Sky Anderson
17 Year old Sky Anderson is also known as “Harmony” for her beautiful soft singing voice. She was born in Miami, Florida to her mother, Lynette Anderson, and father, Jason Mathews. Lynette moved to Seattle, Washington in 1998, to the West Seattle neighborhood, after she and Jason broke up and he left her with a baby and no money. Her mother was working long hours at grocery stores and a second job as a waiter to support her daughter with no help. Her dad died when she was younger. After a while, she moved to Skyway, closer to the Rainier Beach area of Seattle with her cousin, Alia Anderson, and her 2 sons to be closer to her job. As a child, Sky would always watch her mother singing in the kitchen when she was cooking. As Sky grew up, she would always try to copy her and sing what her mother sung.
Her worst memory as a kid was when her mother was evicted from their home and, coming home from the park, seeing their stuff packed up and on the curb. She hated to watch her mother struggle so much as a kid, but she remembered her mom turning to her and saying,” Don’t worry. Let Mommy do the worrying. I love you too much to let this be the breaking point of your mother. ” They moved in with her grandmother, a couple blocks away from Rainier Beach High School, looking over the beautiful lake, and the sounds of sirens every night. She saw the type of struggles that her mother had to go through. But she never opened her mouth to ask her mother how were they going to do this or that. Her mother taught her not to question adults about adult situations. Be the child and stay in a child’s place. Her mother was always her role model, and she wanted to be just like her because she was so strong and never let anything stop her. “She was always the type to get stabbed and stich her own cut,” said Sky. Her favorite memory as a kid was when her mother bought her a Brandy doll for Christmas. Brandy was her favorite singer. She couldn’t buy her everything that she wanted but she bought her what she could. She attended Lake Ridge Elementary as a kid for all 5 years, then went to Aki Kurose for her middle school years. Now she is doing online classes to finish her high school diploma.
Her biggest mistake as a kid was not always appreciating the struggles and the hard work her mother went through to get her what she needed, and always being worried about what she didn’t have. In her household, her mother made all the decisions. She was the person who did all the discipline when she did get in trouble, but Sky was mostly the type of child to stay out of the way, so she rarely got into trouble. But she remembers arguing with her mother and her mother spanking her because she was talking bad in a loud tone of voice. They argued about the teachers a lot in her middle school years. Her mother just didn’t want her to mess up in school so she could be successful. Sky appreciated it because it shaped her in the direction of life that she’s in now. Her mother dropped out of school at a young age so she could take care of her ill parent. She wanted to go back, but that’s when she found out she was pregnant she so couldn’t. Instead, she got her G.E.D. Her father finished school on time, but was always rude and disrespectful, fighting and getting kicked out of school.
Now she lives in the Rainier Beach community, still with her grandmother who was diagnosed with cancer in 2012, so Sky and her mother are taking care of her. She is employed at a McDonalds in Burien and doing online classes, looking forward to graduating high school and going on to college. She is hoping to get accepted to the University of Washington. She hasn’t decided what she wants to major in, but she is sure that whatever it is, she wants to make her mother and grandmother proud. Growing up and moving from place to place has been a big roller coater ride for her. From being evicted and moving and fatherless, she has learned a lot from her mother. She has learned that you should never give up on anything that can change you or your life. Bad things that happen are a test that was there to see if it would break you. Living with her mother taught her to be an independent young lady who will try her best to achieve anything she can to make sure that her mother is proud.
