Worthiness / Creating the Pull

A conversation held between me and the hubby the other day:

Him: The baby is going to LOVE you.
Me: You think so??
Him: HECK Yeah!
Me:  *screwface*  I mean… what makes you say that?
Him: Well…  did you love YOUR mom?
Me:  Are you kidding?  LOVE her?  I worshipped her.  She was my idol.  There was no woman prettier, smarter, more amazing or kinder in the world.  She was everything.
Him: *”i told you” so look on his face* – well. There you have it.

The verbal conversation stopped there, but in my mind, I responded – but… all that my mom did… she fully deserved that love and admiration from me, my brother and anyone else who crossed her path.  The selflessness.  The sacrifices.  They were all apparant to me all my life.  What will I have done – outside of the surgeries and procedures to GET me pregnant (which might seem … well… self serving from a given angle) that will match that kind of angel-like behaviour that will merit admiration and love from this little one flipping about inside?

When I was an Amway Distributor, one of the philosophies they taught us was a concept called “Creating the Pull”.  They were grooming us all to be leaders, but what’s leading if you have no followers?  What’s worse – if you have proclaimed “followers” but no one wants to be where YOU, in particular, are.  So the concept of creating a pull – put enough distance between you and your “followers” in the achievement and attainment of dreams that makes it look like you are further ahead and wish they could hang with you but they’ve got x-amt of work to get done before they can achieve your success.  Accomplishing this by sending postcards from beautiful places that you’ve managed to be able to go as a result of your hard work and wishing they could be there… but they haven’t reached the success level required for them to earn that particular trip.  Or cars or clothes or free time… all the things they dangled before you as rewards for your work.  I’d gotten many a post card from tropical places “wishing I was there”.  And it made me want to work harder so that I could participate.  I wanted to belong to THAT group.

In a lot of ways and without any kind of effort on her part, my mom “created a pull”.  She didn’t tell me too much about herself.  She just carried herself with poise, grace, determination, pride and love.  She was all the things a grown woman should be in my mind and in my eyes and without dangling it in front of me… she made me want to be as much like her as I could possibly be.  There were some things about myself that I’d never be able to shrug off that were quintessentially ME – the social butterfly, the commensurate performer, the boy-crazy little girl…  Those were just parts of me that I had to know were uniquely mine and not like her at all.  But everything else?  I wanted to emulate her.  The wit.  The style.  The mystery.  The cool-under-pressure.  Personality wise, she was a female James Bond (to me).  And of course – while I learned more and more about her very human personality and flaws as the years passed, it took a very long time to get me to the point where she wasn’t just about able to walk on water in my opinion.

That same mystery brought certain distance between us though.  While  I was always aware that my mom was never supposed to be my “friend” or my “pal” – I felt she left the earth without me really KNOWING who she was.  There was a whole other woman that existed before the married mother I came to idolize.  There was the single, gorgeous,  adventurous youngster growing up in Haiti who had a penchant for wearing short things and was always thinking about her cousins and family and showed it by visiting and chatting with them often.    The woman who existed before my father married her.  I only get glimpses of her in stories from her counterparts and cousins who are still with us.  Making the myth of my mom even more elusive and glamorous.

I don’t know what this little one is going to think of me.  I might be so busy wanting her to love me as much as I loved my mom that I’d do all the wrong things… say all the wrong things.  She’d just end up being a Daddy’s Girl… and maybe not thinking much of me at all.  I know that I think she’s the bees knees already…  I guess… I just have to be myself and hope that she loves me just as much.

*

Mortality

Once you’ve lost one loved one… and I mean a really close loved one – a parent, a sibling, a best friend – you become painfully aware that you are at risk of losing them all one day.  And it’s inevitable.

It changes how you look at everything in life.   How you react to folks and interact with them.  Nothing is ever interaction for the sake of living life.  You start to look at it (or… at least I do) as the memories you’ll look back on one day when this person isn’t around anymore.   And I try harder to hold on to these images in my mind so that I have something to keep me company in those times.  The memories for later that I create now.

