By LEIGH-LATRELLE JENKINS FREELANCE WRITER
Right off the bat…So what if you didn’t get it right. Let love win. And if you have a good relationship with your mother, you probably won’t understand any of the following…
My mother has always been a very devout woman. Her faith is very important to her. She loves God and all god stuff that godly people do. I decided not to be very churchy when I was around 10 years old. Fourth grade.
When I told my mother I did not believe like she did she immediately asked me, “What in the world is wrong with you?”- more like she yelled up into the heavens, “What did I do wrong?” as if to see if the Lord himself would answer. He did not, or at least I did not hear Him.
To say the least, my lack of strong religious beliefs and practices has been a HUGE pile of rocks stacked up between my mother and me. And for years and years, neither one of us ever really made an effort to simply go around said pile and make peace.
I HATE YOU. I HATE YOU BACK.
As a child, I was not about to do what she said, and she was not about to let me not do what she said. This went on for years. All through school, all through the years after I became a young mother, and then it extended into my adult life when I was married and living in South Texas.
We hardly saw each other. Then we barely spoke. After that, we were simply estranged.
My mother and I attempted to reunite at my cousin’s wedding in 2003, but that blew up and what was a pile of rocks, turned into the Grand Canyon. It was ugly.
Then there was 1,400 miles of deafening silence.
In 2010, my oldest son was about to graduate high school and an invitation to the ceremony was sent to my mother’s house in Virginia. She came and we began to make our peace. It was still very awkward. She hugged me from the side – like hip to hip – like a coworker at a Christmas party hug. That is still stuck in my head to this day. From the side. Seven years of not talking and you wanna’ bump hips. Get the hell outta’ here. Yeah, things were still a bit tense.
I LOVE YOU. I LOVE YOU BACK
In 2017, I went home to meet my then newest grandchild (she has red hair by the way) and it was at that time when my mother and I laid it all out. I humbled myself and asked for her forgiveness. She asked me to forgive her that same day, too. Years of judgment and blame left faster than the words, “I love you,” could spill out of both our mouths.
Now on this Mother’s Day that just passed, my mom is a full-time resident in an assisted living facility. Her strength is gone. Her mind is rapidly fading. I am so glad we made our peace when we did. Yet even with all the forgiveness and heart emojis there is still a pain that lingers: There wasn’t a lot of time between the forgiveness and when the woman I remember started making her way into her own sunset.
INSERT TECHNOLOGY
I love FaceTime. I speak to my mother by phone and see her face on video. During these conversations, my mother will bring up random topics about my children, ask things like when I am getting married, and if I started a new job. I fill her in on the kids as much as I can. Sometimes she confuses me with my daughter on video chats. She tells me my hair is getting long. I tell her I will get married again next year (the answer is always next year. I am not engaged, nor will I ever be again). She asks me where I work, and I tell her that I love my new job that I just started seven years ago. Every now and then she will surprise me with a real deep question or thought. I believe it’s the things she has always wanted to say, but because she was raised in a polite society, she has kept her thoughts to herself. How I am her daughter is beyond me. Last year she surprised me and brought up the topic of my stepfather. You might see where this is gonna’ go. I had some salty feelings about that man when I was coming up but in her fragile state, I think it best not to bring him up, but here she was apologizing. I immediately told her she had nothing to apologize for, we may have had a rough journey, but at this point in my mother’s life, why would I ever let her think I hold anything against her? I told her, “Nobody even remembers any of that mess. You were a good mother. Don’t even think about it anymore.” And to date, she has not.
IN CONCLUSION
I have concluded this: I love my mother. I always have. I just did not and do not know my mother. I have lived most of my life in survival mode. Surviving all the generational curses, my choices with men and marriage, being a young mother out there trying to pay the bills – you know thinking I could outrun the ghosts. But with all that said, I love her, and I want her to go to her grave thinking she did a f#$@ing awesome job of mothering me.
And in reality, SHE DID!
I have lived a charmed life. I have seen so many things. I have loved. I have been loved. I have lost. I have walked away. I have been dumped on my ass. I have adventured. I have been rich. I am poor. I have added value to the world by giving birth to three strong humans. One of them is redheaded so that has to count extra.
My mother did not raise a weak girl. She raised a strong, red-headed cat. Why do I call myself a cat? This is why: I always manage to land on my feet.
Most everything about me is unconventional. I may look like a suburban, middle-class, republican housewife, but don’t come at me, bro! Love always wins.
I am that woman who never owned a single accomplishment in her life. I have done things. Created things. Birthed babies. Traveled. Come up with great ideas. Resolved problems. And never took the credit for any of it. I am the woman with a heart that loves so hard and beats so full of joy it could knock a person out.
I am the same as you, Big Mom.
