I am a Rock. I am an Island.

As I look at the happenings in my world these days I am understanding my dad more and more.  Strange that I should.  I’ve ALWAYS identified more with my mom than he.  But there are things that can only be reviewed by the adult mind of a parent when thinking back on ones childhood to make sense.   I remember not fully understanding my mother’s pain when my dad died.  This man who emotionally seemed to hold her down all our lives.  Made her feel bad about herself.  Dalliances with other women.  Never lending to the vision of them moving out of the “hood”.  I guess back then we saw it as being liberated.  Then I got married and lived with Earl.  It really was one thing to date him and see him often and what not.  Living with someone and calling that person your lifemate really changes things.  After only months of marrying and living together, I started to see him as an extension of me and I an extension of him.  There was a comfort-ability there I’d only achieved with blood family.  He saw the whole of me.  Not just the prettied up me that folks got to see when I came outside; but the dull, boring, possibly annoying, home body me.  And loved me anyway.  He became a better friend to me in marriage than we had been dating.   I thought on how I’d feel after a year of being married if he’d died… and my heart sunk so hard….  It’s only then I thought… well then… how about 38 years?  Even if it wasn’t all bliss all the time… the routine alone has something to say for missing a lost loved one.  Of course I only came to that realization after she too had gone… not too long after telling us she really didn’t have anything to live for.  That burnt a hole in my heart… and I’m not quite sure I’ll get to the point in my world where I’ll understand that commentary.  I hope I never do.

But back to understanding my dad.  All my life, Daddy was this… lofty ideal…  I couldn’t put a stamp on who he was or what he was.  He was there… he worked hard.  But he found so much more enjoyment outside the house.  So much so that he’d come home and I suppose be reminded of all the things he was running to the outside to get away from.  Family. Responsibility.  Rigamarole.  At least… that’s what I thought.  But living here now… the ONLY person in the whole edifice that doesn’t share a blood line with anyone else but the brand new baby… I’m understanding my father more.  Growing up, we were literally SURROUNDED by my mother’s family.  All the aunts and uncles we met and knew were my mom’s brothers and sister.  Grandma that raised us was her mom.   Only living Grandpa was her dad.  Countless cousins that surrounded us were from her side of the family – be it Grandpa Osmin’s family or Granny’s side.  I would sometimes wonder where Dad’s family was – but they were mostly all in Haiti still.  The ones that did come visit – my cousin Marlene and my uncle Gabriel – i remember with fondness.  Maybe mostly because they made an effort to come up and be a part of the family.  To get to know us in some way.  By the time his sister, my aunt Yvonne, moved up and lived with us for sometime, I was already grown – an adult so it didn’t really matter to me and I considered her presence more of an inconvenience because she got my room and I had to sleep in the living room for the length of her stay.  But while I was being raised I remember mom’s family coming to live with us for months at a time as they made their exodus to the Americas.  As a kid I thought nothing of it.  It was fun.  More family… more stuff to do and people to talk to.  But now I think about my dad…. cornered. In a house full of “family” that wasn’t his family.  His only relation was to those little rug rats running around.  No family in the city… state… country…  No one who knew him from before he was a husband or a dad or an American, even.  Just his wife’s family.  And their chatter.  And their ways.  And their togetherness, which you seem to be perpetually outside of.  None of them understand how stuff was done when he was growing up in his particular household.  His father had passed when he was just 11 and they had to make it happen w/o an adult male presence in the household.  Dad had to learn how to cook so he could help his mom.  Being the youngest and the only survivor between he and his twin, he loved his mom extra much.  Shit.  We barely felt it when his mom died and he traveled down to Haiti alone to bury her.   How alone he must’ve felt in that realm.

