Motherhood is one of the hardest jobs to do; having a life depend on your every waking move is scarier than can be expressed. My insecurities in the beginning years of my journey were sometimes the most debilitating experience ever. How I got through is a miracle in it of itself. I was a dysfunctional functioning mother to say the least. The following entry is a flashback of my early years of motherhood. Can you relate to me?

She just wouldn’t stop crying, nothing I did soothed my newborn baby girl. I laid her on the bed and had to walk away as I just could not get her to stop. We were hit with a major heat wave in the middle of the summer that was going to last for days.  We had no electricity, the phone lines were dead and I was at my wits end. I needed to think. I needed a moment. I JUST NEEDED A MOMENT!!!!

Just 48 hours earlier I was in the hospital about to have my first time alone with her.  I was determined to make the best of it as the nurse wheeled her in my room and a sense of nervousness and excitement welled up in me. I was sorer from this delivery than I was with Joey because I didn’t have time to get an epidural. My pregnancy with my daughter was also emotionally harder because I had battled with depression all through out; but did not know what it was. There was no way I could love another baby after loving Joey, my first born, so much. Can I acclimate her to our family or will she just cause a disruption in the small family Sam and I have been building?

The nurse scooped her up and I could hear her cooing as she was carried over to me. There she was…aww my beautiful Rachel sucking on a pacifier bigger than her face. Rachel in the Bible was known for her beauty; it wasn’t the reason for the name but I wondered if she would have features that would equate her with Jacob’s wife. I heard nothing the nurse said as I waited anxiously for her to leave the room. As soon as the nurse left I carefully placed Rachel on my bed and started to unwrap her. The hospital did a fantastic job of wrapping babies as tight as they were in the womb. One layer was off, now the next. She was slowly waking up as I was peeling the swaddling blankets away and exposing her to the cool air.

Finally…now I got to her. It was time to get to take off her clothes and socks and the hand mittens. Oh, and let’s not forget that pacifier. I wanted to see what God gave me. I wanted to see all of her. I carefully looked at her perfect body. Not one flaw. 10 beautiful fingers that stretched out when I touched them. It was okay…one day she would hold my hand and never let go. She had 10 beautiful toes on her tiny feet. I scooped her up and carefully flipped her over and saw from front to back she was flawless.  By this time, she was awake and wondering what was going on; it wasn’t long before she started fussing. It was a whole new ball game with a girl.

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Living in a new country was confusing and scary but my mother was my everything. After our transition from Jamaica to America my mother needed to do what she could to make her sacrifice worth it. After it was discovered that I was being molested at my aunt’s, there was quick arrangements for me to live with my mother and father in a small room 15 minutes away. The three of us rented that room and it was the first place where the three of us lived together after leaving Jamaica. My mother worked hard to give me what I needed; food nor clothes was ever a problem. I wanted as much of her as I could when she wasn’t working. Sometimes she gave me a comb and just sat still while I played in her hair, other times I just laid on her lap and played with her hand as she talked on the phone with family members back home. She tried to read me a story every night and tuck me in. My mother tried to juggle everything.

She worked tirelessly Sundays-Fridays and on Saturdays was chore day. At the age of 6, I will never forget laundry day but one specific laundry day. My mother and I had to make the very long walk from the apartment we had, to the laundromat several blocks away. She was so tired.  I remember reaching the laundromat, loading the clothes and then we sat on a spot and waited for the clothes to dry. She asked me to sit at a certain spot and then she placed her head in my lap. Within minutes she had fallen asleep as I played in her hair.

Girls have a piece of their mother that differs from boys. It is not a better piece or a more valued piece, it just different. A mother is the blueprint to a little girl of how to handle life’s victories, challenges, hiccups, mountains, valleys and storms. A mom shows a little girl who she will become and gives her an understanding of her potential. Mothers are not to portray perfection…let’s not get that twisted; but a mother is walking in the role that a daughter will soon step in one day. How we play this role will determine if our girls will walk with confidence or walk with a limp that only straightens with a crutch.