I touch the madonna chain my mom… left to me – because she didn’t give it to me.  And my hand drifts down just a bit to touch my belly, now full with expectation.  And I find myself stuck in between.  Right in the middle passage of this strange cycle of life.  The loss of my mom’s life… the anticipation of a new one to start.  And I am living moments between them both.

Sidenote: Hindsight makes you examine things a little more carefully when you have new information.   Nightmares are sometimes harbingers of good tidings – but you place them in the frame of your current knowledge and they scare you because you don’t have all the information.  I look back at that dream and realize, they were mentally removing everything chemical… everything artificial… making way for the natural miracle that was about to take place.  I see that so clearly now.  But with lack of information and foresight… their presence and actions in my dreams scared me to death.

Grandma used to tell me that nothing is forever in this world.  And I heard her… but wasn’t listening.  I didn’t want to believe that good things weren’t forever too… wonderful people and happy experiences and the tangible personal warmth of bodily affection in the form of hugs and kisses and tender moments with your loved ones.  As good as all those things are – they HAVE to be forever…. right?

No.  But the memories of those things and the actual feeling of love created from those instances I sincerely believe transcend this existence and go with you… wherever your spirit is.

My heart is heavy and hurting right now as I observe a dear friend and sister go through what I went through.  I wouldn’t wish it on a mortal enemy.  And while we tell ourselves we know of the possibility of the outcomes – we’re NEVER prepared for the instance that takes the physical presence of our loved ones away.  There is a deep seated hurt / numbness / inconsolable void that takes over your function and while the words of comfort from the community swirl about your mind and soul – none of them can say what you want to hear.  “She’ll be back.  This is only temporary…”  or “Here’s a number to reach her while she’s gone”  or better yet – “this is just a nightmare – you’ll be waking up soon”.

I am trying to empty my head so my heart will function today.

*

Trade Off.

I had a seriously strange dream last night.  I don’t remember a lot of the details, but the gist of it was this.  I was given the choice to exchange pieces of my life time for a chance to bring back my deceased loved ones for that period of time.  So – if I gave up one day off of how long I was going to live, I’d get to see my grandma alive again in this instance for 24 hours.  More time given up… more time to spend with that loved one.   In the dream, I deliberated it for a very long time.  There were so many factors that I needed answered:  Would the person be in the same health as they were before their demise?  Would this be a wrenching of their soul out of heaven?  I weighed options for so long in the dream having just given birth to my little one… thinking – the time I’m taking away from her having me as her mom on this earth… but… she’d get to know and see her grandmother…  It was such a huge conundrum because I know at the end of the day it will NEVER BE ENOUGH.  And I’ll experience the loss all over again when she has to go.  The first time around I know – even KNOWING the end is coming doesn’t cushion the blow.  And now… so will my daughter – because I know she’d LOVE my mom… there’s no question.  But at the end of the dream… my mom was there.  I don’t know how much time i gave up, but i fear it was a LOT.

The dream kept me tossing and turning all night long as my heart who longs to see my mom again wrestled with my mind that knows it’s best not to unearth the dead… literally.  So I asked the question on Facebook to see what others think.  I’m sure some movie house will steal the idea for a movie down the line – they always pick at my brain for the best ideas *snickers*  But it was such an interesting situation… because I always say I’d give anything to see my mom again…  But would I?

*

26 Weeks

Time is starting to slow down again.

In the first trimester, it would go SOOOO SLOWLY – mostly because every  moment is riddled with anxiety and nervousness and fear about if you’ll make it through to the 2nd trimester.  2nd trimester goes by at a normal pace.   You’re worrying WAY less… you’ve managed to let off some steam by letting people know the good news (and bad because now you can be all sorts of sick and anxious w/o feeling self conscious).  But then the ramp up to the big show begins.  The 3rd trimester is just out of touch and I feel that I’ve been at this 25 / 26 week mark now for about 3 weeks. LOL  It’s in my nature to rush things along…  I guess ever since I was a little child, plaguing my mom with questions about what it’s like to be a grown up and what it would be like to have my period and what it would be like to get married and move out and have a job and not be in school anymore.  You would think by now that I’d have the time and patience to just wait for stuff.  Trop presse pas fait  jour l’ouvrie. I know mommy.  I’m learning to be more patient.