The lonesomeness wouldn’t be so bad if when I did reach out to family, it was well received.  But they all sit there on their high horses all talking about “YOU don’t call.  YOU don’t write. YOU don’t visit.”  I guess I’m the only one with a phone, a pen or email and a car.  Either that or all their avenues are incoming only.  These same people I mentioned above who were all about family when they lived with us… fell away when mom died.  And I’m not sure what they expected of me.  Folks get confused because I LOOK like my mom but I am not her.   We don’t do things the same.  We don’t really have the same mannerisms.  And her tolerance for BS was way higher than mine.  My tongue is sharper too.  And it was mostly silenced out of respect for HER.    But now that she’s gone — all of them can get it.  They want to NOT answer their phones when I try to invite them to the baby’s christening – then FUCK them.  They want to wait upon invite after invite after invite all to just NOT show up then criticize that I don’t try hard enough?  FUCK them.  They want to never act like their phones work going out.  FUCK THEM.  I have narrowed my circle significantly.  The only family that tries to keep the ties: Domi.  Tante Sisi.  Ollie and his mom.  Oncle Vava (and i know he doesn’t stay in touch because of that ugly BITCH wife of his). Even Ginette who is only a family member by marriage stays in touch more than supposed real blood relation.  That’s it.

The rest of the so-called family can heed this message:

The original nuclear died off with Mom and Dad.  All the nuclear i need is here.  Hubby.  Baby.

And a rock feels no pain;
And an island never cries.

-Simon & Garfunkel

*

Blah.

I have this general sense of BLAH today.  I thought I didn’t know where it was coming from.  But I do…

Just nothing nothing nothing compares to being at home with my sweet shnooklie pie.  I miss watching her grow through out the day.  While the look of happiness and excitement on her face to see me come home is something brings me indescribable joy – I’d much rather revel in the varied expressions she’d share with me through out the day.  I find myself trying to cram a days worth of loving and caring for her into the 5 final hours of the day and the first 2 hours of the morning that I get with her.  Pretty much if I’m not breathing her … it seems pretty pointless.

I’m not to the point of melting down at my desk into tears.  It’s more… annoyance.  All things are hurdles that I need to fly over to get back to her and whatever she wants to do with me and for me.  Whether it’s to pitch a fit with me for cleaning her nose or if it’s actually turning towards me to nestle in close and go to sleep – which might seem like nothing but these little moments define me now.    I really LIVE for them.  Other things are just … in the way.

I’m sure I need a few more weeks to just even out.  But I LIKE being all about my baby.  She’s pretty effin fantastic to me and I am fiendish for the experience of her.

Mommy stuff.  3 more hours till I can go to her…

Blech.

*

2 Months / The Return

My little one turned 2 months officially this week by date – 9 weeks if we’re counting specifics.  And what an amazing, life changing journey it’s been so far.  I keep having to remind myself how little time it’s been since she came into my life, but I swear that she’s always been here.  There is so much to recount… document… I don’t know where to begin but I’ll do my very best.

Reality -
The most shocking thing to me this whole time is that what they show us on television and what you actually go through being a new mom are so disparate, I understand why mom’s have the baby blues now.  I had them.  And it’s because you think you’re going to pop this little baby out of your belly and she’s going to fall into your arms and stare up into your eyes and love you immediately and unconditionally.  NOT.  TRUE.  Not even close.  Yes – there is the familiarity she/he has because they’ve been stuck in your belly for 9 months and so they only really readily recognize your voice and heartbeat – but that’s where the mush ends.  Bottom line – the little one is on survival mode – so who ever helps her/him to do that? is tops in their book.  They haven’t begun the differentiation on who is their fave or not.  And I acquiesce that this may solely be MY experience but I spent the first month and a half of this baby’s life thinking she plum doesn’t like me.  She would avoid eye contact with me at all costs (when they show you mothers breastfeeding on tv, the babies are always deadlocked into their mother’s eyes); she would cry whenever we tried to provide her basic care – changing diapers, changing clothing, bathing her – she only didn’t cry to eat – from a bottle – she’d cry when I’d give her the breast (and that’s a special kind of “rejection” I was NEVER ready for).  It took a lot of asking experienced moms and reading a lot of articles on babycenter.com to realize that I wasn’t in the minority and that NO, my baby doesn’t hate me (although I did quite revel in the look on her face after she’d cry that conveyed “why did they assign me to THIS family??? What were they thinking? I have to talk to someone about this in the morning… maybe I can still be reassigned…” until she drifted off to sleep exhausted by the thought of our incompetence).  She’s just as traumatized by all of this change as we are and was getting used to it. us. life.   So of course – now as my maternity leave comes to a close, I see glimpses of this wonderment everyone keeps talking about.  The smiling at the sight of me.  The laughing when I smile back.  The cooing when I sing to her.  The gazing deeply into my eyes as if to say “who is this person?  I think I like her…”   It makes me think that the initial was necessary.  She had to break down what our conceptions of care were… that even when she protested – we had to do for her anyway.  She had to strip away these technicolor dreams that had been weaved into our minds since we were kids and teach us to open up to this real, truly unconditional, I-would-give-up-anything-and-everything-for-you love.  When she doesn’t cry now when I change her or bathe her – or just in general when I’m holding her – i feel great.  And I’m out of this world when she smiles or nuzzles with me or when she lets out that contented sigh as she sleeps on my chest.  Would I have appreciated it as much if it came ready to serve when she was born?  Probably not.  But I do worry that if it took this long for her to get to this point – how quickly might she forget me now that I’ll be back in the workplace for the majority of the day and only get to enjoy her fully on the weekends?  I comfort myself with the thought that my mother did it with me with LESS time between her 2 jobs.  But the alternate thought creeps in – maybe I idolized her because she was completely unavailable….  I gotta marinate on that for a while longer.

