My soul remembers all, so very well. My heart still loves you and sheds tears for your strength and all your sacrificing sewed into my hope and dreams.
My Grammar School days witnessed you defining mommy-hood at its strongest. Though crippled by the extreme nausea of migraines, you walked by my side the mile long path to the doors of my Christian elementary education. Once I was safe inside, you somehow trudged on to the doors of your workplace. As a bank teller, you then served costumers’ needs. Routinely, as the migraine overcame your stamina, you excused yourself for a brief moment but never called it a day. You stayed working so I could stay dreaming. Mommy, to this day I love you.
As a preteen, again you stood pace beside me. It was Labor Day weekend, and I was chosen to perform on the last float in Chicago’s Riverview Parade. My head was choreographing how my heart could spin, jump and dance on a tiny patch of ice on top a finale float. Your Momma love was figuring out how to both allow me to fulfill my dream and protect my life in the process. It was Chicago in the Sixties, and this night was substantially rumored to have the parade become the target of a racial riot. The police were out in force but choosing not to back down and abandon the event. You wouldn’t take my dream from me, yet you couldn’t let me go it alone. A camouflaged car, with horsepower, pulled my float. You, my Momma, jogged every step of that miles long parade beside my float, ready to cover me in protection if needed. Momma, to this day I love you.
As a teenager, I was away in Canada, once more skating my dream. Back home in Chicago, a deranged person discovered where I lived and tried to find me. Once knowing I was closely protected where I was, you agreed to try and lure my stalker into the open. My dreams and my safety, not yours, was all that mattered to you. Mom, to this day I love you.
As a mommy myself, when my newborn son laid in a Neonatal Intensive Care Unit, closer to death than life, you, once more, were the stand tall strength by my side and the knee who best knew how to bend and pray. Mother, to this day I love you.
Seventeen years ago, God called you home to Heaven; and many more times have I needed you. My eyes do, so often, cry but you left me your Mother’s love and strength to see beyond my tears and keep going. I pale in your shadow, but your light still always penetrates the darkness. A million times I’ve reached for your hand. Though I can’t hold yours, I forever feel you holding mine. Mother, to this day I love you and I miss you.
Uplifted in a Broken Down World 