Dearest Daughter: 14 years 8 months (EXACTLY)

Good evening baby girl,

Exactly 14 years and 8 months ago you were born in Waco, Tx. LOL I remember thinking my baby is going to be a Waconian. Jesus lawd noooooooooooo! It’s not a bad place but when you were born Baylor hadn’t fully taken over Waco yet. Businesses closed at 18:00 everyday. It just wasn’t the Baylor metropolitan it is today. Be proud of your hometown though. With the athletic success of my Baylor Bears, Waco is finally on the map.

Anyway, my mom tells me you were just inducted into the National Junior Honor Society. I’m so very proud of you. I always knew you’d be an intelligent child. As your auntie said when I told her, like mother like daughter. I haven’t even officially met you and I feel like we’re more alike than I ever even imagine. I know, being that you are a teenager, I’m sure you’d rather not be like your mother but you are honey. Perhaps more than either of us will ever know.

Speaking of being like me, since there are only four more months until your fifteenth birthday, have you started counting down and reminding people that your birthday is coming up yet? There’s nothing more joyful or exciting than a person’s birthday. It’s your very own holiday and everyone makes a big fuss about you and your birthday. What’s special about your birthday this year is that you’ll be 15 on the 15th in 2015 which doesn’t happen to very often. Man, you’re going to be 15! Where did time go?!?! So much time has passed and yet time seems to stand still when I think about you.

Hope you had a great day in school today. I’m sure you’re counting down the days, hours and seconds until the last bell rings on the last day of school. I was the same way when I was your age.

I love you dearly!
Mami

Dearest Daughter: 14 years 7 months

Dearest Daughter,

In five very very short months, you’ll be fifteen years old and a freshman in high school. Lawd have murcy where did the time go? It seems like yesterday I was pregnant and fussing at you to stop treating me like a soccer ball. Of course, I don’t know why I would fuss because you wouldn’t listen and if you did, it only lasted for a few minutes. I swear you were practicing for the Women’s FIFA World Cup.

Speaking of those endless soccer matches, do you like and/or play sports? If you do like sports, please tell me that you dislike the Dallas Cowgirls. I know you grew up there but it would just break my little football loving heart if you liked the Cowgirls. Yes, you’re entitled to like whatever team you like but to know you and I could possibly share the same loathing for the Cowgirls would me so very happy. *wink wink*

All jokes aside, I can’t help but wonder how many similarities we share.

For example, I absolutely love to cook. One of my dreams is to have a huge gourmet kitchen and spacious dining room so I can host dinner parties. I’m no Susie Homemaker but there is something very comforting about cooking and sharing one’s kitchen creations with other people. Plus it would be nice to pass down recipes to you and your siblings if and when they will come someday. Unfortunately, my baking expertise is more limited than Tony Romo’s ability to take the Cowgirls to another Super Bowl. yaaaaaaaaaaaaas i had to throw that one in I’m not a bad baker but I’m not a pastry chef like your Uncle Anthony and your Aunt Eva (one of my best friends from high school). My tummy is rumbling just thinking about all their wonderful pastries.

What about singing and dancing? I can’t dance well but I’ll do anyway because I love it so much. My singing voice isn’t as good as it used to be. I try though.

I’m not going to even ask you about music. I imagine you and I would differ about music just as much as my co-worker and her daughter, who is four months younger than you, do. Just because you’re my child, I already see the sideways looks you’d give me about the music I listen to because I’d give your biological grandmother the exact same look. Whatever!

Oh baby girl so many questions yet I’m not sure when if ever they will be answered. Sometimes, I have to force myself not to think about you because I cry every other time I do. I see so many teenagers with their moms and/or dads and wonder. I wonder what you’re doing at that particular moment. I wonder how our relationship will be. I wonder if we’ll ever have any sort of relationship at all.

Truth be told I’m so incredibly scared to re-enter the family because I don’t want to hurt or confuse you. I’m afraid you will hate me for not keeping you. I’m afraid whatever answers I give to your questions won’t be enough. I’ve read way too stories about first meetings. Yes there are some good ones that end or progress happily but there are others that well… Those are the ones that scare me the most. No, I don’t know what the future will hold. And no, I can’t predict it. But that doesn’t mean I’m any less afraid.

Hopefully, if you ever read these “Dearest Daughter” letters, it’ll help you understand who I am and what you mean to me.

I’ve got sunshine on a cloudy day.

When it’s cold outside I’ve got the month of May.

I guess you’d say

What can make me feel this way?

My girl (my girl, my girl)

Talkin’ ’bout my girl (my girl).

I love you always,

 

Mami

Far Away From “Home”

It’s been weighing heavy on my heart for some time now.

I try to remember what her voice and laugh sound like. I feverishly ruffle through my Photobucket and the pictures she left me before she died just to retrieve a memory I might have filed away for safe keeping. Her birthday was a few weeks ago and I’ve been irritable ever since. What gets me even more is that her niece, who a couple of my cousins called Aunt Cynthia, recently passed away which was another painful blow to my emotional heart.

Lemme explain.

I’m one of eight grandchildren. My paternal grandmother was the glue that kept the family somewhat together. I say somewhat because not all the grandchildren were close to her. My oldest brother doesn’t really “recognize” her as his grandmother. We see differently when it comes to our paternal grandparents. He had Red (our grandfather) and I had Granny. I never really knew Red even though my initials are his initials as well. Granny and her second husband, Emmitt, were my number #1 fans. They were the parents I wished my own to be. They, along with my maternal grandfather, were my everything and I dearly miss the relationship I had with them; which makes me yearn for some sort of relationship with my brothers and cousins.

