The Three Mothers and Mine

We celebrate mother's day in May. It isn't enough.

Each of us has a story of the greatest or worst mother in the world. No matter which way your fate fell, your mom may be the core influence that shaped who you are.

In this blog I want to explore the power of three mothers who inspired their sons - Martin Luther King, Jr., Malcolm X, and James Baldwin –and ultimately shaped our nation. I also want to venture into personal territory and reflect on how my mother empowered me a lot and impaired me a bit, and ultimately influenced what I have been able to do with the cards I was dealt. It's a weighty Mother's Day blog.

I will begin with my own mother.

Like the mothers in Tubbs book, my mother taught me to believe in myself, to trust my voice, and to use my creativity for entertainment and purpose. She made few demands on me as a young child. Outside I drew in the dirt and invented kingdoms; inside I sat at my mom's vanity and created a theatre, using the pretty containers of creams and color as actors for my plays. I had neither interest nor need for dolls and other toys. I created any play prop I needed from my imagination.

Looking back, I can see that imagination has to be seeded and tended at an early age. If it takes root, it will serve you throughout life. Thank you, mom, for that.

Mom encouraged a passion for reading by taking me to the library every week. Reading had been her escape from farm life growing up, so she thought it might be useful to me. Thank you, mom, for that.

At seven, I was ill with chicken pox and missed my weekly library trip. She drove into town and asked the librarian for book recommendations. That week I discovered The Secret Garden, Blue Willow, The Boxcar Children and Charlotte's web. My mom brought me these treasured books as a first course to the chicken noodle soup and crunchy saltines. I could have stayed in that bed forever.

I discovered that being sick brought benefits. Luckily I didn't become a hypochondriac. My mom did, however. It was painful to live with a mother who was bright as the sky one day and in her bed, shades drawn, the next and the next and the next.

Fortunately, my dad took the reins when my mom was having one, or a series, of "her days." He had a forever sunny disposition while my mom, on her bad days, was the sky before the storm. When my mom took to the bed, my dad got up at 5 AM, hung the laundry on the lines, went to work for a few hours, and then returned home to get my brother and me ready for school. Thank you, mom, for also giving me time to rely upon and learn from my dad.

Sometimes we learn from our mothers what not to do. Thank you, mom, for these lessons as well. It is useful for the child of a depressed parent to have other adults who love her, unconditionally, while also modeling a bright outlook toward the future. The message given, things may be challenging today but trust that tomorrow will be a brighter day, I know now that it is a key to childhood resilience. Fortunately, my dad took that role, as well as two aunts.

By fifth grade, my mom allowed me to walk a half hour to a branch library. I checked out as many books as I could carry, weighing the stack in my skinny arms as I hunted the shelves. With small change, I would stop on the walk back home to buy a sugar coated donut, sit on a stone wall, and dig into the first book, leaving white, powdery smudge marks on the cover.

When I fretted over kids being bullied at school, my mom said I should be strong enough to stand up for what is right. She advised me to befriend the bullied child and expect that others will draw their lips. I stood up to my classmates' meanness toward a Black boy when our school was desegregated, but the experience was a huge struggle for a fifth grader perplexed by racism.

While many in my extended family considered African Americans to be an inferior people, I saw first-hand that the boy in the desk beside mine was as smart or smarter than me. My mom stood by me; and continued to do so when I fought for racial justice in my own small way through high school and college.

Later she told me it had not been easy. She remembered driving me to Greensboro and letting me out at AT&T for a summer job working as an outward bound counselor, a little white girl in a sea of Black kids. Mom said she cried all the way back to Durham.

Her relentless advice followed me from early childhood through high school: "Be an engine, not a caboose." "Don't fall into fads, do something better and unique and soon the other girls will follow you." In fifth grade I wanted a wrap-around skirt; all the girls had them. She said, " No, you don't want to be like everyone else. I'll make you something better." Indeed, my twirl skirt with appliqued animals was pretty cool.

My mother had a green thumb and her flowers and shrubs were knock-outs. I know that now when I envision cultivating a lush bed of Hosta plants and see how hard it is to achieve. She had patience and technique for gardening. She would gather a seed from an exotic Japanese maple, dry it, plant in a pot and nurture for 3 years, transplant to the garden and watch it turn into a breathtaking tree.

When I look back on my childhood I can see that my mother had several aptitudes – cooking, sewing, gardening and photography, among them. But it is curious to me that she never taught me anything directly. When she did what she liked, she was in her own world and we were outside looking in. I've wondered if I developed a passion for the same things from remembering her in her happy place, or if these aptitudes are genetic endowments.

