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.

  I get a lot of content for my social media channels from my hiking adventures as well as from my year-round visits to the rivers that flow through Uvalde County, Texas.

  In November, I posted a reel on social media of me walking through the water at the 19-Mile Crossing near Camp Wood, wearing a bathing suit covered by a puffy winter jacket and coordinating hat and scarf. The reel was about 10 seconds long and included a voiceover of a woman saying, “So I know I said I was busy, but I lied. I was doing this instead”. No big deal.

  I personally thought the reel was a cheeky response to my friends back home who were posting about how cold it was in Virginia. They were freezing and there I was still wearing a bathing suit and dipping my feet in the water as the sun went down at one of my favorite spots on the Nueces River.

  I anticipated a jealous comment or two from my cousins up north about the warmer weather down here, as well as a few thumbs up from my regular likers, but nothing could have prepared me for the barrage of comments to come…

  My cutesy reel started with a few hundred views – which turned into a few thousand views – which turned into a hundred thousand views – which at the time of this publication had turned into 852,517 views. Of course, I was pleasantly surprised by the number of people that looked at my reel, but it was the number and intensity of the direct messages that followed that reeeeeeellly surprised me.

  I received three marriage proposals, two offers to be my sugar daddy, one slut-shaming message, and I lost count of how many requests I received for additional pictures of my feet!

  Let’s address this these one by one:

  Marriage Proposals:  Those who know me well know that if a man asks me to marry him, I will say yes. I almost got a tattoo last month that would have read, “Say No”, on my left hand, ring finger as a reminder to decline any future proposals, but I changed my mind and got a tattoo of the moon on my wrist instead (See photos on my Instagram feed @leighlatrelle). Men see me and just want to be with me forever (Go ahead and laugh. I’m laughing too). Don’t get me wrong, I appreciate the men that saw a ten-second-long video of me and decided that I was “the one”, but to all three of you, I must respectfully decline.

  Sugar Daddy: God bless the dudes that wanted to take care of me with all their sugar for the rest of my sweet life. Double bless the one that didn’t want any sugar included in the arrangement. Although the thought of not paying my own bills ever again is very enticing, I must say that without being properly introduced, I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t want any of our sugar to mix and must respectfully decline your offers, as well.

  Slut-Shaming: I had ONE solitary man – out of 850k – that thought I was a whore for posting the reel. I am not a true feminist, but I definitely lean in when it comes to a man trying to shame me for anything. Okay big boy, what was it about the reel that made you uncomfortable? What made you want to condemn me with your words? You were so angry. Why? Do we need to worry that you might drive to Texas, strip off your shirt, put on a Viking hat, and storm the Uvalde County Courthouse in protest against my reel? Was it because my legs were showing? Even the Pentecostals left me alone on this one, bro. Save your anger. I really do hope you are not as hard on your daughters as you were on me – you know that complete stranger out there in the metaverse.

  Feet: Now these messages were my most favorite of all the messages I received. I have read dozens of memes on Facebook about selling pictures of your feet to raise money during these tough economic times and laughed hysterically, but I never knew how real this whole foot fetish thing was until I was inundated with one request after the other for pictures of my feet. WHAT?!?!?!?  I still can’t believe so many people wanted pictures of my feet. Mind you, my feet are cute, but I don’t think I’ll be getting any calls from agents to do magazine ads any time soon. I like bikers, beards, and tattoos, so I’m not going to judge anyone for what they like, but I do a good job of controlling my impulses when it comes asking strangers on the internet to send me pictures of their motorcycles. En serio? Mis pies? Ya!

  I know the title of my story made you think the whole thing was going to be about feet, but it’s really about the consequences of putting yourself out there. When you post something on social media – it’s out there – like out there for the whole world to see – as well as for the whole wide world to push back with their opinions. Most people were kind. Some people were funny. And one dude that was just mean af. No matter how pure my original intent, there will always be an army of souls out there wanting to put me in my place and cast judgement. When I posted that short video clip, I never expected anyone to judge me or for that matter like me so much as to propose marriage!  I don’t think I was ready for all of it and I learned a valuable lesson: Cover your damn feet!

