Cheryl was the child of a heroin-addicted prostitute. She remembers many long nights of waiting for her mother to come home, and fears about who her mother would bring home with her. Some nights her mother didn’t come home at all. Cheryl was placed at HCYR when her mother was sent to prison. Then Cheryl, age 10, received a call that her mother had died from AIDS in prison. Cheryl returned from the funeral with a tiny box of belongings.

Cheryl’s Mama’s Dress
Vocal: Douglas Balentine
Lyrics by Carol Priour, Music by Douglas Balentine
Cheryl’s Mama’s christening dress,
crisp, white, dainty, never got sewn,
never covered the tiny arms
that reached and reached
for a mother too far away to touch.

Cheryl’s Mama’s graduation dress
never left the rack at the store.
Dreams of organdy and pink ribbon roses
just melted away in the fire
of the first shot of heroin.

Cheryl’s Mama’s wedding dress
never got ordered.
Embroidery, satin beads, all lost in the flood
when that second shot had broken
some sort of dam in Cheryl’s Mama.

 Cheryl’s Mama’s party dress,
shiny blue with shoes to match
never got bought.
Even the blue in the sky was barely visible
through the clouds in her eyes.

Cheryl combed her hair, and with her aunt
she went to the jail where her Mama died.
That dealer had delivered more
than simply heroin, and when the warden
took Cheryl aside, she saw her Mama’s trunk
without a single dress for Cheryl to wear.

Cheryl’s Mama’s funeral dress,
pale, cotton, blue.
It made her seem peaceful and mild
like the heart of that tiny child
that had reached and reached
for a mother too far away to touch.