Blog Post 9

Eli G

1/11/15                             Blog Post 9

Chapter 13 focused on Yvonne Bartlett, Elaine’s mother. Yvonne has had it very hard. Only one of her seven children has managed to avoid the drug trade, imprisonment, murder, or an AIDS/HIV contraction. She was a single mother and at this point a single grandmother. Despite her being too hard on the her grandchildren in my opinion, she is very welcoming to her neighbors and people in need. She has offered homeless men outside her housing project to spend a couple nights in the apartment. She shelters boys and girls who have problems at home too. Friends and acquaintances pop by in need of a loan or advice, and Yvonne prepares an extra plate of food and says, “Come on in, baby”. She could decode any confusing welfare statement, letters from the government, or monthly bills. Yvonne always dressed to make a strong impression. It shows her resilience in character: “She might live in a housing project overrun with drugs and crime, but she was not going to let her surroundings keep her down...she might be poor, but she had plenty of pride”. She wanted to make it clear that any stereotypes did not apply to her. However, even Yvonne became weak from the life she was living, looking after so many people when she needed support herself. In a matter of months two of her sons died, Ronald to AIDS and Frank to murder. The loss of her sons weakened her durability. She developed diabetes and her kidneys started to fail. Within months she weighed half as much as she used to. Gangrene had spread across her big toe resulting in amputation of part of her foot. All of a sudden Yvonne is depicted as small and frail which is so contrary to the role she had played in others’ lives.

 It’s sad to watch Yvonne’s health decline. She has really been the rock for the Bartlett family and the entire housing project. As the reader my stomach turns knowing that her health is failing and that the inevitable is coming, so I can’t even imagine what the Bartletts were feeling as they watched their one role model deteriorate. As her health started to fail her Yvonne wasn’t able to get over to the Bedford Hills Prison to visit Elaine as often, and Elaine notes how hard that it for her.