Since I was roughly ten to fifteen years older than most of my siblings, they used to think I was extremely intelligent. But there were moments with some of them when I knew I may have changed their diapers, but that they snapped up knowledge at a rate I never was capable of. Several of them are multi-talented, one of them is ambidextrous like my mother.

Now that we are all adults, when I think about “sharing” anything I think they ought to know, I sometimes keep my mouth shut. And more and more, they surprise me by revealing mysterious grown people who still look very much like the little baldheaded peanut heads or soft-braided or Afro-puffed heads that bobbed down the street beside me on the way to meet the kindergarten teacher for the first time.