iamartofmothering

 

In the beginning…

Once upon a time there was a little black girl with naturally curly hair. When she was seven, she got all her natural curls shaved off until she had no hair at all. Her mother put a cap on her head because she was… now, bald. But, now, when she wore the cap, she didn’t look like a little girl, she looked like a little boy. Since she thought her mother didn’t think she was pretty anyway, she reasoned, “Hmph…looking like a little boy didn’t really matter… much.”

The little girl’s favorite time was sitting on the stairs at the end of a long porch extending from a screened front door. She sat to look out across and down Morris Street to say “Good afternoon” to the neighbors, or “Hi” to  the other boys and girls she knew.  The doors to that house on Morris Street had a strange placement. There were two of them, but when you came up the stairs on to the porch, the first door to pass wasn’t the entrance to the small living room where everybody gathered, it was the entrance to the master bedroom — the biggest bedroom, where her mother and father slept. The front door (after you passed the second door) opened up to the living room, which was a passage to another little room, which was a bedroom too. This little room was for her mother’s sisters, and sometimes for their children and their children’s children. There weren’t so many relatives — aunts and cousins —  in all, she might have remembered thirteen, but that number filled up that little house, and from time to time they all squeezed in, or spilled out into that very small living room.

Well, the little girl’s house didn’t need to be a big house, it just needed to be practical and historical.

Why did she get her hair all cut off?

Her mother said she had a scalp disease that was contagious. The doctor said, “Yes, shave it all off and put a cap on her.” So her mother did.

This little girl was the second child and the only girl of four brothers. Her father wasn’t tall, neither was her mother. Her tallest brother was 5 feet 7 inches,  and she, eventually grew  to 5 feet even. Needless to say, she was a small little girl, barely visible or audible in a room filled with a family of mostly women who were her mother’s relatives sponsored by her father. In West Virginia, in those days, a working-class, black, extended family shared the labor that helped provide for the children’s needs. Roles were unspoken, but defined. Men or women weren’t conflicted — it was the future they saw.

Her father was the head of the family, her mother was the matriarch, her aunts were subordinate to her mother (even though her mother was the youngest of them) because they lived in her home. Duty was the spoke in a wheel that her father turned from breakfast in the morning to dinner in the evening. The family was defined by the parameters of a segregated society — there were places, lines uncrossed, and manners that held their family machine together. This was her family and her history.

She gleaned her mother’s appearance as the standard of femininity, matching the “white girl” beauty — without the blue eyes that her own mother so loved (judging from the favoritism she showed when the little girl grew up, got married, and had a light skinned  baby girl). Yet, the little girl remained content with the “when convenient” attention her mother gave in between her share-the-labor struggle to care for her family and children on her way to work and back home. In the interim, her aunts groomed her to make sure she was tidy and clean. She didn’t become a tomboy either, although it would have seemed fitting for her since she was the only girl amongst four boys.

Her mother was the lighter-skinned of all her sisters, and in the little girl’s mirror — behind her own, a reflection of her mother masked her own real color, which she perceived darker than the fact. She viewed herself as her color contrasting her mother’s pure vanilla-looking skin. This illusion magnified against her bald head — looking like a little boy with a cap on her head.  And since she was the only other female in her immediate family, and even though her hair would eventually grow just as thick-strand, long, below her  shoulders (one-half the length of her mother’s),  she still could see her appearance was closer to her father’s looking African than her mother’s looking Native American (which she wasn’t). Sometimes she felt that when her mother saw her — she only saw her color — her black skin,  so she wasn’t convinced that her mother could easily love her.

But, what the little girl loved was reading and helping.

In the middle…

They said, her oldest brother made the long trek 200 miles from Bluefield, West Virginia to Charleston, West Virginia, with tales to tell generations of his nieces, nephews, and grandchildren. The adults told the older grandchildren that he didn’t like college — he wanted to make some money rather than study books on a campus. And for this sacrifice, his sister went to college. It just so happened that this was her favorite brother. They bonded from their family rank: he being the oldest brother and she being the oldest sister, as well as from their relationship of sacrifice and success.