Momentum -
If nothing else, this has lit a fire under my butt that I can no longer wait for someone to “bring me home” or for anyone to show up on my door step with the opportunity of a life time.  I need to get back into roll-up-my-sleeves mode and bring myself home.  Make me the first millionaire in my family… make sure that my child(ren) want for nothing in this world.  And the only REAL way of doing that is to make sure that I am working for myself in all these hours I put in under the guise of “work”.  It’s great to have a steady job with a regular paycheck and benefits.  Without all of that, there’s no way that this little one would be here today.  I needed insurance to cover ALL that surgery and even to try the IVF (although, God had a different plan on how the conception was going to go down).  So I’m not hating on my job(s) at all.  I just know and have always known that was solidifying someone ELSE’s future.  Not mine and not my family.  So I need to get on my marketing grind.  There is something about me… something about what I can do… or what I can produce (without losing any of my dignity LOL) that SOMEONE is willing to pay for.  Pay handsomely for.  My goal is to find it and exploit it.  SOON.  It may be a complete debunking of what I know to be my “talents” because whatever it is, I’ll have to be so passionate about it that I’d be willing to do it and make NO money if necessary (and sometimes, that won’t be an option).  So some serious exploration needs to begin and come to fruition soon.

Transparency -
I’ve been blogging for a long time now.  I think it’s safe to say that even with my month long (some times year long) stints of not writing on this blog – I started journaling in the 6th grade and I’ve always tried to write down what was happening in my life ever since.  When I become an amazing mogul at whatever it is that I love doing (see previous paragraph) and am a millionairess / billionairess who can afford someone to transcribe my MANY hand written accounts – I will get that done.  Digitally I’ve been blogging since 2000.  That’s 11 years of memories and stories and accounts that I swear if I didn’t write them down, would have been lost to my horrible memory.  This blog has acted as my sounding board… my dumping ground – clearing my head out and getting the images and thoughts out somewhere where I could read and review what I’m thinking… how I feel… see if it makes any real sense.  It just gave me more of an opportunity to explore myself.  Somewhere down the line I started over editing.  I think when I realized that a lot of people were reading what I write (cause I never really expected that)…  I changed what I was writing for the public.  I began to write in a code that as I read back in my own entries – I encrypted so well that I don’t know what I’m talking about.  All that? has to stop.  I need this space to do what it has always done for me – provide clarity.  Document my life experiences.  Keep me honest, sane and lucid.  I’ve been tip toeing around feelings and sensitivities that I just no longer feel the need to do.  I know that the world is now logging all these things in your digital life record and all it takes is googling someone to find out all their sordid details.  I’m not hiding this part of me.  When the progeny looks back (namely my own) they’ll be able to find a real account of their mom having been a real 26 year old having real experiences and growing into whoever she is when they come to know her.  Unlike me who wonders infinitely about who the woman who became my mother was – cause she wasn’t always my mom.  Who did she love before my dad?  What was her relationship like with her parents?  What kinds of relationships did she have with friends and enemies and the nuances therein?  Life stories that might have weighed very heavily for me as life lessons that I missed out on because all I knew was the “perfection” that was my mother.  So.  No more pussyfooting.  Back to being 100% me.  It’s the thing I know how to do best.  I owe it to myself and my family.

