Hope Iyiewuare
Appearances
The Moth
The Moth Radio Hour: Saving Graces
We heard her before we saw her, because she was singing Nigerian gospel music. And we knew that it was that Saturday that we were going to clean the bathroom. It was a little traumatizing. The bathroom itself, there was a corner that was just completely mildewed. I think the roaches there would rent to other roaches. It wasn't a good look for anybody.
The Moth
The Moth Radio Hour: Saving Graces
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.
The Moth
The Moth Radio Hour: Saving Graces
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 gonna go, and she points to me and she's like, Hope, alright, go fix up that room, sparkling, sparkling clean, and then go take care of this bathroom. And the one thing siblings are good for is the chore rotation. It was not my week for the bathroom.
The Moth
The Moth Radio Hour: Saving Graces
And I mean, as people who have been in bathrooms before, no one likes to clean them. And it was not my week, more importantly. I tried to get my mom to see the injustice of making me clean it when it was Truth Week, and she said, no, I'm going to go to the store. When I get back, you're going to help clean this bathroom. So I storm off. I head to my room.
The Moth
The Moth Radio Hour: Saving Graces
I try to slam the door, but I catch it real fast because I'm raised right. And I just, like, 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. I expected to hear that same pop. But instead of hearing that pop, I feel my fist give a little.
The Moth
The Moth Radio Hour: Saving Graces
And 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. And I step back, and I just look at my fist. My first instinct is to go wash my hand and then go wash the bathroom out of just fear of what would happen if my mom found me at the crime scene.
The Moth
The Moth Radio Hour: Saving Graces
My second instinct was to figure out how I was going to tell her because I didn't want her to find me, find out and then find me. break the noose 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.
The Moth
The Moth Radio Hour: Saving Graces
And 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 had to tell you something. I think I'm going through puberty. Because I was mad that you told me to clean the bathroom when it wasn't my week. And I punched a hole in the wall.
The Moth
The Moth Radio Hour: Saving Graces
And I didn't see her face because I was really, really focused on the ground. But I just hear her say, I will do what you want when I get back. And then she rolls out the window and peels out. And I just stumble back into the house, just a 15-year-old shell of a boy, just abjectly terrified of what's going to happen when she gets back.
The Moth
The Moth Radio Hour: Saving Graces
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.
The Moth
The Moth Radio Hour: Saving Graces
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 and sit down and just open my Bible and hope that my mom will find me like that. A couple of hours later, she pulls up, and I stop praying.
The Moth
The Moth Radio Hour: Saving Graces
I dash outside to help her with the groceries, and 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. And 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.
The Moth
The Moth Radio Hour: Saving Graces
And 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, she gives me love, which was unexpected. And I think... It's the thing that shapes 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.
The Moth
The Moth Radio Hour: Saving Graces
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". Thank you.
The Moth
The Moth Radio Hour: Saving Graces
So growing up in Houston, I was shaped by a couple things that I couldn't escape. One of them was my siblings. And 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 the names fool you. They're OK.
The Moth
The Moth Radio Hour: Saving Graces
And we're all really close in age and we're 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.