He, himself, told the tale of working for the Dupont plant and being blown to the top of a 100 foot tall industrial smoke stack!

“It was a miracle –Divine justice — that I survived.”

He, himself, recollected a conversation he had with his father –her father, after he walked from college and was employed at the same plant where their father worked: making good money!”

“Money to burn in my pocket,” he said..

He recalled, “There was one month, my father was short on the mortgage, so he asked me to help him out.”

As the story unfolded, she watched her brother’s expressions turn colors of despair. She could see he remembered haughtiness and self conceit when he answered his father ‘s pleas with a straightforward and flippant,

“No.”

In retrospect, she saw her brother’s face ashamed, lowering his head to a bad memory. She didn’t remember if he said her father commented regarding his denial. But she remembers him saying…

“He was angry.”

She reflected that her father must have been hurt by his oldest son (her favorite brother) more in that moment than all of the pain he experienced working in that awful chemical environment, which was the cause of her father’s death.

“After that, I had my accident…then I gave my father the money.”

At this age, she understood humility and self awareness, and in that moment she appreciated the diffidence she observed.

For her love, respect, and solace extended to her brother, she offered her brother a gentle listening ear, which allowed him to experience his own history with self actualization and regret, without judgement and condemnaton. Suddenly, a surge of innate and  natural engagement — action and reaction,  described the moment. In that setting, sitting beneath her brother, not physically but psychologically, she was comfortable. She was  as an assistant little sister albeit simple support of his need to share for some release and some relief. She could be there for that. It seemed like her affinity.

Her brother, the stories, the lessons ignited her conscience — predicated her future. In some ways, her adult life was her brother’s doing.  His actions, were her reactions and her cause. She vowed excellence in her efforts, and she promised not to fail or dishonor the gift her brother gave. She discovered her love for learning, and her passion for self perfection. So, she, the sister he gave up school for, went to college and she got her first postsecondary degree in business then she got her Master’s degree in Social Work.

Beginnings and endings…

She became a really good administrative assistant. She typed 120 wpm  (back when there were metal typing keys and ribbons with ink on a wheel). Her short hand (back when “Gregg’s” shorthand was standard) was more than 70 wpm — so, her adventures began.

She got a job at a small Black college in Virginia. Then she was swept away off to Ohio by probably the most handsome athlete on campus. In Cincinnati, she uncompromisingly married him. Subdued and committed, his prowess was her devotion, and she succumbed to the words, which to her were his offer of “security”: words, different from her father’s, but much like home and her father.  Looking back, she knew her life as nomadic — not spending time in one place too long; only visiting, and being in places for reasons or occasions. The reason she was in Ohio was because of her husband, and three children later (when she became a mother), and when he was an aching memory, she was reeled by her father back to West Virginia.  When her father found her deserted, impoverished, and desolate in Ohio, her father said,

“You’re coming home with me.”

So, she and her children went.

As a provider, she transcended poverty upwards toward stability. Her personal secretarial skills, took her to Indianapolis then her father’s death took her back to Charleston. Then her mother’s insanity made her stay. A decision to study for her Masters, took her to Philadelphia where she had a brief (painful) encounter with her ex-husband who wanted custody of his children, and the court gave him. Though she was separated from her children, the situation secured her graduate degree. However, within those two years, her two daughters left their father’s home and came to live with their mother. Then she was back home — again, in West Virginia where eventually, her son joined her.

She was with her family in survival mode.

In Charleston, the place of her father’s memory, and her mother’s needs, she believed she would settle. She thought the last child would graduate from high school. Maybe all three of them would go to college. She didn’t really push them. Her thoughts were that they would develop to become human beings in the best mode of the race. She trained character. Yet, she was off again. A new husband — a white man, wooed her to upstate New York — away from West Virginia and away from her middle and youngest — young adults now who remained in West Virginia.  But, in New York, they would inevitably return to one another.

