Jenkins’s life changed again in Grade 10, when he was cut from the basketball team at his high school in Brampton. His sister Kim, then in her early 20s, became her siblings’ main caregiver. Jenkins’s once-strict mother descended into grief and depression. Three weeks later, she died suddenly from a pulmonary embolism. That same year, Miss Blossom had surgery to repair a torn tendon in her leg. Then, when Jenkins was in his early teens, his parents divorced. He found comfort with his grandmother, staying with Miss Blossom on weekends and spending the entire summer with her when he was off school. Jenkins saw Brampton as terminally uncool, and quickly figured out the bus route back to Driftwood. First, his parents moved the family to Brampton, where they thought they could have a better life. In Jenkins’s tween years, the life he knew started to crumble. He practised for hours every day, and soon his own trophies and medals joined the NBA posters that were plastered all over his room. When he first started playing, he had yet to hit his growth spurt and was considerably shorter than most of the other players. So instead of school, he focused his ambition on basketball. But he didn’t want quiet academic success-he wanted to be a star. He was the type of kid who didn’t study but still got As, particularly in math and science. Jenkins was smart, determined and charismatic. Then he’d sell the clothes, often turning a profit. He’d wear the outfits, take a birthday photo and post it on social media. Every July, on his birthday, he’d go on a shopping spree, decking himself out in Burberry, True Religion or whatever else was in style. As a kid, he always figured out a way to get money, whether it was selling stuff he owned or hawking chocolate door-to-door. When they were in front of the teller, he did all the talking himself, emptying a shoebox full of cash. When he was nine, he told Miss Blossom he wanted to open a bank account. He was going to have lots of money, and he was going to be noticed. Miss Blossom worked as a chef at an Italian restaurant in Etobicoke, and she’d come home late every night to cook curry goat and fried chicken for whoever was staying at her house.įrom childhood, Jenkins had big plans for his life. One summer, she had 12 people in her three-bedroom house, jostling together in love and chaos. When her grandchildren’s friends got kicked out of their homes, she welcomed them into hers. She regularly took in relatives and neighbours who were down on their luck. She lived across the street from Jenkins’s parents, and he spent much of his childhood at her house. Everyone-even her family-called her Miss Blossom. Jenkins’s maternal grandmother was a neighbourhood fixture. Jenkins, aged 11, and his sister Kim listen to her iPod during a trip to Jamaica in 2009 At Christmas, their parents spoiled the kids with toys, and as Jenkins grew older, his family would give him cash and Air Jordans-usually the only two things he wanted. He and Maya were only a year apart, and they shared a room for most of their childhood, huddling together to binge episodes of Hannah Montana. He lived with his parents and his sisters, Kim and Maya. The neighbourhood at Jane and Finch is dense, diverse and vibrant, and Jenkins spent his childhood going to community barbecues, running with his friends through low-slung townhouses, learning to play basketball on the community court and listening to the thrum of more than 100 languages. For Dimarjio Jenkins, Driftwood was always home.
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