Mom

November 2008

I went home to Tennessee to visit with my family. Specifically my cousin Boo-Bop. I needed to see him. The time is getting near His cancer is getting worse. I’m praying that he lasts until I give birth. I just need more time.

I did get to tell him that my son would be named after him. He smiled. He only had girls. He seemed excited. We talked. Really talked about me being a mom. I told him that I’m scared. I was unsure of what kind of mother I would be.

I wasn’t the mothering type. He laughed. He told me that no one truly knows what kind of parent you’ll be. You just wing it. You live, you love and you teach. He told me that there wasn’t too much to it.

I sighed.

I told him that I tell my baby every day that I love him. I know he’s in utero and probably can’t hear me, but that is what I need him to know. That I love him. I didn’t hear it growing up. He told me how my aunt, his mom, didn’t tell him until he was diagnosed with cancer. I was shocked.

I asked him did it bother him? He said no. He said that he knew she loved him but that his cancer diagnosis made her remember to tell him. He understood.

Later on that evening, I talked to grandma about our conversation and she explained that she never told her kids that she loved them either. She said that loved them, but never thought about it because she was busy being a single mom and trying to raise them. But, she said it was her fault that her kids didn’t learn it. She said many black parents didn’t tell their children that they loved them. She was one of them.

Many things scare me about being a mom, but I know that love isn’t one of them. So, I will continue to read to him and tell him that I love him each and every day. Inside and outside my womb. I need him to know that his mom means it more than he could ever have imagined. I promise to change the dynamic of this mom thing so that when he grows up – love won’t seem foreign rolling off his tongue.

This post was part of the A2Z challenge and the letter “M” is for Mom. My posts will be written as a journal style for the challenge and will be on the theme: Mothering While Black. I hope you enjoyed it.

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