Chicken Soup for the African American Woman's Soul (10 page)

I've been like mothers of old, crying and praying during two emergency room visits. We've had mommy-getting-called-to-school days; they discovered his stubbornness as well. We've had our first real report card. Every time I call a friend or my mom in a panic or just to share, I am tickled when I hear the words, “It's called being a mother.” Along the way, we've even added a teenager to our divinely appointed family in the form of my nephew. So what do you know—I have two of those four boys I envisioned. Lately, despite losing the physical means to carry a child, my womb's butterfly has been flapping again. While it takes a village to raise a child, I've learned that there are children waiting for the village to come get them; then we raise each other.

E. Claudette Freeman

The Wisdom of Motherhood

M
y doctors told me I would never walk again.
My mother told me I would. I believed my mother.

Wilma Rudolph

We all know it. Whether we decide to articulate it or not—it is one of life's basic truths: Motherhood is sometimes a dirty, rotten, kick-you-in-the-pants, don't-even-think-about-a-reward, thankless job! Yet most of us do it to the best of our abilities (heck, it's not like we can get out of it at this point anyway) and pray that we'll survive the journey—and allow our child to survive it as well.

As the mother of a seventeen-year-old daughter who occasionally thinks the sun rises and sets on her tail, there have been far too many times when I wanted to quote to her my own mother's frequent words to me during my youth. Even though it's been thirty or so years, the threat still reverberates in my head like it was yesterday—“Girl, I brought you into this world . . . and I'll take you out!”

Yep, that whole motherhood thing is sometimes overrated. But, thank God, children grow and mature. And one day, and I must admit it's a really good, even better than chocolate, day, they see us differently. They get their great epiphany. A point comes when they no longer believe we are here to ensure their lives are in a constant state of misery. But they realize that maybe, just maybe, there is a possibility that mothers know a thing or two.

Like most mothers, I'll never forget the most significant of my daughter's brushes with lucidity. It's one of those “it doesn't happen often, so I'll never forget it” moments. She'd been sitting at the computer for a few hours, working on an essay for a college application, when she invited me into the room. As is our usual practice, she asked me to proofread what she had written. I was eager to do so, as usual, but I did notice that somehow this time was different. She had a curious expression on her face—softer, more gentle. And although I couldn't put my finger on when she asked, I knew immediately after I completed the reading. Here's what she wrote. And, oh yeah, check out that “with all of her wisdom” line. It's my favorite!

I have always loved the game of basketball. I used to
eat, breathe and LIVE the game. I'd go to school, go to
practice, do my homework and then go to bed. My goal
was to play basketball at a Division I college on an athletic
scholarship—and no one would stop me.

During my junior year, I really took off. I was the top
guard in my area, a key member of the All-Conference
team, All-State Honorable Mention and the captain of
my high school team.

I worked hard the entire summer leading into my senior
year. Everyone knew that this was
my
year—and I
was ready. Sports reporters predicted I would lead my
team to a league championship—and further. And as
the team's captain and only four-year varsity starter, I
was eager to deliver.

The season started well. I was averaging fifteen points
per game and frustrating my opponents to no end. And
then came the unimaginable. During the first three minutes
of the fourth game of my senior year, I took the
hardest fall I have ever taken. I came down on my knee
and tore a ligament—every athlete's worst nightmare.

It was surreal. As I lay screaming on the hardwood
floor, I saw all my dreams for attending college on a
Division I basketball scholarship spiral down the drain.

I don't know if the tears and blood-curdling shrieks were
more about what I knew was a serious injury—or the
most cruel pain I have ever felt travel through my body
at any one time. But it didn't matter anyway. What I did
know was that my life's dream was over. My injury
would require major surgery, and my high school basketball
career was over. Not in a million years could I
even begin to describe the kind of despair that comes
along with the decimation of a dream so real, so longstanding,
so wanted and so close.

What was I supposed to do? The scholarship offers
disappeared and that was the only real plan I had for
college. All my hopes and dreams were gone, and I had
nothing to fall back upon—or so I thought.

But thank God for mothers. All along,
I
had counted
on basketball for my future. But my mother, with all of
her wisdom, had prepared an alternative plan—and I
hadn't even known it. For while I was spending so much
time over the years practicing my jump shot and ball
handling skills, she had encouraged—no demanded—that
I spend an equal amount of time on academics. She had
always disregarded my school's eligibility requirements
and instituted her own: honors courses, National Honor
Society membership, volunteer efforts, four years of high
school Spanish, and a minimum 3.5 grade point average.

Without fulfilling these, there would be no basketball.

So when I blew my knee, she was there to wipe my
tears and remind me that everyone has options. I could
still achieve my goal of becoming an orthodontist—on
an academic scholarship. All I needed was a high ACT
score. She also reminded me that over the years, I had
always performed better under pressure and responded
positively to adversity. All we needed, she said, was a
steady plan to rehabilitate my knee, and I would be back
on the hard court in no time. After quick consideration,
I realized it was a dual plan I could live with. Now let
me see . . . I could still play basketball and possibly earn
an academic scholarship. It would be hard, but the idea
made me smile! My response: “I'm a beast. Sure, why
not!”

So I decided to focus even more on academics and
study for the exam. At that moment I finally realized the
almighty power of academics. I suppose Oprah would
call it my “Aha Moment.”

