James Mathis: Man On A Mission
I came into the Midnight Mission January 2017, on drugs. I mean bad. I was on drugs real bad. My mother cancer came back in uh 2018. I think it was like February. We used to live in Compton. My sister, well we were born and raised in Louisville, Kentucky. My sister said well, we got with the family, my sisters and uncles and they decided to have my sister fly my mother to Louisville, Kentucky. Cuz she couldn’t take care of herself no more.
So, I was still on drugs. But my sister called me around maybe May or June in 2018. She asked if I would go out there to help take care of mama. I was gone go out there anyway. When I went out there, I stayed away from drugs, but I was still dipping. But I was born and raised in Louisville, Kentucky, so I got nieces, nephews, cousins. And some of them was on drugs. I took care of my mother in the morning while my sister was at work. Because we weren’t gone put her in no old folks home. We said we weren’t gone do that. My sister would come home at five, and I would go out and do my own thing.
I had stopped because my mother was losing so much weight. So, I slowed down on it. 2018 around July, my sister was up early because we had got a nurse for her. My sister bought her a chair and so, we were trying to put her in the chair. All of a sudden my sister hollered, and my nickname is Baldy. She said “Baldy! Baldy! Mama aint breathin!” So I ran upstairs. So I grabbed her, and laid her across my arms and she told me that um, “Son I want you to do better by yourself.” I said “what you mean mama? I’m alright, you ain’t going nowhere.” And all of a sudden she closed her eyes, she passed. When that happened, I said to myself that I was gone come back out here to California and come out here to the Mission.