Wynter, I need you to take me to the store, I need you to take me to the mall, I need you to take to the grocery store, I need you to take me to fill my water bottles and I need, I need, I need that’s my mom. Never a big thank you, never a little thank you, and hardly ever, ever, ever a “thank you, if a thank you is given it is done begrudgingly so.
I am not her favorite, I am the one she depends on to take care of this and that I am the dependable one. So, I take her to do her errands with hardly a thank you, as I picked her up at her apartment she wanted to go to the grocery store, so I had some time and as we ride to the store my mom speaks about her other kids her favorites first, well did you know that Andre and his wife Ariel, took me out to eat the other day at Applebee’s, his wife is so nice she calls me at least once a week, Ariel is taking me to get my water bottles filled next week. You know Wynter, unlike you I do not have to ask her to take my anywhere. I’m thinking now, Andre has been married three times, has ten kids by various women all over the states.
My cell phone rings, “Hello, hi mom, are you still picking me after school, yes Rachel, nothing has changed today, great mom remember, pick me at 4:30, as I am trying out for the track team”. As my mom gets out of the black Nissan maxima, in her black sweats with the white piping on the side and her white shirt, and black and white Nike tennis she says “you need to get a new car like Andre and Ariel” as she walks into the store all smug, like she is controlling all things, like she is the queen bee, the ruler over all things within her reach, like everyone has to fall all over themselves to be around her. Yeah, your favorite son Andre has no job, living off of his wife. My mom mmmm, I roll my… “MOM”, I roll my eyes slightly, thinking why can’t “MOM”, yeah baby, I will be there at 4:30pm, don’t worry. “Mom who was that talking, your grandma, Oh tell her I said hi,” my fourteen year old daughter says. Ok Rachel, see you later love you mom, love you too as a smile crosses my face. As I sit waiting in my nice 2004 car, I am happy with my vehicle, she has never complimented me on any of my vehicles. What was I thinking oh yes why can’t my mom, my mother love me, after thirty five years of waiting for her to love me, I know it is not going to happen, not unless she “really gets god in her life”, I mean like I know she is religious look at this man looking all in my car, hey sis, do you have some change, I say no, shake my head in a negative affirmation, as I am doing some heavy thinking, not to be mean to the man that’s begging for some change, but I am wondering why me?
I look in the mirror and think I look good, men have told me I am beautiful, I am successful on the job as a Office Manager, I am completing my degree this May of 2006, I am spiritual, I am a good mother, in fact better than she was. But, I get no credit, no credit I say aloud to myself. This woman needs to come on out of this store.
Finally she comes out with three bags instead of oh I just need to get some bread, meat, and toilet paper, which would consist of the one bag. As I unlock the door and gets in and start driving to her place, “well that is more than one bag and you took longer than fifteen minutes”. So Wynter, I am your mom, you guys are supposed to take care of me as I approach my elder years”. “you only act like a mother when you want something, I reply. “your brothers Andre, Logan, and Richard do their part, she conviently forgets to mention her other son George, the one she hates, the one gave away for a few months, until everyone in her family was speaking bad about her, and she took him back from an Aunt, she should have left him with her. No mention of her other two daughters, no just her beloved sons. As she gets out the car and as predicted on so many, many occasions, she does not say thank you. Later, as she converses with her friends she will not mention what I did for her, no it will be about her sons or son. But who cares, it’s too late. How do I know this, thirty five years of first hand experience. I drive off and arrive at my daughters school to wait the thirty minutes as it is four pm, her school is just about five minutes from her home.
After thirty five years of not being loved, just tolerated, I know that I can no longer be this person, I have got to take stock of myself, If I let her continue to downplay me, what’s to stop others from doing the same, and If I let her, allow her, I may as well let others. I am great, I am beautiful and the poem that I wrote and I recite it aloud as I have been doing for the past year,
“Beautiful I am, bold, strong, and vivacious, Inside reflecting beauty and grace, outside knowing I am beauty, given to me from the one above, don’t hate and I stick in (don’t hate mom) see your own beauty As I see yours, Beautiful I am, living slowly, yet focused, not taking life for granted, yet realizing and recognizing the beauty around me, and in me yes I am beautiful for other see it too, courageous I am in spite of troubles past, Beautiful I Am”. That’s what I tell myself when I feel worthless, when I let her downplay me to pause, that’s the poem I wrote, that what I recite.
This is what she has said and done through the years, “girl why would that man want you if he is so fine”, “I wish you were dead”, “Are you ever going to loose weight”, “girl if you keep dancing like that you’ll loose that weight”. When I had my daughter as a single parent and I called her from the hospital to tell her, I said ‘mom, I have a daughter, I snicker now, but at that time she just sat on the phone did not say a word, I mean nothing, and I said bye, phone call terminated. She has told me what to wear, and if I or my sisters wear something she does not like she will not speak to us, she is in competition with her own daughters.
I no longer feel the need to care at a level where she can downplay me to pause, or stop, (which is suicide) I am tired of hurting, of trying to please, of trying for acceptance, I no longer think of suicide, I am no longer at a level where I feel so worthless, so hopeless, so, so, so, seeking love, why should I let her or anyone else hurt me, why should I continue to stick my hand out, knowing it will burn, knowing that I will have to put me together again, why, why, why should I? I can’t, I am letting go. How many days will it take this time to put “me” back together how will I progress, If I continue to have to put me back together again, so many days, weeks, months, years have been lost. Stop hurting me MOM, if you can’t be nice, if you can’t love me unconditionally, please leave me alone.
As I am sitting there in front of my daughter’s school, I play my favorite song right now by Mary J. Blige on my C.D Player, a duet number fifteen featuring Raphael Saadiq, and the words, are of a couple trying to work it out and as I reflect on last Sunday, when I went driving alone, I was crying there was something about this song, whereas they did not want to let go of each other but how can they work this out.
Reflecting on me, thinking about my choices, my decisions as I need to survive, I need to be healthy before I can’t hang on anymore. I sigh, and look at this fine brother coming out of the school, oh yeah, that is Mr. Payne, I could deal with him he works as a Counselor, but he is married, so we just wave. Standing six feet, slender, nice wavy hair, cut short, yep he is fine but not for me.
Five more minutes till Rachel comes out of school, my mind thinks about my friend Monique whose brother molested her, had sex with her, and her mother knew about the issue then and knows for sure today. Her mom is always calling this “no good brother”, helping him financially, but never her daughter. This man, her brother is forty six, married, with three boys, and just beat his wife up so bad that she left one of many times. Monique is forty and she hurts from her mother’s rejection, and neglect of her mental needs so she turned out to be promiscuous, always searching for love from some man, she has to have sex, I guess with her brother sexing her early on like at nine or ten, she got used to it. Monique keeps me going sometime as she is upbeat, and I know she is covering up that pain by being outgoing, I know I been there, she is a point when she know she need to cut off conversation with this “bad brother” of hers, and start speaking up to her mom, the controller, like my mom. Poor Monique, for she did have a breakdown, and had to find her way back, but I wonder and know ‘you may not find a way back”.
My decision is made me surviving or dying – I am surviving, I am a survivor, as Destiny Child sings “I am a survivor”. As my daughter comes walking out in her school uniform of navy blue dickies pants and a white shirt, I watch how she walks, all proud and sure of herself, that my girl, I think, “hi mom, Hi Rachel, did you make the team, yes mom, I ran a mile in ten minutes. Congratulations, I am so happy for you, I told you, you can do anything, when you want to and put your mind to it. So mom can I get some McDonalds today? I laugh and say girl you are really working it.
By Carol A. Mann