When I was 15, my dad became a paraplegic. My mom turned to her flowers to blanket her sadness. She couldn't control her flower buying impulse even when we lived on a survival income. She had an idea to build a greenhouse and grow plants to sell, but to do so demanded fortitude she did not have. She took to the bed and her flowers wilted away, along with her youngest children.

Thank you, mom, for giving me a love of gardening and teaching me that our talents and passions can be made into a business. But also for the lesson that dreams die without cultivation and long-haul commitment and work; and that young children, like plants, require tender nurturing to thrive.

My mom was a talented cook. Even on her bad days, she cooked an afternoon meal. My brother and I would come home from school with smells of a hot bubbling dinner coming out of the oven at 3:30. When she was a child, her relatives drove up in droves, uninvited, for a big Sunday dinner that her mom and she cooked from fresh farm products. Granny took it in stride but mom was intolerant of such obligations. She did learn to cook, however.

As an adult, appointments to a doctor or hairdresser upset her and had to be changed multiple times. She dreaded commitment and responsibility. As I grew and observed what responsibility and commitment entailed, I decided that these were good things that give roots to everyday life.

When relatives and friends came to our house over the years, they never knew what they would find. Either my mother would be in bed with drawn shades and a blanket over her head, or cheerfully cooking the most delicious food they had eaten. She kept them guessing. She kept us kids guessing as well.

My mom was open-minded; she could see the nuances in issues. I learned early that if I wanted to do something, I needed to prepare a "case" that showed I had considered the risks and the benefits to me, as well as the complexity of the issue. Thank you, mom, for teaching me to "sell" an idea. It became a critical skill in my home and work life.

My mom often said, "all I wanted in life was to have someone take care of me." But then she found herself in a situation where she had to take care of my dad, who lost his livelihood, and ability to provide for her. There was also a baby sister, born while my dad was still in the hospital, recovering from surgery. It was a lot for my mom to cope with, especially with postpartum depression.

In short spurts, she showed determination to save our family. She tracked down resources to assist us with medical and housing bills; cared for a new born or doled her out to neighbors; and learned how to care for a paraplegic. She helped my dad when he decided to teach himself to make baskets and weave chair bottoms as a livelihood he could manage from a wheelchair.

She sewed my cheerleader's uniform because we could not afford to buy it. When I think about how terrified and overwhelmed she must have been, I can understand why she literally and figuratively crawled under her pillow.

The next three years were a challenging time for me and my siblings. I took over all the housecleaning and shopping, and much of the care for my much loved five-year-old brother and baby sister. On Saturdays, I walked about two to three miles for a part-time job to garner a bit of spending money.

Unlike my mom, I envisioned a life where I could take care of myself. I modeled my approach to life after my dad who never gave up. I worked hard in school to achieve top grades, and a full scholarship to university. Thank you, mom, for showing me that the "Cinderella" approach to men and life is a faulty path for women to take.

My mother was a hoarder, thankfully. I lived overseas for 23 years and once back in NC, I took three to five international consultancies per year for seven additional years. I wrote weekly letters describing my experiences. I discovered that my letters were more vivid than my journals. The letters described my experiences in the detail required for others to visualize events and environments as I did. My mother loved my letters and saved every one of them, bundled in ribbons, sorted by countries. I sometimes think about writing a memoir. I can do it because my mother safe-guarded my life over the years in her dresser drawers.

Mom was proud of my accomplishments and could see the role she played in my development. In turn, I tried to give back to her. We bought airline tickets for her first plane ride to visit us in Ghana, and then later in Bangladesh and Nepal. Overseas, I saw her for what she could be, with unleashed joy, when she mustered the bravery to explore these countries, sometimes in ways I had not. From childhood I struggled to save my mother, and failed. I seek comfort to know that I gave her points of light along her journey.

On her trips to visit us abroad, she took photographs with her 35mm film camera and documented our lives in each country. She had the perception to take photos as an outsider looking in. The ones we most treasure today. While my husband and I were at work, she spent hours talking to our household staff and learned things that we never took the time to ask.

In Bangladesh, she went with our house staff to visit their families, took tea with them in the shanty towns by the railroad tracks, and shared stories of each other's lives. In Ghana she had Albert, our driver/gardener take her for excursions. She took glee in finding a "Deborah Mental Institution" and insisted that Albert driver her in for some photos of my "name plaque." She came close to being arrested for trespassing in a restricted area.

When my mom was "up", my life was sunny. When she went to the dark side I floundered like a fish out of water. Over the years her depression grew more severe, leading to drug addiction, and withdrawal from her adult children, but not my two children, fortunately. She came to life with them. She taught my daughter to bake a perfect pound-cake and gave my son stories of her life and encouragement for his that he will always remember.

