Hope Iyiewuare - Cleanliness is Next to Mom-liness

 

So, growing up in Houston, I was shaped by a couple things that I couldn't escape. One of them was my siblings. They're good people. My sister, Praise, is three years older than me. My younger brother, Peace, is one year younger, and Truth is two years younger. But don't let names for you. They're okay. [audience laughter] We were all really close in age and we were all really close in size. So, we were really cramped. And the second thing that shaped me, this tiny apartment, two bedrooms, the bathroom was frankly disgusting for the kids, at least. A big part of that was the routine of us cleaning that and the entire house, honestly, the entire apartment. 

 

My mom would come into our room. We heard her before we saw her, because she was singing Nigerian gospel music. [audience laughter] We knew that it was that Saturday that we were going to clean the bathroom. [audience laughter] It was a little traumatizing, the bathroom itself. There was a corner that was just completely mildewed. I think the roaches there would have rent other roaches. [audience laughter] It wasn't a good look for anybody. But thankfully, we were able to move out of that apartment. My mom and dad bought a house, thankfully moving up, but that routine continued. 

 

We had the Saturday morning gospel music, the Saturday morning cleaning things continued as usual. I'm thinking back to a time when I was about 15, and my mom had come upstairs, she was directing us where we were going to go, and she points to me, she's like, “Hope, all right, go fix up that room, sparkling clean and then go take care of this bathroom.” The one thing siblings are good for is the chore rotation. It was not my week for the bathroom. As people who have been in bathrooms before, no one likes to clean them. [audience laughter] And it was not my week, more importantly. [audience laughter] 

 

I tried to get my mom to see the injustice of making me clean it when it was Truth’s week, and she said, “No, I'm going to go to the store. When I get back, you're going to have clean this bathroom.” So, I storm off. I head to my room and I try and slam the door, but I catch it real fast because I'm raised right. [audience laughter] I just pace around my room and I'm looking at-- I need to release this anger. So, I see the wall right beside my window and I'm just-- I'm getting ready. I draw back and I smack the wall, expected to hear that same pop. 

 

But instead of hearing that pop, I feel my fist give a little. I realized that instead of cinder blocks and wallpaper, that was the walls of my old apartment. This house had drywall. And I learned about its existence the hard way. [audience laughter] I stepped back and I just look at my face, and my first thing is to go wash my hand and then go wash the bathroom, [audience laughter] out of just fear of what would happen if my mom found me at the crime scene. My second instinct was to figure out how I was going to tell her, because I didn't want her to find out and find me. I'd rather break the news to her gently. But at the same time, my thoughts were just racing. 

 

I couldn't imagine what would possess me to do this, because I'm not an angry kid. [audience laughter] Something from my high school classes just like clicked in my head, and I rushed downstairs to go catch my mom before she leaves for the store. I tap on her window and she rolls down, I'm like, “Mom, I have to tell you something. I think I'm going through puberty, [audience laughter] because I was mad that you told me to clean the bathroom when it wasn't my week [audience laughter] and I punched a hole in the wall.”  [audience laughter] 

 

I didn't see her face, because I was really, really focused on the ground. But I would just hear her say, “I will do what I can when I get back” and then she rolls out the window and peels out. I just stumbled back into the house, just a 15-year-old shell of a boy, [audience laughter] just abjectly terrified of what's going to happen when she gets back. So, I go upstairs and I finish cleaning the bathroom, I go to my room, I finish cleaning my room. And slowly, this unintentional plan starts forming in my head where I go help Peace and Truth with their room. 

 

And then, I go downstairs, I help Praise with the kitchen. I start cleaning the refrigerator, I clean the stove, I clean the counter, I clean the dining room and then I go to the living room, sit down and just open my Bible and hope that [audience laughter] my mom will find me like that. A couple hours later, she pulls up and I stop praying. I dash outside to help her with the groceries. She's noticing a couple things that are different, and she's like, “Oh, that refrigerator, who cleaned that?” And I was like, “That was me, mom.” [audience laughter] 

 

She notices the dishes and she's like, “That one's a little dirty. Was that you?” I was like, “No, that was Praise. That was Praise.” [audience laughter] She sits me down, and instead of me getting the anger and the wrath that I deserved for punching a hole in a house that still smelled like Home Depot, [audience laughter] she gives me love, which was unexpected. I think it's the thing that shaped me most outside of the routine, outside of my apartment, outside of my siblings. It's made me slow to react. It's made me think about what I do. It's made me quicker to smile than to react in anger, because things that are done in anger I can't take back so easily. 

 

So, I didn't escape the routine. I didn't escape my siblings. We did leave the apartment, but more importantly, I did dodge the whooping that could have stopped me from being 6’4”. [audience laughter] Thank you.