So I did it. I buckled down and studied. The result
was an ACT score that placed me in the top 10 percent
of everyone who took it! It was the best result of the
worst experience of my life—and for that I am both
proud and grateful.

I'm sure tears were streaming from my eyes when I looked up and saw my daughter watching me for my reaction. Her essay left me speechless. I simply stood up, walked over, hugged her and whispered, “Thank you— and you're welcome.”

She smiled and silently hugged me back in what I call one of those special mother-daughter moments. I knew this was her way of thanking me for all those nights of forcing her to do homework, study for tests, and exercise her mind as well as her body. Yes, as a mother, “with all of my wisdom,” I've realized that thank-yous are few and far between, but when they do come, they last a lifetime.

Lolita Hendrix and Briana Hendrix

One Day, You'll Understand

A
mother is not a person to lean on but a person
to make leaning unnecessary.

Dorothy C. Fisher

I lay in the hospital bed with my newborn daughter, Jordan, snuggled against my chest. I watched her as she slept, a tiny angel swathed in blankets. Dark locks peeked beneath her sunshine yellow and baby blue knit cap. Her sweet face wore a look of perfect peace. Then her eyelids fluttered and slowly opened. Her big, brown eyes, my eyes, stared up at me. We drank each other in, mother and daughter, sealing our connection. In a rush, I heard my mom's voice, and the voice of my grandmother and her mama, and all the mothers before them saying, “You'll understand when you have kids.”

And suddenly I did.

I've heard that saying all of my life, delivered after I forgot to let my mother know I made it somewhere safely or pouted at some rule. It was a cliché, received with an eye roll when mom wasn't watching and relegated to the dusty basement in my mind. But at that moment, gazing at my daughter's face bursting with trust and contentment, I knew just what it meant. Comprehension hit me like a blaring alarm that jars you awake, like a blast of icy air that snaps you to attention. My husband and I are responsible for what happens to this little girl. She needs me.

In my first weeks as a mother, I journeyed from joy to fear and back every day. I delighted in rocking her and singing lullabies passed down through my family like balms. I marveled at how her head fit into the palm of my hand, at how her mouth stretched into a perfect
O
when she yawned. I memorized her features, her plump cheeks, long fingers, pink heart of a mouth, and the way she felt in my arms. But between the highs, there were the worries:

Was she getting enough sleep? Was she eating enough?

Would I be a good mom? Then Jordan got sick. Night after night she woke with a wail that pierced my soul. A doctor revealed that she had gastroesophageal reflux, a condition causing frequent and painful spitting up. My stomach twisted into a tangle.

I looked into the mirror one morning and saw my mother. She stood there, beautiful and scared. At eighteen, a child herself, holding baby me. I saw her at twenty-three, screaming when she saw a bloody gash on my forehead caused by my taking a foolish dare to jump down concrete steps. I pictured her at thirty, entering my flu-ridden bedroom with a flowered tray of saltine crackers and ginger ale and soft hands that stroked my face with love. She gazed into my eyes and said softly, “You'll understand when you have kids.” And now I did; I felt it right down to my feet.

Nursing an ailing child sobered and terrified me. As stomach acid brought up by Jordan's illness gnawed at the lining of her throat, caused her so much pain that she winced with every suck of formula, and finally she could only be fed when she slept, I rocked her and sang hymns.

Those spirituals I learned in church, “Leaning on the Everlasting Arms,” “I Surrender All,” and “Precious Lord,” were my lifeline. I sang them and felt linked to a legacy of women before me. I saw my mom raising her rich soprano to heaven in the gospel choir at Pittsburgh's Brown Chapel AME, heard my grandmother singing, “His Eye Is on the Sparrow” as she dusted or baked. If I just keep singing, rocking and loving, I thought, somehow we'll make it through this trial. And we did.

Jordan is two years old now and free from the worst of that demon. But I know there are others waiting. I am a sentinel, ready to duke it out and wrestle them away. But in quiet moments, I exult in everyday treasures, like when she runs across the room, arms outstretched waiting to be scooped into my embrace. Or when she says a new word. Or when I do something she thinks is hysterical and she bursts into fits of giggles, her eyes sparkling and her infectious laugh bubbling deep in her tummy and magically gushing out, making me laugh and starting her giggling all over again. There are still times when fear catches my breath. Like when she loses her balance and falls or when she's climbing and seems about to teeter.

“You'll understand when you have kids,” I hear my mom and grandma saying in unison.

“I'm telling you,” I say back in a soulful way that makes their eyes dance.

Last year, my grandmother died, just four days after Jordan's first birthday. As I mourned and watched my mother, aunts and uncles rally around each other, I considered the circle of life. As loved ones are born, so they pass. One day, Jordan will lose me.

While I'm here, it's my job to teach her to stand on her own, to guide her to make the best choices she can. To instill lessons and values that endure, to fill her with confidence, faith and generosity. To prepare her for a time when she may have children of her own.

“You'll understand when you have kids,” I'll say one day and see her teenaged eyes look at me with that “oh, Mom” expression. Standing beside me, I'll feel the presence of a long line of black women who know what it means to be a mother—and showed me the way.

Kelly Starling Lyons