I had a SERIOUS bout of missing her last night.  My dear sweet godsend of a hubby decided it was time to “tackle the office” – he’s not a pack rat.  AT ALL.  But I am.  And he witnessed how bad it can get by having to help my parents through their packrat-ism.  Or at least my mom.  Dad wasn’t so bad with his… but he also wasn’t as willing as Earl to help mom dig out.  So every month or so, he dedicates a good amount of time to helping me dig out of my own paper grave.  The office has been stacked up with stuff for a while.  Originally, we were going to clear it out to make room for a nursery.  But we cannot, no matter what we do, control the temperature in that half of the apartment.  So the nights that it’s cold… our little baby would freeze.  And summer nights, she would bake to death.  So we’ll have her in our bedroom until we move out.  But he wanted the office to be clear because as my belly gets bigger – it’s MUCH harder for me to scrunch over and do the freelance work I need to do over my computer.  So he dug out the space around my old computer (did a FANTASTIC job) but in the process unearthed some more memories that I wasn’t quite ready to see yesterday.  A small white envelope that has seen it’s share of wear and tear.  On the outside in crude black marker it exclaimed “To My Mother: The Maker Of ME”  This was obviously one of my many exercises in learning to write… so I had to be about 5 or 6 years old.  In my brief homemade thank you card written on a 3 x 5 piece of index card in blue pen I thanked for all that she’d done for me: “making me, giving me life, buying my toys” and professed that she “made life so satisfying”  and that I loved her.  (silly me with my big words).  I broke down.  This is the reason I don’t give cards anymore.  It seems terrible of me.

When grandma died and we had to go through her apartment, there was a huge envelope – you know for those absurdly large greeting cards that they sell at Hallmark.  We’d given her one of those through the years.  But inside that envelope was ANY AND EVERY CARD my brother, my mom and I had ever given the woman.  And in all the years of writing these cards, I never thought for ONE MINUTE that I’d be taking them back.  It warmed my heart to know that they meant so much that she kept them all (i mean ALL of them).  But it hurt too profoundly to have to reclaim them.

So i cried for a good while yesterday, missing mommy with all my heart.  Wishing she was here.  I had way less lonely moments when she was around because she was always available to just chat about nothing.. or let me listen to her watch tv.  But this bottomless feeling is just without resolve.  At the end of the tears and the feeling sorry for myself and the wishing I could call her – there’s no resolution.  I’m still without her and always will be, no matter how many tears or breath taking sobs.  No amount of pain I’ll feel will revive her … or wake me out of this reality where she’s actually still here with me.  And every day, more of her shows up in me that I can’t control; good things… bad things.  All her.

2 more weeks until the 3rd trimester.  Maybe I’ll learn to slow down and document everything happening so that I can regale the little one with tales of her arrival and focus less on the pain and sadness.

*

Commemoration

Sweet li’l mommy –

2 years.

There’s only so long that I can commemorate death. I’m not that way.
Even the world completely changes. The night you left, there was a full moon out. Last night? I stood on an unobstructed beach at night and no trace of the moon. But I kept seeing little remembrances of you everywhere. Le Creuset in the store. How I obsess (like you did) about fixing the bed. Knowing how to behave in “society” – even though society doesn’t really do it the way you taught anymore LOL. You’re always with me. You visit me in dreams. I remember all the lessons you taught – especially the one you had to share with me most: trop presse pas fait jour l’ouvrie (hurrying doesn’t make the day start).

It’s hard for me to “commemorate” the day you LEFT… rather than celebrate all that your life gave me. Your birthday is just a mere month away. I think I much rather celebrate your life.

