My late foster mom, who took care of countless people, also cared for her own mentality & physically handicapped daughter & two grandsons (spectrums mentally physically, had all senses, limited cognitive abilities)

I learned yesterday grandson Kenneth died from the coronavirus.

It’s challenging to explain my relationship with Kenneth without a novel but I’ll do my best to keep it precise as I can.

I’ve explained growing up as a foster kid on here plenty of times. Part of that experience of being in this home on the south side of Chicago my foster mom owned was the scores of people who’d stay a night, a week, maybe a year or two in a rotating basis in our home.

The converted two flat and a basement had no room operated in a traditional sense. It was rooms and people slept in them with sheets to cover their area or door if applicable.

I never knew my foster mother’s late husband. He died the year I was born. She had two children, one of which died after complications from a combat war wound before I was born. Her surviving daughter was Betty Jean.

Betty Jean was mentally and physically handicapped, but her condition didn’t show up in earnest until adulthood. She married twice and had two children, Kenneth the oldest from her first marriage, Keith from her second.

Eventually when her condition exhibited she moved in with my foster mother and her husband. Kenneth and Keith exhibited the same condition as their mother but in childhood.

Their conditions made them speak slower, process certain things slower (not common sense though), and walk requiring holding the wall at times. They all had senses of humor but could not support themselves on their own.

Growing up, I looked at Jean like an aunt. She was a sweet and docile woman with a ton of wisdom. Her phrase “keep living” any time I made fun older people is still to this day one of the greatest pieces of wisdom I keep in my toolbox.

About those rooms separated by sheets. Kenneth, a post college aged adult when I was a kid, had the room next to mine, his a converted living room, mine a converted dining room on the second floor.

Kenneth exposed me to two things ground up:
Music and fitness.

Kenneth was obsessed with music and his record player. He had a record collection and his catalog was official always staying on top of new music.

All of these acts’ music I heard for the first time b/c of Kenneth: Stevie Wonder, Michael Jackson, Prince, The Ohio Players, Parliament, Marvin Gaye, The Time, LL Cool J, Run DMC

Breakin, Beat Street, Krishna Groove, Yo MTV Raps, all of that Kenneth was in his room bumping all of that.

Kenneth would let my twin sister Alexandria and I take over his record player and those were our first memories playing music.

Kenneth used to come on the porch and blast his boom box to the neighborhood. He’d also put his speakers into the window and blast his music. Nobody questioned it because he was playing some of the greatest music off all time.

Kenneth loved Capn Crunch and could annihilate a box in one sitting. Kenneth when he was really in a zone listening to music would do that thing Stevie Wonder does with his head rocking from side to side eyes to back of his head almost in a trance.

My foster mother would pass away when I was 14 and afterward I lost contact with Kenneth, Keith, and Jean. Later I would learn people my foster mother entrusted to handle her affairs would abandon them and lost 7 properties she owned and those three to conditions of squalor.

Their court appointed lawyer told me they were filthy, piss soaked, malnourished and eating dog food. Thank God they were rescued from such a horrid condition.

Kenneth and Keith would wind up in an assisted living facility and Jean in a nursing home. This I learned yesterday. Their caseworker sent me a message on Facebook. I just so happened to graduated high school with her.

Their former guardian, my foster mother, used to be my legal guardian, and I guess that is how I was found. It always bugged me through the years what happened to them. To learn a woman to touched my life and others would have her legacy and family discarded was heartbreaking.

I spoke eventually to their public appointed lawyer. He told me Kenneth was kind, left and impression on him and everyone in the office. “He loved music”

And he lost it. It comforted me to know that someone cared about Kenneth and really knew him knew him.

His brother Keith also contracted the coronavirus and is fighting for his life and they won’t tell him Kenneth is dead. They won’t tell Jean because her nursing home is on lockdown due to a rash of positive cases ravaging the facility and frankly the news would kill her.

The only thing that could not wiped from my foster mom’s legacy was leaving Kenneth, Keith, & Jean burial plots next to hers, her husband, son, & her husband’s sisters. She showed those plots to us all the time with their names etched on them w/ names & birth dates on as kids

I asked the lawyer and he confirmed there would be a proper burial with a curbside funeral Thursday at the cemetery of no more than 10 people. The only people I imagine who will be there will be state employees from the case.

RIP Kenneth Kimbrough. Praying for Keith Kimbrough.

Bumping Flashlight LOUD AF and replaying the second half of the song over and over like Kenneth used to do when I was shorty in his honor
#EverybodysGotALittleLightUnderTheSun

I have so many childhood memories flooding me right now