From beginning to end, she was the nuclei — the constant that secured those she was entrusted. She was stability for her immediate offspring (her younger brothers plus their families), and she embodied love for all of them who were compelled to follow her wherever she landed. In trials and in triumphs, she was supportive — inspiring, motivating.

In time an interlude presented itself. This occasion, which clarified her beginnings and her ends, which gave reason to her bald head when her mother didn’t seem to care whether she looked like a boy, took her back to Charleston… again. It was a climax that revealed her self to herself as  primarily human, as a deep and caring individual, and as a conductor for self-worth.

Since the time of her second marriage, her trips to West Virginia were visits. She would no longer consider residence there, as her home was now secure with her husband and all of those important family members (except her mother and two brothers plus family) who had moved where she was. Prompted by news of her mother’s deteriorating health, she invited her youngest daughter to travel with her to West Virginia. They went.

Her sister-in-law, a black eyed, black haired, yellow girl was always her mother’s substitute care taker. Since she moved to New York, the pecking order for her mother’s care was her first cousin, her sister-in-law (the younger of two brothers remaining in Charleston), and … the next door neighbor, an old friend of the family’s. Now, she arrived, and after her sister-in-law updated her about her mother’s routine, she immediately attended to her mother’s needs. She remembered the conversation as her mother, a small woman, sat quietly now in the small room off the living room,  on the side of her bed intentionally glancing up at her daughter to answer her questions,  then looking down at her knees, slowly…methodically massaging them — almost stroking the pain (she felt her mother must have been feeling). When she asked,

“Mom, do you need anything?”

“No, Deena, did everything already. She takes good care every day to make sure I have what I need.” Her mother solemnly, but coldly remarked.

In that moment her mother’s tone reminded her of the distance she experienced and that she knew from childhood. Her mother was a practical nurse — the first black woman in segregated West Virginia to achieve that stature. She was proud of her mother, but she also felt like a disturbance to her mother. For, it seemed that she never ever glanced at her with eyes of pure motherly love. She only saw a cold, nurse-like caring as if she was her patient. Equity made her accept it was the way she treated all of her children and grandchildren when she had to administer any modicum of caring towards them. Yet, she couldn’t help thinking — I’m a grown woman, adult, with children and achievements of my own. She questioned herself,

“Shouldn’t that preclude the past…shouldn’t we be close from mutual experience? I am  her only daughter, can’t she love me now?”

The questions remained unresolved. Now, she and her mother faced-off, so close to one another. Her youngest daughter stood then finally sat on the bed beside her grandmother. She, took a stool and pulled it to the knees of her mother. She wanted recognition. Pleading, she raised a hand toward the limb, and said,

“Let me massage your knees, Mama. Do they hurt.”

Her mother’s tone remained, stoic yet firm, she replied, “No, I can do it.”

Time stopped and silenced. Then that time passed.

It was a determining moment for her character.  Feelings, reactions, interactions are defining times for humanity. In that moment, with her mother, even though she had already become that person who knew the value of moments — she spent her life up to that time with people helping them discover themselves. in those kinds of moments — critical moments when choices had to be made and directions had to be taken — but this  time — her mother with her daughter confirmed, she was right — mother was wrong. She believed, “She cannot love me differently, but I can love, differently.”

Finally...

At gatherings of her only children and their children’s children, if you travel from yesterday to today and listen to them on Eid (holidays), brief visits, or informal talks, you will hear her name mentioned in special ways. Each of them having a unique recall (or no memory at all) of her — their own individual pasts  (or helping others to remember or know) with her.  What is common is the love she exuded, the affirmation she supported, and the advice she practiced — elevated to more than just a little black girl who got her head shaved.

That little bald black girl became a woman, a mother, and a Muslima in livelihood, trust, and love …by character and by instruction, she evolved the Art of Mothering.