It’s GO time…

*

My Turn…

It was all a dream

And now? my reality…

There are no words to describe this feeling…

Thank you, Hayden and the mastery that is Greene Light Photography

*

So much…

Man… there is so much going on.  I’m trying to hang on to the edge of the world whilst it spins around.

Of course the motherhood thing takes precedence.  What an abrupt change!  It really is literally overnight that your whole world changes.  And there’s NOTHING in the 9 – 10 months of gestation that prepares you for the rigors of the actual care and maintenance of the little one.  Actually, if you play your cards right the 9 – 10 months is probably the last bits of really restful sleep / “alone” time you’ll get before it all gets started and stabilized.  But it doesn’t matter.  It’s not like you can save up sleep from those days to carry you through the next few weeks / months that it takes to get a “schedule” going.  Thank God for maternity leave.  I was talking to a woman at work who back in the day had no maternity leave and she had her baby on a Tuesday and was back to work the following Monday.  I think my brain would have exploded if I had to do that.  It’s extremely good that you get those weeks to kind of ease into it all – so if the baby kept you up all night – you can manage to sleep it off the next day and not have to worry about deadlines and things needed from the thousand points of light that normally are always asking something of you.  I have about 5 more weeks to go of this “quiet” in the rest of my life.  But this part of my life is so noisy – I’m not sure it makes a difference.

We’re moving.  E’s mom has a rental property on the top floor of her brownstone and it’s twice the space that we currently have which would give the baby a room of her own and afford us a dining room in addition to the rooms we currently have.   Originally the set up was that she would charge us a discounted rate for the next year so that we could bank about 200 – 300 dollars so that the dream / aspiration of getting our own home could be closer in reach.  But after all the renovations, she is charging us so that we’ll only be able to bank 100 bucks.  So basically paying the same thing we pay now for twice the space.  There are several pros and cons to this whole situation.  The biggest con is that we’ll be living above his mother.  I can’t say I’ve ever seen ONE situation where this ends up with the mother and daughter in law being best of friends upon parting.  I thought it could be different with us.  But as the days pass… I see all the things creeping in that are going to make us fast enemies and put E in compromising situations.   Increasingly more comments about my parenting style… her deciding she wants to care for my daughter the way she wants to and not the way I asked her to…  constant referral to the property upstairs as “hers” (I mean… it is… and we know that… but our current landlady doesn’t show up every few times a week just to remind us that we live on HER property).  We asked her if we could paint the walls to which she responded “Yeah, you can – just don’t mess up my floors.”  Okay.  So I tarped the floors really good and we started getting busy – but E got wrapped up in being picasso for the baby’s room.  So i ended up painting a whole room by myself.  On one of my breaks downstairs to check on the baby and get a little air conditioning she asked me if I thought I was “overdoing it”….  No. I don’t.  When we moved into the current apartment we just started getting things into the house we never thought to paint it with all the furniture coming in.  The walls were and have been eggshell and white.  For four years.  I didn’t want to take the chance that should we be there for longer than 1 year that I’d be living in “heaven” again with all the white walls and ceilings.  But I’m taking it as her asking me if perhaps I can see that SHE perceives me to be going overboard with the painting by her standards.  I wonder if she would have asked a tenant off the street the same question.  This is just one example of MANY quick commentaries I’ve been fielding from her in the last few days that we’ve been at the house painting and preparing for the move.  There’s only so much button-lipdedness I can exercise before I say something……

Then there’s the family dynamic.  When you boil it all the way down and take the frills off of it and cut away the fluff?  I’m the only “stranger” moving into that complex when it goes down.  EVERYONE else in that building is family by blood.  Mother, Aunt, Brothers, Cousins.  I’m the only non-blood relation.  Even my daughter is their blood.  And boy – I’m really feeling it.  I understand that my family is really no where to be found because since I committed the cardinal sin of moving to brooklyn after getting married and away from my Queens based family that I no longer deserve their time / attention / travel to be around me and my family.  And there’s only so much reaching out in their direction I can do without any get back from them.  So decidedly, my little girl will know her father’s family better.  I guess it’s always one side more than the other.  Or at least in my experience.  My brother and I definitely knew my mother’s side of the family waaaay better than my dad’s side.  And that was for whatever reasons – they hadn’t traveled up to America – they didn’t really call a lot or make efforts to visit or ask for us to visit… so  Mom’s side DID – to the point where they lived with us for varied spans of time (which was good and bad) but we knew them.  I do truly feel that I’m all alone there.  I’m the only one not raised in THEIR way.  And so if I say something off color or kilter… I’m the one who’ll get the side eye like “who’s this bitch?”  I’ve never felt like more of an island.  I think that I won’t be able to be myself.  Sing loudly.  Have company.  Play my music on a Sunday morning.  Walk heavy – all for the fear of being reprimanded for… well… being myself.  Meanwhile – everyone else will be just fine.

