My Favorite Crackhead

The title is ugly. But in many ways this person I tops my list of crack addicted persons I have known. And for some odd reason I have known more than my share.

Cleza is an admitted crack addict. She is also the mother of two adopted children (yes the state actually allowed this woman to adopt), she's a heterosexual so it's all right.

Cleza has problems maintaining housing. Something about paying rent when crack calls is problematic for her. Cleza used to have a pretty responsible job, she used to be head of her church auxillary. She used to have a husband. She used to have electricity and she even used to have a car.

Cleza is the product of the most dysfunctional family in the world. The father hates and I do mean hates all of his children. The mother is an emotional wreck. The daughters are on crack or crazy and the sons are in jail, on crack, but reproduce like rabbits.

Cleza's children are the products of one her brother's fruitfulness. She got the children because her brother and the mother of the children were criminal crackheads. opps I mean addicts.

Yet despite all of this Cleza is a funny woman. Who else could say I do crack just a lil bit. I am going to ease up on the crack. Who else at 40 plus could get excited at the prospect of having a 24 year old who had been in prison for 10 years.

This chick, I mean woman is a piece of work.

She is too complex to describe, yet in her own community, in her own circle, everybody knows her, and in their own way they love her. Her church family such as it is, won't loan her money, won't turn on her lights, but they love her. They love the children and they give them a sense of humanity because despite all that they are and are not they are in the family of God.

It is the love of these church members, (who ain't always nice) that reminds me that God truly has his eye on the sparrow.

Today Cleza is going to get her lights back on and I'm glad about that.