I think I’ve mentioned in previous posts that I am the only grandchild who grew up in Texas. I’ve missed everything! Graduations. Births. Coming of age parties. Weddings. Funerals. EVERYTHING! Yes I could travel back and forth to California for all of those things but who has that kind of money. We ain’t the Kardashians or the Trumps that can make it rain like a damn hurricane. so did not mean for that to rhyme! If we could, I certainly wouldn’t be sitting where I am now.

I’m not complaining by any means about my current state of living because I’m grateful as all get out but I do want more. I do want to be able to mini reunions between the cousins or spend the holidays with them. It would just be nice to know my family. I just don’t know how to make that happen or even which one of the other seven grandchildren to go to first. Sigh perhaps one of them will read this.

Thanks for reading…

 

The Southern Yankee

Dearest Daughter: 14 years 6 months 6 days

So the other day you turned fourteen and a half. My gawd time has truly escaped me since September 2000. It’s crazy to think about how much time has passed and how much little time is left before you go off to college. Perhaps I shouldn’t get too far ahead of myself seeing as you’re only going to be in high school in September. You probably cannot wait for time to pass but I’m sure your parents would rather time slow down. Can’t say that I blame them tho. I’m fairly certain they thought the same thing when I was your age.

I should have started these letters a long time ago because at least then you’d know that I don’t let a day go by without thinking about you. Of course, I know there’s a strong possibility you may never read this section of my blog and that’s okay cuz ya mama is crazy and I wouldn’t want you to think any less than you already do.

It’s funny how as you get older, I tend to miss you more. I grow more and more curious about who you are. What you like to do. If you’re interested in the same hobbies I was when I was your age or that I am now. I wonder what your parents have told you about me or if anything at all.

You were three when I saw you last and the experience was so not what I wanted or hoped it would be. I thought… I hoped… To be honest, I don’t know what I thought. Seeing as your parents are my aunt and uncle, I had hoped we’d continue being one big family instead of me feeling like the birth mom and them feeling like I was a threat.

This may or may not have been the case but I assure you I never wanted to leave you. I never wanted not to be in your life. But I removed myself because I thought it was the right thing to do. I thought by allowing you to grow up in a drama free environment that everyone would be happy which is all I’ve ever wanted for you.

Please understand that in order for you to have a better life I had to make some difficult decisions. Decisions I’ve lived with for the last 14 years 6 months and 6 days. I remember the day I gave birth to you. I remember when my doctor told me you were a girl and not a boy like the ultrasound seemed to show. You little imph you had your thumb in between your legs and well yeah. Hahahaha

I remember freaking out in the hospital because you were crying and not eating.  I remember holding you when you were maybe a few months old and feeling like I was the luckiest person ever. I remember when you touched your nose then touched mine. It almost felt like you knew who I was to you. I remember whispering to you mommy loves you as you were sleeping in my arms at your parents house.

Sigh… Again, I don’t know what you know about me. If you don’t know anything else about me then know that I love you so incredibly much.

You are my sunshine my only sunshine you make me happy when skies are gray. You’ll never know dear how much I love you. Please don’t take my sunshine away.

 

I’ll love you always baby girl…

 

Mami

 

Happy 60th Birthday Mom!

Today, I just want to wish my mother a very happy and joyful milestone birthday. How I wish things were different between us. How I wish that I had enough balls to put aside my childish emotional grudges and go to her as my heart so desires. Yes I know I could easily change the situation. I’m grown enough to admit that. I’m grown enough to know that I need to let go of the past and forgive her and the rest of the family for everything said, done and not done the year my daughter was born. I know this.

But it’s hard. It’s sooooo incredibly hard to distinguish between doing what’s right and the emotions that have been with me for more than fourteen years. It’s hard to fight back the tears that burn down my cheeks when I think too much about my mother, my daughter and my mother’s family. It’s hard not hearing my mother’s voice on days like this when my heart is so full and heavy. It’s hard to distinguish between my childish heart and my adult mind.

I love my mother. Despite everything I’ve been through with my mother and her family, I love her to infinity and beyond. Boo doesn’t understand how I can still feel this way or how I can forgive them [my family] so easily. But what Boo doesn’t understand is that it hasn’t been easy to forgive. It isn’t easy to look at pictures of my mother and not cry or get angry or want to hurl objects around the room. The majority of the emotional roller coaster that is my heart stems from my family. It stems from not being able to speak my mind and be the strong outspoken LOUD woman I know myself to be today.

It. Ain’t. Easy. Yo!

The way I talk to you guys thanks for always listening btw is not how I talk to my family. I’m not The Southern Yankee, Lady Deathstrike, Angry Black Girl, or even my government name. I’m just a timid and quiet only child in a family full of adults.

Sigh… One day right?!

If you ever read this mommy, I love you! I love you so very much words cannot even describe. Yes I know we have our differences and yes we often have not seen eye to eye on almost everything. But you are my mom and my dad. You raised me by yourself and somehow made things happen when I’m sure you thought you couldn’t. Happy happy happy happy birthday! I hope this birthday and every other birthday brings you so much joy and laughter. That you are in good health and that God has blessed you beyond your years of life! ❤ your daughter

Thanks for reading…

The Southern Yankee