As a little girl I saw my mother as beautiful and elegant. I know every little girl thought their mother was beautiful, but I knew beauty. Her hair was always perfect and never out of place to me, and to this day I have never seen my mother’s hair out of place. She was too good for that. In all my life my mother never used foul language because culturally, to do so was seen as something low class people–whose vocabulary was so limited–did to portray their thoughts. She was well spoken and highly educated. Even when she lacked knowledge, she stayed silent because even a fool seems smart when they keep their mouths shut. She always knew what she was doing, and I rarely saw her sweat. My mother always seemed like she had a plan; life never left her in the dark—so it seemed. She was my definition of strength. I remember her crying once, maybe twice, before my dad passed. As a child I could rarely get my mother mad. She had such patience with me but when I got her angry…oooffffff that was it. Some of my most memorable spankings were from her. I could never stay mad at her when she disciplined me because there was never a time that I didn’t deserve it. Despite the many times of pain from my childhood, they were often erased by my moments spent with her.

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Could I live up to such an image? I had a new life to protect and the only way I could do that was to depend on God for guidance and hope that my motherly instincts would kick in.

I scooped up her tiny 7lb 14oz body and placed her on my bare chest and she immediately went silent. She curled herself up as tightly as she could and nestled herself on me and we had our first moment. I placed my cheek against her tiny warm soft cheek and started talking to her.

“I will always be there for you. I am going to do everything I can to protect you. I will make some mistakes, but I promise to keep you close. I won’t let you go through what I went through.” She seemed to respond to my words, as she seemed to get closer to me the more I spoke. I kissed her face several times and she it soothed her even more and before I knew it, she was asleep. I made a promise to her that I was determined to keep.

Around 11 am the next morning I started having this feeling that something was not right. I called Sam and told him I wanted to come home and I wanted to come home now. He was shocked and asked if everything was okay. I said yes but something was not right. He said to ask the doctor and he would make preparations to take us home if they released us.

The hospital was thrown for a loop when I said I wanted to go home that day—one day early. Doctor after doctor came in to ask me why I wanted to go home early and I had no answer except that I needed to leave that day. The process to clear both of us took several hours. The longer it took the more annoyed and antsy I was getting. I had no idea what was going on, but I needed to do this immediately.

I was discharged late that night as they checked Rachel to make sure she was not jaundice or was struggling with anything else. We took her home where I finally felt safe…safe from what? I don’t know.

The next day my mother met her granddaughter for the second time. It was a totally different experience than with Joey. My mother and I had a wonderful day as she held her and gave me some much-needed help. Around 3:45 my mother started getting herself ready to make her trip from my house in the Bronx  back to hers in Queens but before she left, she tried making a phone call, but something was weird. She was unable to get through. My mother thought nothing of it and started on her way.

Ten minutes after her leaving, everything turned off. Sam was not home to see if maybe something happened with our fuse box. I tried calling him but the phone line was acting weird. It was no big deal; the electricity would be on soon…I hoped. But it was only a matter of time before my landlord came upstairs to ask us if we had electricity. We looked outside and the electricity went out all over the block. It wasn’t long before Sam came home from work. The blackout wasn’t just on the block but was all the way back where the church was. The whole neighborhood was without.

We later found out that this was the nationwide blackout of 2003. This is what I was feeling when I was in the hospital. Sam and I would have been leaving the hospital the same time as the blackout and Sam told me that it was crazy out there. The stoplights were out, nothing was working, people were trapped in elevators and traveling at the very beginning of a blackout would have been dangerous with a newborn in the car.

By the end of the day I found myself walking out of the room because Rachel’s crying was too much for me. We were in the dark and the heat was getting more and more unbearable. I couldn’t take her outside because she was too young. I tried feeding her, cooling her down, nothing would stop her. Sam eventually went in to try and sooth her, but he was unsuccessful. I just needed a minute as Sam was wondering what we should do. I cried and then all of a sudden the Lord said, “She is thirsty. Put some water in a bottle and give it to her.” I did just that and immediately she took the bottle and was comforted for the night. That was it…that was all she wanted.

Tears ran down my face as she drank desperately; I needed God. I can’t explain how much I felt so unqualified to raise this beautiful child. Could I be as strong as my mother? Could I be a blueprint that she would want to follow? Would she be willing to erase my shortcomings and focus on my love, compassion and victories?

Oh 2003 Marsha, I could never express to you how much your daughter loved and loves you. You will be her role model, her friend, her support, her everything. You succeeded in doing things so different than your mother did even though you make mistakes. Rachel will be forgiving and patient with you as you continue to stay one step ahead of her in life lessons. You two will learn together and you will successfully break patterns and show her real strength by showing her weakness.