Reckless Love

After three decades of editing and writing about Longhorn football and University of Texas sports figures, I’ve changed direction. Actually, I’ve been working on this memoir for more than a decade, but each time I got the chance to publish a book and get paid for it, I put the memoir aside. Today, however, I find myself, at age 69, pondering just how much time I have left to finish my story, get it edited and accepted, run around to book signings and speaking engagements. None of us know the answer to that, of course, but my sense of urgency to “just finish” has heightened. 

So, here’s what I’m working on now…Just for Three Months. I’m still searching for the right subtitle, but this is the story of how my white family of four became a mixed-race family of five.  

I was the original helicopter parent, not to just Bailey and Hays, my own daughter and son, but to any kid who responded to my attention and love. It made me feel young to volunteer at the elementary and middle schools and to befriend kids from all backgrounds. I was like the old woman and the shoe, except I found I could never have too many children. I’d wanted to be a teacher from the time I was five, and while I never did get my teaching certificate, being at the schools, surrounded by those kids made me feel useful and alive. 

I met Lester at a middle school football game on a Wednesday evening in August of 1998. I saw this black kid on the sidelines, sucking his thumb, grinning, dancing with the yard markers to music only he heard.  I watched as he held up his arm to show his friend a two-inch high lump on his forearm.  It looked bad from where I stood, so I made my way to the sidelines, introduced myself, and asked to see his arm. 

And this is the conversation that would change my family’s lives:

“Hi, honey,” I said. “I’m Mrs. McEachern, Hays’s mama. Do you know Hays?”

He pulled his left thumb from his mouth. “Yes, ma’am. He my quarterback. He cool, but he sure quiet. Only time he talk is in the huddle. I’m Lester, number 22.”

“Sweetie, let me see that arm.” I ran my finger gingerly over the bump. “What on earth happened? Does it hurt? Have you seen a doctor?”

“It ain’t nothin’. It just happened in practice. It don’t hurt.”

I dragged him over to my friend, Suzanne, a physical therapist, who told me that while she didn’t think it was broken, Lester needed to see a doctor to make sure. Lester tolerated my interference and presumption with a smile on his face. As I turned to take my leave, I made Lester promise to see a doctor, then said goodbye. 

The arrogance, the ignorance, of my insistence embarrasses me today. I didn’t consider that doctor’s visits might be luxuries for Lester’s family. I would learn much later that they had no primary care doctor; their health care plan consisted of waiting for hours at the People’s Community Clinic or visiting the emergency room of Brackenridge Hospital, the city-run trauma center, whether for a bad cold or a broken leg. 

I had a lot to learn. 

I watched Lester on and off for the rest of the evening. He didn’t appear to have parents there, so before the game ended, I took his good arm and led him to one of the football coaches, a man of enormous girth, a former pro lineman gone soft.  

“Coach, this boy needs to see a doctor for his arm.” I held up Lester’s arm as evidence…evidence of what, I’m not sure, but it seemed to represent the incompetence or negligence of the coaching staff. “Can I count on y’all to make that happen? I’ll call next week to see what the doctor said.” 

Lester—his name was Lester Earl Simmons, Jr.—seemed amused by my attention and my bossiness.

“How are you getting home, sweetie?” I asked. “Are your parents here?”

“No, ma’am. I take the city bus over to the east side.” 

My eyes widened. “At this hour?” It was past nine o’clock.

“It’s okay. I do it all the time,” he said. 

Good Lord. Who lets their twelve-year-old stay out until 9:00 on a school night, then take that city bus across town, alone, sharing a ride with hookers and drug dealers and God knows who else? 

But there you go; I had a lot to learn. 

On the short drive from the school to our home, I mentioned to Randy that I’d met the most precious boy; well-mannered, with an irresistible smile. Randy sighed. “There you go again.  Mother to the world, picking up strays.” 

***

Six months after I’d met Lester at the middle school football game, in the spring of 1999, after a late-night, out-in-the-front-yard altercation between twelve-year-old Lester and his abusive, crack-addicted father, Travis County authorities gave Lester’s mother Kitty a choice—one of the Lesters—Sr. or Jr.—had to leave the home. After a month of considering her choice, she couldn’t or wouldn’t ask her husband to move out, so her son had to go. 

Lester moved in with our family six months later, “just for three months.” Twenty-four years later, we’re still a family. 

This is a tough subject to write about: A white couple rearing an angry black teenager, alongside their two white children. A white couple believing themselves to be non-prejudiced being forced to open their eyes to the stereotypes they unknowingly held.  Asking, constantly, are we trying to show him how to be a successful good citizen, are we trying to “socialize” him, or are we trying to make him into a white kid? And is Lester sucking so much air from the room that we’re neglecting our original two children?

I pray I can convey the frustration and friction the five of us faced, the lessons and love we’ve lived through, and the blessed bond we share as a family of five.

— Jenna