   Like I always say, do not follow me for relationship advice, but if you want to see the reel I talk about in this story, find me on social media @leighlatrelle. You can email comments to me at leighlatrelle@gmail.com.

  For someone who has lived a gypsy-style, mostly geographically-distanced-from-my-blood-relatives kind of life, being around my family for Christmas was such a big change for me and unexpectedly

calming.

  I had a hard year, so I was looking for comfort that only those with the same blood as you can offer. My fiancé and I split after a five-year run. It was a surprise ending followed by an unexpected attempt to reunite – then it got messy. Like a level of messy a Spanish-language telenovela could not achieve.  Insert mind-blown emoji. Like I think I will be coughing up volcanic ash for at least another year and six months. Ugly. Feo. Feo.

  After nearly 10 years without Christmas trees, presents, and just a huge deal being made over the of the birth of our dear Lord and Savior, I figured I was due some over-the-top hoop-la and accepted an invitation from my twin third cousin (twice removed) to visit her in Fort Worth for the holiday.

  I had forgotten what it was like to be connected to someone and not have to mentally and physically make one. My cousin is my blood, our grandmothers were sisters. We spent holidays and summers together in Virginia. We are connected as family and as redheads. We favor each other. The shape of our face is similar. We both have red hair. We both possess that hard to describe “thing” redheads have. In her presence I feel loved for just being that thick legged kid in a homemade dress running barefoot through the yard, and not the half-insecure adult that has such shit luck with men and loves to hike.

  From the very moment I arrived we talked like old friends. I was feeling the thinness of my heart start to fatten up. I shared with her my year and the first thing she said was something to the effect of, “yeah, but that Hanchey blood in you is thick and you will be just fine.” And then she came out swinging and put the Jesus wisdom on me with, “God knew you would never pull the trigger on your relationship because you were too busy being in love with him, so he allowed something traumatic and so heartbreaking to happen to ensure that you would never go back.” STOP RIGHT THERE. Accepting that truckload of truth took a minute. A choke. A tear. A sigh. I knew the truth came out of her mouth, landed in my ear and slid slowly down to my heart. Let your family tell you the truth. Let them grab onto your heart and shake it around. Now stand up and walk away from the table, big girl. (The shock of her truth telling still tastes like metal in my mouth right now and it’s been weeks already.)

  At this point in the story my spirit is starting to fatten in the middle. Puffing up.

  My twin cousin hosted a huge family dinner on Christmas Eve, and the food spread was quite literally enough for 100 people and not the 30 that were actually in attendance. Sometime during the evening, I looked around the room as everyone was playing games and laughing loudly and suddenly got flashbacks of being small. In my mind, I could see my grandfather standing at the end of the table with his head bowed (of course my eyes were wiiiiiiide open looking at everyone else) humbly praying and asking the Lord to bless all this food – including my Auntie Betty’s sweet potato casserole with crunchy, brown-sugared pecans on the top – Amen and Amen. It’s the sweet stillness of that memory that got me. I felt like I should be taking a picture of all these people smiling so I would never forget it. And I did.

  On Christmas Day I opened presents that had my name on them. Someone wrapped a gift and put it under the tree just for me. It’s the little things, yall. For Real. I took a picture of that, too. As Christmas fell on a Sunday, we also went to church that day.  I am happy to report the building did not burn down.  All is good. I enjoyed the music and of course if you’re not a real churchy person, the sermon must always appear to have been written just for you. A little conviction? Possibly. That night we loaded up and headed off to a friend’s house for another homemade meal. There I did my usual thing. I sat on the peripheral. I did not participate in the games or in much of the conversation. I just watched the joyous movement around me. I listened to how these people loved each other with their words, but their desire to interact on such a deeply personal level scared me a little.

  I went to sleep a little thicker. Like a puffer fish.