The family dynamic brings another dimension – PRIVACY.  I believe that for the benefit of saving a whole $100 a month and for essentially living above Mommy-Day-Care for the baby, I am giving up every shred of my personal privacy and freedom.  I think that our apartment will be a veritable Grand Central Station for their family to just run up and down as they see fit.  I may never have time for me and my nuclear family alone.   I’m afraid to come out of the bathroom after a shower (bathroom is in the main hallway 2 doors down from what would be our bedroom) and find a family member of his wandering about.  And I think that enough of that? will be enough to destroy us.  We’re fighting as it is to make sure that we work every day – and that’s been in the vacuum of privacy that is our little apartment where it’s just us.   I am scared that moving in under the bright light of his family’s observance may break us.  I don’t want it to.  I just need to put it in writing to get it out of my head.

On top of ALL of that?  I’m having so much trouble bonding with my little one.  There were umpteen roadblocks stopping us from garnering this natural, ethereal connection that was supposed to be present at birth for her and I.  I couldn’t give birth vaginally.  I didn’t get to hold her in my arms for 6 hours.  I didn’t get to properly begin breastfeeding until 10 days later.   No one would believe that real bonafide side eye action that I get from this girl.  And I know it takes time for some folks.  I’m just worried that all this added “outside” interaction will water it down and I’ll ultimately become just a character in the background for her when she retells her life story.  Not that I wanted top billing?  But as this move draws nigh, I feel less like her mom and more like a glorified nanny who only gets occasional use.  Maybe a little more alone, quiet time together and that might change.  All the mothers I know assure me that this is 100% temporary and that I won’t feel this way for long.  All the articles I read told me that I really shouldn’t have taken on this many life changes post-partum.

I suppose it will all come out in the wash sooner or later.

*

Week 39: Dreams of My Daughter

Well, that’s it… unless this little one makes a break for it this weekend, we are scheduled to meet her on Wednesday, June 29th at 10AM.  I’m super excited about it, a little scared, worried that I’ll mess something really important up and overall… OVERJOYED.

I’ve been wracked with weird dreams lately… most of them I can’t remember fully but always remembering that in them, I meet some version of this little cherub.  Sometimes good and leaves me feeling refreshed when I wake up and of course there are the dreams that leave me with a sinking feeling in my stomach that I did something drastically wrong.

I’ve been learning to be easier on myself with all that I think might have gone wrong with this pregnancy.  But at the end of the day – I took all my medicines every single day – give or take 5 or so days out of 10 months.  I tried to eat as healthily as I could and manage my cravings for things I shouldn’t have like sugar or excessive fat.  I made a concerted effort to sleep on my left side for the last 10 months to increase the oxygen and blood flow to her.  I lessened activity and started wearing flats around the 8th month so as to take it easy on myself.  I mean… I know that most mothers think this in the back of their heads but… crack whores give birth to healthy babies and don’t even try HALF AS MUCH effort.  Not that this should be the standard.   But the point being that I shouldn’t assume that everything will be wrong with this little one.  I did my very best.  And judging by how active and the measurements despite the adversities…. I didn’t do poorly.  She looks to be about 7lbs when she comes out this week – which is a good size especially considering I was battling GD and the risk was that she’d come out too big.  Her lung functionality should be in place because last week wednesday her L/S level was at 2.3 which should put her at above 2.5 when she comes out this week so, hopefully no NICU for her.  The blood flow to her brain ratio was 1.09 on Thursday which impressed the doctor – after we worried that the blood clots that were forming in the placenta might hinder some of that.  And overall… she’s been a calm (yet active), happy little someone in there.  We’ve both not gone through mood swings (except when it related to talks about my mom and grandma and how much I miss them).  Cravings were under control.  I have yet to see my feet swell from edema.  Not one mention of “bedrest” when I was sure I’d be laid up.