About ten years ago she developed severe hearing loss that could have been lessened with hearing aids she refused to accept. So for the last ten years, my communication with her entailed short questions and answers, speaking slowly into her ear or writing on a white board. The nuts and bolts questions, "Are you hungry?", not those of consequence, "For what did you hunger in life?"

I hear friends remark that they wished they had asked their mom more questions. It's sad for me that we had time for her to tell us thoughts about her own life, but she sealed us off before we could ask. My mother was disappointed in her life and sought comfort in her bedcovers. I learned that as people age, they become more of what they are.

My mom will be 91 in July. She has lived in an assisted living facility, a 3-hour drive from my home, for about four years. Before the pandemic I visited her for two or three days every four to six weeks. I took her out for meals, cooked a family meal at my brother or uncle's house so she could see family in a home setting, and took her for rides in the "country." She liked to point out where she lived as a child and tell stories about the hardships she faced growing up.

I visited her in late February 2020, the week before her facility closed doors to visitors to protect residents from COVID. The staff did a good job keeping residents safe from infection, but the hearts and minds of the elderly residents dried up from lack of affection, stimulation, and attention from their doting family members. Eventually, some staff and residents were infected and residents were not allowed to leave their rooms. The fourteen-month lockdown was cruel. If you asked a resident would they take the risk of infection and death to be able to spend time with their families, they would say "Absolutely!"

In mid-April, after fourteen months' separation, I was finally able to visit my mom. Prior to that, her brother visited her at her window every day and kept me updated with how she seemed to be doing. I wrote weekly letters and sent photos to cheer her along. During the "Year of Covid", I was allowed a brief visit to provide comfort when my brother, Ron, died. I was also able to be with her in person, three days each, during two hospital stays when she was treated for infections. During these visits, I witnessed her growing dementia. The lock-down was akin to solitary confinement and her mind had shriveled like a raisin.

April 14, 2021, happened to be a good day. I arrived in the late afternoon and went to her window to let her know I was going to visit her the next morning. She gave me a rare grin, made a hugging motion, and used her finger tips to replicate streams of tears, happy tears. By the next morning, good fortune from the Center for Disease Control (CDC) blew in and the facility was open to visitors.

I went to her room and we hugged, long and hard, but she didn't recognize her brother's wife, who was with me, lives nearby, and has always looked after mom's needs. "I know you but I can't think who you are," she said. How deeply sad I felt to see her struggle, and to witness terror in her eyes, a vague reckoning that she was losing her mind.

As mom's life draws to a close I take some lessons. Forgive the mothering she bungled and weed its roots out of my own life. Have empathy for the mental health struggles she could not control. Treasure her for what she got right, the candle she handed me, and the encouragement she provided for me to light the candle I was given.

Thank you, mom, for giving me life, and above all else for an understanding that living and loving is a complex venture. Nothing is black and white.

I think about my mom constantly. But even more so as I read The Three Mothers, by Anna Malaika Tubbs (Flatiron Books 2021). In her book on black motherhood, author Tubbs describes motherhood as a "lifelong wavering between utmost happiness and consuming worry". She shows how mothers influence greatness through case studies of Martin Luther King, Jr., Malcolm X, and James Baldwin. She reminds us that our mother's life journey is worth knowing and appreciating.

In The Three Mothers – How the mothers of Martin Luther King, Jr., Malcom X, and James Baldwin Shaped a Nation, Tubbs reveals how influential each mother's life experiences and teachings were on her son's views and actions. Because of who they were, their sons became leaders who transformed Black self-respect and inspired the world for years to come.

In the book, she explores the myth of the strong black woman – "black women have historically shouldered the weight of caring not just for their families, but for entire communities" – and the unique challenges of Black mothers caring for Black sons.

Tubbs biography is also a study of history including the depression, Great Migration, Harlem Renaissance, race riots and police brutality, and the effects of presidential policies to fuel or extinguish racial injustice. The three mothers were born within six years of each other; their famous sons within five years of each other. Consequently, Tubbs research enables us to also reflect on Black womanhood in the early 1900's, Black motherhood in the 1920's and their influence on the civil rights movement of the 1960s.

Alberta King, Berdis Baldwin, and Louise Little were strong and inspirational women who shaped history through the quality of their parenting. Tubbs says, "all mamas deserve respect, dignity, and recognition." She does this admirably with her snapshots of these very special mothers, and with a quoted poem by Edwidge Danticat in the opening of her book.

Our mothers were the ashes and we were the light.

Our mothers were the embers and we were the sparks.

Our mothers were the flames and we were the blaze.