  Now it’s the day after Christmas. My car is all packed and I am standing in the driveway hugging everyone goodbye. I could feel those tears welling up in my eyes but managed to push through all the “I love yous” and the “don’t wait so long to come backs”.  I put my seatbelt on and drove away ugly crying and thick af.

  Closing out this not so thin story, I’m finally on the road and alone with just my thoughts. Even though I was so thoroughly fed physically, spiritually, and emotionally during my visit, a lot of questions kept coming into my head: How did I get so far away? Where did the blood go? Why did my soul feel so thin? My answer: I think because I live so free and love so hard, I can’t always see things like regular, non-redheaded, dreamers can. I think maybe I am just that woman – the one that’s not like all the rest of them.

 Thank you for loving me thin or thick, my blood.

As always, do not follow me for relationship advice, but if you want to see pictures of all my adventures including my Christmas in Fort Worth, find me on social media.

  I cannot remember a time that I was afraid of guns or gun violence.

  I grew up in Virginia in the 70s, so we were left alone as latchkey kids to think and feel – and do – pretty much whatever we wanted as children. On top of that, I  was raised by a very Republican, radically Pentecostal, single mother who worked all the time and literally dragged me to church at least at least 3 times a week.

  We had guns in our house – or at least my brother did, and I had no fear that I would be hurt, or I would hurt anyone else with those weapons. They were in the closet or under my brother’s bed, and of course leaning against the wall behind his bedroom door. Almost all my neighborhood friends had guns in their houses. And most of my family members had a gun or two in their homes, too.

  I was not afraid of guns.

  I am still not afraid of guns. I am not afraid of holding one, shooting one, hunting with one, or thinking that I might need one to protect myself from some random intruder with one, but for the first time in my life I am keenly aware of what a gun can do to a fourth grader.

  When I think of fourth grade, I think of my first year in public school. I think of my teacher, Mrs. Woodby, and how she smoked those long Virginia Slims in the classroom and read to us everyday from the King James. I went home from school every day smelling like I had been out all night at the bar with a good story about Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego ruminating in my head.

  What I don’t remember about fourth grade was being killed. Shot in the face. Dead.

Now here we are six months after the Robb Elementary Shooting in Uvalde, Texas. An assault style gun was used to kill 19 children, two teachers, and injured 15 others.

  These guns that mowed down these precious souls were purchased legally. The person who bought them was young, troubled, not living with his parents, had dropped out of school, angry, and was known by his handle, “school shooter” on social media. This young person did not buy the guns to hunt or protect his home  – he bought them to kill humans. And now we know it was mostly little humans.

  So ask me now how I feel about guns…

  I feel like our state government is failing us by not passing laws that would restrict and control the sale of – not outlaw – assault weapons. Raise the age to purchase to 21 and institute red flag laws. If you sell guns, why not institute your own red flag policies. I am sure you can have a lawyer figure that out for you.

  I feel like our school district, our school police, our city police, our city government, our county sheriffs department, some state law enforcement just absolutely failed this community and none of them, not individually or collectively, has the spine enough to stand up, take responsibility for their personal and professional failures and fucking resign. Go sell cars, but leave the protection of humans to the brave. Yall are not brave. If we need parking meter attendants, we will be sure to call.

  I feel like we all feel sad, tortured even for the lives that were lost, but we certainly do not feel bad enough for anyone to lose their jobs because they choked on duty. We have a lot of “forgive him” or “he tried” or “there’s still more information out there that will exonerate mijo” attitudes out there that are insulating these law enforcement officers from feeling badly about not protecting or serving little kids.

  I feel like everyone, including me, have made huge, life changing mistakes along the way in this life, and the consequences are real, swift, and even harsh. Did these local law enforcement officers even get a letter in their HR file? The audacity that exists amongst our local law enforcement personnel is at a level I believe a good dose of humility and self-awareness would help cure. I want the cops in the Robb Elementary hallway to not have guns anymore.

  This is how I feel about guns.

LeighLatrelle@gmail.com