But I acknowledge this is the day you ascended. And I still miss you as much… if not more. It does get easier… but not in the way we’re used to this kind of thing being easier. Easier means – it’s not all consumming anymore…. but on the days that it does trap your mind….

well. those are very hard days.

I’m still here thinking about you, Mommy. I wrote you a couple of posts this year. You popped in and out of my dreams to work with me… work on me… comfort me… warn me. Just like you did in life. I miss most being able to talk to you. It’s hard to realize after all this time that you were indeed the best friend I’d ever had.

I really miss you li’l mommy.

Love you always

*

… Like the Sun Misses the Sky…

Another mommy dream.

This one… wasn’t so bad at all. I still wake up with this horrible empty feeling that just solidifies knowing I’ll never see her in my waking life again. But in this dream… she was so much more herself than in the others.

Scenario in this dream – she was dying. But this time? She knew it. She had embraced the fact and was preparing for it. She was surrounding her self with friends and family and talking to them for long periods of time. And when the pain would get to be too much, she’d gently ask for time to rest and recoup. And we’d give it to her graciously. One day (in the dream) as the end was drawing near, she asked to go to the park with us. (which we did do in real life… but it was just the park behind the nursing home. That was the last time she breathed fresh air outside). So she and I dressed in yellow sun dresses (her favorite) and we wheeled her out to the park. We sat there and chatted with everyone. My friends were there and doting on her. And at one point, I asked them to give me a moment with her. They said sure. It started to rain – like a sunshower. And I looked DEEP into my mommy’s eyes…. And the serenity and love coming from her face…. radiated all over me. It was so familiar and is so lacking in my life these days. I tried to muster up all the feeling I had inside so that maybe she’d really FEEL my word when I said them this time. So that perhaps she wouldn’t think I wasn’t just a silly little girl with a huge crush on her mommy. That maybe this time she’d hear me and know what an UNBELIEVABLE impact she had on my life. How I’ll never be the same for having had her in my life and for now being without. She smiled at me as there was still silence between us. I fought back tears. “Mommy….” I stammered. “You have always been my idol. I know I say it and you might dismiss it. But you are my whole world. I NEVER took for granted all that you sacrificed for me…” She reached up and wiped my tears as tears formed in hers… Here’s where I realized this wasn’t real. I may not get a chance to be like this with her again soon. “I MISS YOU MOMMY… I miss you like…” and she nodded as if to say “yes, petite cocotte… me too…” The dream started to fall away… and her sunny visage became distant…I came of the dream murmuring… “Like the sun misses the sky….”

Laying there I felt silly for a moment. I always do when my dream spills out into my reality and I act upon it. But the embarrassment was quickly replaced by contentment. She heard me. I just wish that feeling wasn’t swallowed up by the emptiness of existence.

2 years draws nigh…

*

Missing

… the soft sound lilting from the kitchen of grandma humming a tune i never knew but can never forget
… the way mommy’s hands looked so sad dangling behind daddy’s headrest in the car – but would “cheer up” the minute I made contact with her and we held hands through the ride
… how daddy found himself funniest in his jokes and didn’t care
… the care and comfort granny took to speak to us like human beings yet still discipline us like children needed
… the unconditional healing power of mom’s embrace – be it bad day at work, boyfriend break-up or 9/11.
… the hidden sweetness in daddy hearing me say I loved something just once – then bringing it home…. every. single. night. (Baby Ruths, Corn Pops Cereal, pan de yuca, softserve Carvel vanilla)
… the mesmerizing spin of spools of thread and the rapidfire gah-gah-gah-gah of the machine stitching as granny meticulously fed every piece of cloth.
… the instant return to childhood my mom would take when I tickled her ear.
… the pride on my daddy’s face when he’d call me in to spray his favorite cologne on his tie before going to church to play the organ

… the sounds, smells and FEELING of a place full of people who knew me before I knew myself.

I’m just really missing them all today.

*

Homeland

She came to show me where she is now. It should have been no surprise to me that she went back home.

