I LOST MY MOTHER WHEN I WAS EIGHT, AND I’VE HAD A LOT OF EXPERIENCE WRITING OBITUARIES.
I think about death a lot, and that might be totally weird. It probably has something to do with the fact that I lost my mother when I was eight, and I’ve had a lot of experience writing obituaries. I look at pictures totally differently now because I’ve had to sift through them to pick for obituaries. I had to bury two of my brothers and when I look at pictures now, they mean so much more to me because you never know how they’re going to be used.
My name is Iris Flores, and I am kind of from everywhere. I was originally born in the Cabrini–Green housing projects.Flores is my married name. People assume that I’m Latina, which I am not. A large part of my story and who I am is because I lost my mother at the age of eight. I moved a lot. I went to twelve grammar schools and three high schools, so I’m everywhere. I went to the city schools, I went to the suburban schools, I went to school in Minnesota, whoever could take me. I went to Downers Grove South High School my freshman year, Palatine High School my sophomore year, and I graduated from Senn High School. I mostly lived in the suburbs after I graduated from high school because I prefer the suburbs, but I ended up moving back to the city because I was employed by the City of Chicago.
My mother was kind of a quiet woman, and she was in excruciating pain all the time from a disease called scleroderma. I think she was heavily medicated. She didn’t talk to me a whole lot, and after she died, I moved every six months to a year. I ended up moving back and forth to Cabrini-Green a couple times. The last time I lived there, it was really bad. The hallways smelled like urine. The elevators didn’t usually work, so it was not abnormal to get out of school and have to walk up 13 flights of stairs. You couldn’t touch the railing because people would usually spit on them. It wasn’t a great place to live.
On my first day of kindergarten I had a cute little matching rain jacket, boots, and hat but by the time I got home, they were all gone. I got beat up. They took my jacket, my boots, and my hat. It wasn’t a good place by the time I went to kindergarten.
I had my first impression of religion when Father Sebastian would come to our house on Saturdays and do whatever they did. My mom was a devout Catholic, and we went to church at St. Joseph’s, but I never felt like I understood anything at church. I didn’t understand the standing, kneeling, sitting down. I didn’t understand the hymns. I never really felt like I got anything out of mass.
When I was 16, I moved in with my dad. He lived in Palatine with his new wife. He had a one-bedroom apartment and my father was very honest and very direct. I had been living with him for two weeks. My father went and bought alcohol every day and he took me with him. My father was very personable. Everyone loved him. He could’ve been the mayor of Palatine. He would go into the liquor store and there was this woman there named Lisa. I don’t know if this makes sense to you or not, but when you’re an African-American person in a predominantly white community, when you see another black person you kind of have this, “I see you” connection.
Lisa was an African-American woman. Turns out she was 14 years older than me, and we shared the same birthday. She worked at the liquor store and I started going in there just to hang out with her when I didn’t have anything to do, and we became friends within the first two weeks I lived with my dad.
I had a 10 pm curfew and one night when I got in the house, my dad and Catherine were not on the couch, and I knew something was wrong because that was not normal. My dad called me in the next room and I said, “Hey, what’s going on?” He says, “You cannot live here any longer and I’d like to know where you want to go.” I said, “Excuse me? I don’t understand.” He goes, “What are you illiterate? I said you can’t live here anymore. I don’t want the responsibility, so think of somewhere that you want to go.” I said, “Don’t worry about it, I’ll take care of it. Can I leave my things here until tomorrow?” He said, “You can stay here until tomorrow.” I said, “I’m fine. No thank you.”I left and walked over to Lisa’s house.
She lived in the same complex, and we were just hanging out. After a few minutes she says, “Wait a minute, you had a 10 pm curfew. What are you doing here?” I said, “My dad told me I couldn’t live there anymore.” She said, “Are you serious?” And I said, “Yes.” Lisa’s husband got up off the couch and put their two kids in the same bed to free a bed up, put their clothes in the combined drawers and he said, “You have a home here from now on.” I moved in with them that night, and I lived with them for about a year.
Through all that, never really having a home, and not having any real connections, I just knew that God kept me safe. I had been in so many negative places. There was a time when I moved back to the city in my junior year of high school and I got hooked up with a really bad crowd. I promise you that God had His arms around me because there was death, there was addiction, there was all sorts of things that a 16-year-old should not have been exposed to. There was no parent to supervise me. I can’t tell you how many nights I walked the streets of Chicago by myself at 2:00, 3:00, 4:00 a.m.
But then I ended up meeting some girls who took me to a typical black church. I think it was a Baptist church, and I totally freaked out because I had never had that experience before. People were having the Holy Ghost and speaking in tongues, so I was totally petrified, but I remember feeling some emotion. That was the first time that I ever felt like God could’ve actually been a thing that people could feel and connect with. I fell in love with gospel music and sang in the choir. I felt like I made my first true connection with God through music. Eventually I really felt like I developed a personal relationship with God.
There was a time when I was very involved in church. I was in the choir, the women’s group, and the prayer group. I always remembered the importance of leaving a little sprinkle of Jesus if I came into contact with someone who I knew was struggling. I have some friends that are agnostic, Buddhist, and nonbelievers. I always manage to just throw it out there because I know that it’s my responsibility as a Christian. I have to plant a little seed. Sometimes I think I might turn her off, and she might not call me again, but I know that it’s okay because it’s my duty as a Christian. I feel like God’s had my back because I’ve been somewhat faithful to what He wants me to do.