This? has been a GREAT pregnancy and I had wonderful professionals holding my hand down this path.  Even when they would frustrate the hell out of me with their sometimes lack of communication… they knew what they were doing and made sure I walked the right path to assure this little one’s arrival.

What a difference 2 years can make.  This time in 2009… I was recovering from my abdominal myomectomy.  What held up position in my uterus right prior were 14 useless masses of stunted growth and dreams deferred… stress and poor living.  Making it impossible to conceive and sustain.  Since them being cleared out and going through one failed round of IVF… Here I am – naturally conceived this little one… and grew her up…  Despite  the pitfalls…. Placental Previa.  Gestational Diabetes. Thrombophila.  Anemia. Clots in the Placenta. 4 Fibroids growing in there with her.   Despite all of that… she dances and twirls and poses for paparazzi when we do our ultrasound and even smiles.

THANK YOU LORD!!!  All things truly balance out in the world.  You promised me that after rain and the darkest night, I’d see the light and glory if I remained faithful.  All glory goes to you, GOD.  THANK YOU for this AMAZING gift.  I am HUMBLED and GRATEFUL!

4 days to go.

AMEN.

*

9 Months.

It’s really funny how all your life through media and family and every other source you hear that pregnancy is a 9-month event. But only when you’re pregnant do you get corrected to understand that it’s anywhere from that to a 10 1/2 month event.  42 weeks is an all the way full term baby.  And 38 weeks is the minimum for being considered a non-premie.    But all through life – you hear “9 months”.  Here I am at that point.

This entire experience has been so humbling.  I’m surprised and honored to have made it this far when there were so many things telling me that it wouldn’t happen.   But against all the odds – here I stand.  I keep saying it … it’s my way of thanking God.  All my life I’ve believed that fear and faith can’t inhabit the same body and so I would ultimately cho0se Faith and wait on the Lord.  I can’t say that He’s ever let me down.  He’s NEVER given me more than I could handle.  And if that was the case, he surrounded me with people to prop me up till I could get it together.  I have no reason to doubt or question him now.  And yet the fear of what’s to come in a few weeks has begun to envelope my mind.  The “What-Ifs” have converged to make me doubt all that I thought I knew.  Potentially by next week… my whole life will have changed in a way that I can NEVER come back from.  NO matter what happens – I will have gestated and birthed a child of my own…  I will be a Mother.  Blessed Vessel to deliver a new life into the world.  This is the change life SHOULD take.  What I’d been waiting for  - for what seems to be a life time, considering in my 16 year old life plan, this was supposed to take place when I was 22… I only missed the mark by 14 years.  What else would I be doing with my life at this point if I wasn’t pregnant?  No… this is where I should be.

So why am I so scared?  I’ll be in charge of a whole other human life.  For her care, nurturing, cleaning, loving, teaching, handling, well being, sense of self, family and purpose.  What if I screw it all up?  I wish my mom was here to ask questions.  She did SO MUCH with so little.   In my humble opinion, she did an amazing job and I’d love to pick her brain about the minutiae now – how to stop a colicky baby from crying;  what are some old school Haitian remedies for diaper rash;  how to hold the baby so that she doesn’t spit up;   what secrets are there to avoid blowouts…. (even though, I remember her telling me the story of her first blow out experience with Dominic.  She thought the poor boy exploded in his crib over night…. and the story of how she cried on the train on her way back to work because she didn’t want to leave her newborn baby son.)

So maybe even the best of moms… don’t always know what to do.  But they always end up doing what they feel is best.

I worry that she won’t like me… or not latch on, or have some kind of developmental issue – all that could have been avoided if I did something different.

But this is the one time in my life where everything I did got me to 9 months.

I emptied my head of the “What Ifs” to Earl last night and he fired back with a few of his.  As confident and as steadfast as he’s been, he listed them without hesitation.  And I looked at him and thought… as long as we’re both in this together, I guess it can’t be so bad… or so frightening that we can’t lean on each other to figure it out.  Jenny assured us that between her and Mo and my MIL and countless sisters… there’s no way for me to feel that I don’t have a support system.  Now I just have to trust what I’ve always trusted.