For as long as I can remember, when someone close to me passes they do manage to circle around to me in the spirit world through my dreams and show me where they are, how they are and the overlaying message that they are okay. And somehow, from that point I tend to feel so much better about their passing. Because isn’t the most disturbing thing about death that you can’t reach out to the person ever again? No forwarding address. No phone number. Nothing. If you ever have something to say to them again – you’re outta luck. So the fact that my ancestors who have gone before me manage to comfort me this way is otherworldly (literally). When grandma came to show me where she was, I was immediately comforted. She was living it up where she was. She had her independance, her youth and her strength. The things that MADE her who she was. She showed me her apartment and how at peace she was. How could MY soul be in turmoil after that??

But in October, it will have been 2 years since my sweet little mommy passed from this earthly place. And the only times she’s come to me in my dreams have scared the life out of me. Or guilted me to no end. My heart has been lonely AND broken since she’s been gone. She made up for it last night and corrected some ideas that were stuck in my head for a long time.

She swept me up from my dreams and brought me to Haiti. It makes PERFECT sense.

Look – Americans can say what they want about the “poorest third world country in the western hemisphere”. If you visited before it got that way, you would smirk your lips up at them just the way I do when they say it. Regardless of that moniker we are truly a proud people And there is a REASON. There is everlasting beauty in Haiti. There are long standing traditions stemming back to Africa – in Haiti. It was a nexus of culture and art and poetry and athletics and dance once. I had the fortune of being born to parents who lived in it’s hay day. It made for a radically different experience growing up in America than the typical family. All Nouveau Haitians know what I’m talking about. If you are first generation American born to Haitian parents – you did NOT grow up “in America”. You were raised HAITIAN on American soil. And it was absolutely imperative that you were brought “home” as a child so you could acquaint yourself with it and know it and love it and return to it. This is the part that didn’t go over well with me, unfortunately. I was 5 and afraid of my own shadow. But mostly – afraid of bugs and dogs (i mean… my fear of dogs has just turned into a hatred for them but my fear of bugs is palpable still). And well… Haiti is tropical. Aside from being abundant in size and quantity, the blood sucking type feasted on my young sweet blood for 2 weeks straight. And um… there are no leash laws really in Haiti. Dogs roam the hills and streets unattended for the most part. So – right there? this little girl’s nightmare incarnate. I had less than favorable reviews as a child when I came home. I remember describing it once as “dirt and dogs”. I didn’t realize this hurt my mom so bad – broke her heart. Well – imagine someone saying something shitty about your hometown. But i didn’t know any better. And have never been able to go back to rectify that impression. For the greater part of 10 years, I’ve schemed and plotted on ways of going home. But whenever I’d consult with the elders they’d say the same thing. “Pas koun yen, petit. Pays’la pas bon koun yen’a” (Not now child – the country is in bad shape right now).

I got that through Baby Doc. I got that through the first elections with Aristide. I got that through Ton Ton Macoute and through Zinglindou. I got it through kidnapping Americans and holding them for ransom. I got it through hunger and lack of resources sweeping through the nation. And now in my parent’s home town area (Port-au-Prince / Jacmel) after being pounded by hurricane after hurricane… Earthquake. Pays’a VRAIMENT pas bon kounyen’a.

But mommy came to bring me back last night. In a flowing white garment…. in her youthful appearance. Flying…. FREE. Relaxed face – no longer a scowl of permanent disappointment. A slight curl of her lip in a contented smile. She brought me soaring with her through the mountain peaks and jungles…. along the coasts and in the city. She showed me before and now. Without barely saying a word. She showed me this beauty that was everlasting in her heart and her memory and simultaneously showed me how through the adversity – there IS beauty still. Beauty in my people’s resilience. In our willingness to help one another. In our uplifting each other by telling the legends of our survival. Not dirt and dogs. Lush fullness of life… beauty – inside and out. Of course there are the political struggles that make things quite ugly. But the land and the people… are undeniable. Ayiti – Land of High Mountains. I’ll be there again soon – in body.

Thank you for bringing me me home, Mommy.