Later on, because my husband and I always worked opposite shifts, it was hard for us to go to church at the same time. I had been praying and praying and praying that God would find the right service for him to go to, and there were several different times when we tried to go at the same time, and it just never worked out. When he finally got the opportunity to go to church with me, it was the Sunday that a former gangster or mafia-type guy was the speaker, and his story was so similar to my husband’s that I knew God delayed my husband coming for that particular service.
I knew it 100% without a doubt. I think that was the first real experience he had where he felt a connectedness. Ironically, I eventually switched to work midnight shifts and a lot of Sunday mornings, I would get in from work at 6:30 in the morning. So, my husband started taking our girls to church by himself because he switched shifts and now was working in the afternoons.
So now he was the primary church guy in the family and over the years, I’ve seen God work in his life. Now he volunteers at the church, and he’s just completely come to understand God on a whole different level. He recently got baptized, accepted the Lord as his savior. Watching God work in his life has been another confirmation to me of how things happen in God’s time, not always when we want.
If nothing else, I’ve definitely learned that every challenge, every struggle, and every dark period was necessary for me to become who I am today. I always tell my kids that I’m just so thankful for all the struggle because it’s completely molded me. It’s made me who I am. I have so much to offer people because I can speak from a frame of reference. I feel like I give my kids such a strong foundation because I can pull from so many different areas and experiences, and they know that I come from a place of true knowledge.
And now as a police officer in the City of Chicago, I still encounter really, really difficult things all the time. My truth might not be anyone else’s truth. I can only give you what I think. I’m a woman of color, African-American, black, whatever. My husband is Hispanic. Growing up, I spent a large majority of my life in white neighborhoods. So as a Chicago police officer, I see all the sides. I am a firm believer that no one owes you anything. If you want to make your situation better, if you want to make your circumstances better, you have to put in the work. I also know everyone can use some help. Unfortunately, I think the problem is so complicated that it’s not one particular thing.
But the biggest problem I see in my community is broken homes. Although my father left when I was young, I still had one. My brothers were good guys, and I think it’s because they had a father and a mother who taught them values. But for some people, their mother might not know their father, they both might be on drugs, and they’re poor, no one’s making sure they’re eating balanced meals, no one’s making sure they’re going to school.
In those situations, I think you’re destined for failure. I think that it’s a lot of things that are the problem. I think that the judicial system is not where it should be. And of course, systemic racism has existed forever, and it might always exist.
I absolutely understand that there are some problems with some police officers, but being a black police officer, married to a man who is a non-white police officer, I can tell you that not all white police officers are racist. I think that there are more good cops than bad cops. Unfortunately, everyone can pull in an audience and tell a story if they tell it right. But every story that you hear might not be right, and you have to be so careful with what you listen to because the person that’s delivering the message might have a specific agenda. There are times when I find myself listening to news commentaries, and I have to turn them off because they’re so far from the truth. The average police officer doesn’t wake up and say, “I’m going to shoot a black guy or woman today.” That’s not the way it happens.
You have to see people on an individual basis. You have to know the totality of the circumstances, and when people ask me to discuss the video and footage, I refuse to get caught up in that conversation because we’ve gotten to the place in society where if you don’t feel exactly like the person you’re speaking to, they don’t want to have anything to do with you. But we don’t have to see eye to eye 100% or agree 100%. We just have to have an intelligent dialogue and understand each other’s opinions. My husband and I have different opinions all the time, and we talk about it and he’ll convince me to see his side, and I’ll convince him to see my side, and sometimes we just have to disagree and that’s okay. We don’t have to always feel the same.
I remember driving to work one morning, listening to talk radio, and I just got so sad from all the negativity I was hearing. I just cried halfway to work because it just seems like we’re in such a dark space. I told my husband, “I don’t know where all these white people came from who are protesting with the black people right now, because I’m feeling the most racial tension I’ve ever felt in my life.” Yeah. It’s such a complicated thing. Of course, with my job, I see racism, I see sexism, being who I am and where I am. Of course, we know racism exists. We can’t deny that, but it hurts my heart to see all the male and female officers who show up for work every day because they genuinely think they’re making a difference. It’s such a complicated job. It’s a super complicated job. It’s never one reason why things happen. It’s just so sad that it’s come down to race because I think it’s usually not the reason, you know?
It’s hard. It’s a really hard time, and it’s so sad because people don’t see police officers as human beings who have the same flaws as everyone else. They suffer from anxiety, depression, bipolar. They suffer from the same things. They’re not Superman and Superwoman, no matter what people think.
We try so hard, and it’s all the grace of God. I tell you, he has completely just wrapped His arms around our family. To see my husband grow to where he is today, it’s truly a beautiful thing. It’s just one more proof that God is real. He’s shown up for me time and time again because I prayed for my husband. I mean, from the day I got him, I prayed that he would get to know God on a personal level. We’ve been married 22 years now. In the last 10 years, I’ve seen unbelievable growth and connectedness.
Looking back, the biggest thing I learned from losing my mother at eight is that life is short, and we don’t have a whole lot of time to waste. With my job now, I leave my family with the mindset that I might not come back. You just don’t know. Don’t assume I’m living to 80. Don’t assume that my kids are going to bury me. Every time I deal with people, I deal with them like it might be the last time I see them. I tell all my partners at work, if anything ever happens to me, you know that I genuinely love you. You have no doubts about that. When you treat people right, you don’t have to have any regrets.
