with one man. She also started talking about owning ten homes so that all 10 of her children would have a place to call home when they decided to start their own families. She felt like a mother should always have a home for her children to go to. And when they were old enough to have their own home, to start their families, they should have a foundation set for them. Her vision was that her children didn't have to live in their pre-purchased homes, but they could use them to build wealth for themselves. They could rent them, live in them, have roommates, but most importantly they would all have homes.
Yani didn't want to raise children that would have to go out and beg for a job just to get the basic needs and she definitely did not want them on public assistance. My friend was one of the proudest people I had ever met, and her ambition was contagious. By 18 years old Yani owned a 3-bedroom, 3-bathroom house on 5 acres! She did it. I was so proud of her. We celebrated and slept in that house with absolutely no furniture the first night. The second day, we were loading her up to move her out of her mother's place. Her mom looked both proud and ashamed. Not ashamed of Yani but of herself. Her mom had never owned anything, and little did we all know her mom was on the verge of being evicted yet again. Only time would tell that secret though, and by the time that time revealed the truth, Yani's brother bought a home for him and their mom to live in. Yani would find this out two years after her brother told her he bought his home.
Once Yani knew that her mom would have made them homeless again, she withdrew. She dived deep into her ambitions and focused on being successful so that she would never have to depend on anyone. Her moto was, "If you can't depend on your mother, who can you depend on?"
By the time we turned 25, Yani was purchasing her third property. She rented out 2 and lived in the first home she bought when we were 18. She no longer had to work because the rental income was more than enough to sustain each property as well as her minimalist lifestyle. Her life was going as planned, all but children. She had yet to find the man that would give her 10 babies. On her twenty-sixth birthday Yani prayed for a husband to create a family with and before she turned 27, she met the man of her dreams. Looks had nothing to do with the type of man that Yani yearned to be with. However, Keon was very easy on the eyes. They were so in love and had so much fun together. Before she knew it, time had flown again and ten years later at 37 years old, Yani had no children. I could see that this was taking a toll on my once ambitious friend.
After many tests, doctors asked that Yani bring in Keon for testing because according to them she should have been conceived. She was in perfect health and extremely active. Keon went to the doctor, and they discovered that he would not be able to give her the one thing that she had always wanted with him, children. Although this could have damaged another couple, this news strengthened their relationship more than ever. Yani was confident that they would conceive, and she knew women who had children later in life but her hope for ten children dwindled immediately to two. She gave them to 40 to meet this goal of having two children, prayerfully a girl and a boy.
The years continued to fly by and now we all were well over 40 and in a global pandemic, Yani and Keon decided that their dream of creating their own family would never come to fruition. They mourned together and sometimes she would share with me how hard it was to accept that she would never be a mother. She would never get to love a child the way she wished to be loved by her own mother. She would never be able to pass down the things that she worked for to a family that she created from her womb. The way she described her grief broke my heart. It was then that I understood that death of anything, even the death of what you had envisioned for your life has to travel through the grieving process.
TO BE CONTINUED...
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