For Mommy, My Mom

You are more than enough. I wish you knew that more truly. I have grown now to see your personal pains, bruises you thought you'd covered neatly. I see the cries for help draped across your windows. I see the weight you bare on your shoulders. I wish to ease you, but I know my words cannot reach you. Mother I wish I could heal you. I salute your strength and courage. I respect your sense of faith. I just wish you could see that I see your pain. Strong Black Woman is a term coined to the mothers of suffering. It's not a title anyone should be forced to bare. For to be strong one assumes the position of pressure and endurance and resilience in struggle and war and battle and you- mother, I wish you never had to know that. I reflect on things that passed in our lives as mother and daughter and I know for certain that it didn't pass through you to me without your pain.

I love you for your resilience but most of all mother, I love you for your smile. I love your for infectious energy. I love you for your willingness to free yourself. I love you for your humor and your outstanding outspoken courage. I love you for the way you love the world. I love you for your eyes, mother. I love your eyes that twinkle a little inside when you look at me. I love you for your perception, for seeing the warmth in my children proudly through everything. I love you for your hope, in the face of your own pains. I love you for your honesty and triumph over adversity.

Mother I love you and as you are on this earth. I wish you more prosperity and relief. I wish you peace. As a mother myself, I understand the difficulty. The sincere need of a mother lion to protect her cubs. I understand the blind faith for security and I wish you continuous peace. As you lay in the hospital now, diagnosed with pneumonia and covid19, in fear and panic, I sit hear penning this letter for you to read at a time when all is healed. I do not write this letter for you to read now. I am not foreseeing a goodbye from the covid19 virus. I am not welcoming a farewell or resting onward. I write this letter for when you have healed. I write this letter for when this world has healed. I write this letter for when you are vaccinated and free.

Mother please keep your head up beyond the lyrics of Tupac songs. Mami you know you cool, too cool in fact. I love to watch you live like that. Mother please relieve yourself of the pains you bury inside, and relax your ailing back from the burdens you carried for over forty years. Mother please before any curtain dares close, I beg you to release yourself completely. I never saw you free. I never saw you embraced in the sunshine, lifted from broken possessions that weigh at your ankles. I never saw you fearless, though I know that you were. I only know your bravery through old photos and reflections of older siblings. Mother I miss the you, that I never knew. Maybe the blessing of these two little girls will teach you what it has taught me- to value the strength of my womanhood. I hope that our lives inspire you mommy. I hope that you read this letter and live again with us.

With love to survive Covid19,

Your daughter + her twin daughters