You Made Me: A Birthday Shout Out to My Children

Anyone who has known me for very long, knows that I was an obnoxious parent. I was one of those mothers who would trap you in a corner, if given the opportunity, and tell you about every feeding, minor illness, burp and giggle. And it wasn't like I didn't know I was being obnoxious.

I could see the painful look on the faces of those I chose to torture. I could see those glances to one another that people think you can't see but you always do. But I honestly couldn't help myself. I had been training myself for motherhood since I was a girl.

Delainia, Gerald, Elainia

Me and Gerald circa 1981

Mother has never been a pejorative word to me. Even though I was 17 when I had my son, motherhood is a sacred role and I knew it and treated it as such even then as a young college student.

And my children, though a perpetual pain in my...uh...abdomen..have always been a source of joy and love.

It's hard to believe that they are all adults now. My son has two beautiful, spirited daughters of his own. And one of the twins is expecting a baby in April!

Alexus, Gerlad

I wouldn't be a writer today or an anything without the challenges and unequivocal love we all have for one another.

All three of my biological children have birthdays a week apart. Delainia and Delainia TODAY (October 12) and Gerald (October 17). LOVE Y'ALL

Happy Birthday Gerald, Delainia and Elainia!!!

PS I'd be remiss if I didn't mention Journey and Isaac, who have become as dear to me as if I'd given them birth too. (Though I know I didn't bear the labor pains, Teresa :)) And I thank Journey for three more beautiful grandchildren.

Ron and I are too young to have our own ready-made family reunion but we do. We fuss, we cuss, we shake our heads then envelope them all in hugs as wide and warm as our arms will allow. Then we fuss and cuss and shake our heads some more.

Isaac and Alexus

Zaria and Journey

Kareen and Ameir

Mama, I'm a Writer!

My mama always calls between 7 and 7:30 a.m. every day. On the weekends she allows me to sleep late and calls at 8 a.m. She called me a few days ago and asked if I was going to work. I told her that I would be working at home—writing. “Call me when you get finished typing on that computer,” she said.


Mama is one of the reasons why my ideal writing day begins or ends at 3 a.m. She is usually in bed by 9 a.m. Some would say that I should simply not answer the phone. My response is that she’s my mother. I am her only child. She is plagued with severe diabetes, failing kidneys and wears oxygen 24 hours a day now. She lives alone and if I don’t answer the phone when she calls I become anxious and obviously she does too. My mother is a feisty woman even in her frail state of health. I recently took her to get a walker, the kind that everyone in her senior citizen high rise apartment has. As I dropped her off at the senior citizen center, she was carrying it into the doorway (not using it for support) to show it off to her friends as in “I got one too.”

Even with two published books, my mother thinks I am a typist, who sometimes types at home. She is often afraid for my job because being an academic, I am not on campus every day. “You are not going to work today?” is how she often begins her phone calls and sounds a bit panicked.

When my children were little, I had them trained. They would often lean into my bedroom, see me at the computer, and decide to come back later when I wasn’t working. But my mother has never gotten into the swing of me being a writer and I don’t think she ever will. If I am not in an office or a factory or some profession with a time card, to her I am simply not working, not writing, just typing on the computer.

Some days I become frustrated but mostly I try to write against the clock toward 7 a.m. and give up the words after 7 a.m. to talk to Mama and check-in. Most days there is nothing urgent about the phone call. She usually gives me her blood sugar levels. “My sugar was 130 this morning. I’m going to the senior citizen center,” she’ll say. “Bye. Mommy loves you.”

"I love you too," is how I answer in return.