The first foster home I was ever in was abusive. I was five years old. My parents had just died in a car accident, a very gory, bloody, brutal, car accident to be exact. That was how my love/hate relationship with color began, simple in all terms.
Joanne Olsen was the name of the wife. David Olsen was the name of the husband. He was okay, she, on the complete other hand, was horrendous. The tricks she played on my mind were very colorful. In a literal sense, she gave me a pack of crayons with eighty crayons in it. I loved it. I drew so many pictures. Each one she ripped up and threw into a fire, each crayon she made me eat, one by one.
Once she took a red marker from I don’t know where, and used a knife to chop into pieces, she sprayed this on my hands, it stained my new dress, and it looked so much like blood – I knew it would never come out. I cried for hours after that.
The first time Joanne Olsen physically hurt me was when I was seven years old, she beat me with wooden cane until my back bled. I still have scars.
The very first ray of happiness in my young life was when I met Anna. Anna was seventeen. She was cool. She could draw and sing and I wanted to be just like her. She was the next door neighbor. I met her when I was crying on the curb one day. Joanne had hurt me badly that day. I remember she came up to me, she had a pencil in her hand. A yellow pencil. She took a piece of paper and drew me.
I was amazed.
“Who are you,” I’d asked.
“I’m Anna,” she’d told me, “I live next door.”
From that day on whenever Joanne hurt me I’d go next door – to Anna’s house. We’d take yellow pencils and draw. She drew me. She always drew me. Every tear, every smile, every freckle, and every imperfection she made beautiful with her yellow pencil.
The next year Anna went off to college. I missed her terribly, but she called every week. We’d discuss every little thing, and then we’d sit in silence and draw with our yellow pencils.
I was ten when Anna died. I wasn’t living with Joanne and David anymore, but her parents still found me. They told me the horrible, terrible news that Anna had died in a car accident and handed me an envelope. It was large and with trembling fingers I opened it. Inside were pictures of me. Every one of was entitled Janie and it showed every tear, every smile, every frown, every laugh I’d ever had. But the last thing to flop out of the envelope was a bright yellow pencil.
Years later I’ve finally finished using the yellow pencil. I drew Anna. Alive. Every breath, every smile, every twitch, I drew. I hung it on my wall and now I no longer think of Anna dead, I think of her alive. Alive and laughing and singing and drawing. But I always imagine her drawing something other than me.