Peace out, Fear.

If there was no room for you in this body because Faith was already there… there’s even LESS space now that I’ve made room for my baby too.  I’m sure you’ll peek your head up again soon, but you’re never ever welcome and I will NOT make a way for you.

*

The Art of Gifting

I no longer believe that someone has to intimately know you in order to be able to feel what is important to you.  They just have to pay attention every now and again.  My philosophy has always been that PRESENCE weighs more than PRESENTS to me anyday.  It will be the memory of you by my side making me laugh or helping me along that will warm me in the days that I find it hard to grasp on to reality more than the material things you may have thought to give.  And while the gifts help a LOT – I don’t want to discount that at all – memories always have meant more to me.  All my life, I have consciously made memories.  I’ll be in a moment and think to myself… “This is one of those memories I’ll always call on to warm me when life seems cold…”  I am actively archiving my life.  This blog is a part of that.

We recently had our “last grown up night out” (also known as the baby shower) and in true Me fashion – i didn’t want the typical.  The wicker chair, the measuring of bellies, icebreaker games or the hat with the ribbons tied on.  I wanted a true to form celebration.  An all out party.  My being in this position at all in this life is a complete miracle that transcends frills and games.  I needed everyone to come out and party and have a good time.  And that’s what we did.  Folks traveled from near and far and came to pay respects to this little one on her way.  And we (they) drank and ate and some danced and chatted and made a joyful noise in her name.  I couldn’t have asked for it to be better or any other way.  At the end of the night, we went home with what we lovingly refer to as “Mount BabyMore” which is currently erected in our living room – a dazzling assemblage of …. pretty much EVERYTHING we asked for off of our registry – a lifetime worth of pink & green & brown & yellow clothing for the princess and gobs of delicious Haitian food!  If we’d ever thought for a moment that we weren’t part of a loving community, our faith was again renewed that we have a true VILLAGE around us and surrounding us that will be there for her.

Today, I got a gift that rocked me to the core.  A chapter Soror of mine sent me a note on Facebook telling me she found the perfect book for me.  Which at the time I poo-pooed… thinking it was probably another copy of “Good Night Moon” or something along those lines.  But I couldn’t fault her generosity.  She thought that much of me at all so I was grateful.  We made arrangements for her to drop the book off to me at my job.  The mail guy delivered it and I mused on the phone while I unwrapped the gift.  I hung up the phone and looked at the cover:

Ladder To The Moon

Beautiful artwork.  This definitely wasn’t Good Night Moon….

I opened the jacket and read the first few words of the book:

One cool new evening,
Suhalia asked her mama,
“What was Grandma Annie like?”
“She was like the moon,” her mother replied.
“Full, soft, and curious.
Your grandma would wrap her arms
around the whole world if she could.”
Mama gave Suhalia a hug.
“You have Grandma Annie’s hands.”
she said.

Within seconds, the uncontrollable tears and sobs rolled through me.  I raced to shut the door to my office before my team saw me in such a condition.  How did they know?  How would anyone else know how to describe my little mommy so perfectly with so few words? I stared at the cover again and regarded a full figured, light skinned, long haired, openhearted woman that reminded me so of my mom… and I cried more as I thought of reading this book to my little one… trying hard to make her know her Grandmother from afar.  I flipped through the rest of the book thinking of all the parallels.  They likened her to the moon… which now when I stare at the moon, I think of the night she died when I did the same.  And something told me she was up there.  She used to always advise me against sleeping under the moon because I’d go crazy (lunacy) – but I told her she was my moon, lighting my path in the darkest night.  And she never warned me against the moon again.  And in the book, she visits her granddaughter and takes her up to the moon.   Just like my mom visited me in my dream and swept me around Haiti one night and showed me her homeland from her perspective.

This WAS the perfect book… and it amazed me that Soror Ann didn’t have to be my best friend in the world.   She just had to pay attention a little and follow her heart.  I want to buy many of these books so that I’ll always have one to read my babies so they’ll always have a connection to their Granny Ti’Den.

Thank you, Soror Ann… Thank you.

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