Sometimes I Look in the Mirror and See My Mother

Sometimes I look in the mirror and see my mother looking back at me.

And if I’m being completely truthful, sometimes that shit scares me.

Even Cristian will look over the top of his glasses a certain way, and there she is.

Shirley.

All up and through my damn house.

In my face.

In my child.

For a long time, becoming anything like my mother was one of my biggest fears.

Which is crazy, because there was a time when I wanted to be just like her.

I Was a Mama’s Girl

I don’t remember a lot of my childhood.

I don’t know why. I just don’t.

But there are pieces. Random moments. Certain things I can see clear as day.

And from what I do remember, I had a good mom.

She did the best she could with what she had.

I had a mother that was big on appearances.

Our house was immaculate. My hair was always done. I had nice clothes and shoes. Our house was where everybody wanted to be.

We were always cooking, grilling, hosting holidays. My friends could spend the night and somehow still be there three, four, and five days later.

By middle school and high school, I was having garage parties, I didn’t really have a curfew and she made sure I had a car at sixteen.

Pretty much whatever I asked for, somehow, I got.

What I understand now, as a 35-year-old woman, is that sometimes my mother was putting herself in a financial bind to make sure I had those things.

There were times when our lights were off.

Nobody knew.

There were times when the hot water was off too. My mother would get up before work, warm water on the stove, and leave me a note telling me there was water waiting so I could wash up, brush my teeth, and get ready for school.

Then I would go to school looking like everything was fine.

Because that’s what she did.

She figured it out.

She owned our home. She took pride in it. She paid the bills. My dad paid child support, but I know now that raising children is expensive as hell, and sometimes the money simply wasn’t enough.

But I never felt ashamed.

I never felt poor.

I never wanted to be somewhere else.

Even if the lights were off, I was at the house with my mama. That was where I wanted to be.

I was a mama’s girl.

Im talking about a mamas girl to the point where if she didn’t like your ass, I didn’t like you either.

As far as I was concerned, my mother could do no wrong.

Until I got old enough to realize she could.

The Cool Mom Became the Drunk Mom

My mother was an alcoholic.

But her alcoholism didn’t look the same throughout my childhood.

When I was little, there were always people at our house, and the adults were drinking. It looked social. They were cooking, laughing, playing music, and having a good time.

I was a child, somewhere minding children’s business.

I didn’t see my mother falling-down drunk. I didn’t see anything that made me think something was wrong.

Then I got older.

And the drinking got worse.

A glass of wine at eight or nine in the morning.

Going to work hungover.

Calling her teenage daughter from the bathroom at work because she was throwing up and asking me to call her job, pretending there was an emergency so she could leave.

Drunk driving.

DUIs.

Falling down.

Passing out.

It wasn’t fun anymore.

I didn’t have the cool mom anymore.

I had the drunk mom.

And somewhere between sixteen and eighteen, I stopped seeing only my mother. I started seeing the woman.

And I didn’t always like the woman I saw.

Nobody Came to Save Me

Alcoholism ruined our relationship.

There really isn’t a prettier way to say it.

My mother went from being my idol to becoming the biggest example of everything I did not want to become.

And I became angry.

Really fucking angry.

She physically attacked me. She ripped my clothes. She smacked me hard enough to knock earrings out of my ears.

Eventually, I got old enough and big enough to get her off me.

I remember us wrestling at the top of the stairs once. She was drunk. I had probably said something smart, because my mouth has been my mouth for a very long time.

She came after me.

I pushed her off.

She lost her balance and went sliding down the stairs.

Then she called everybody in our family and told them I had assaulted her and pushed her down the steps.

That was Shirley in active addiction.

She could lie. She could manipulate. She could be mean.

And eventually, I became more than her daughter.

I became somebody who took care of her.

I picked my mother up off the floor when she passed out. I put her in bed. I dealt with things a child shouldn’t have been dealing with.

And the adults around me knew.

That’s the part I struggled with for years.

Everybody fucking knew.

At one point, my aunt convinced me that I was the only person who could have my mother committed.

Not her sister.

Not my brothers.

Me.

Her teenage daughter.

So my aunt drove me downtown Charlotte, and I filled out the paperwork because I thought I was helping my mother.

The police came to our house. My mother barricaded herself in the bathroom, wielding a metal toilet paper holder at them.

They eventually had to restrain her to get her out while I screamed and cried.

They took her to the emergency room.

And somehow, they took their eyes off Shirley long enough for that woman to get up and walk her ass straight out of the hospital.

The sheriff called me, asking if my mother had come home.

I’m thinking, What the fuck do you mean, has she come home?

Y’all took her.

I called my brother. He told me I better get my ass out of that house because if she got home and I was sitting there after having her committed, I was in trouble.

So I threw my shit into a trash bag, got in my car, and left.

A couple of days later, my brother told me it was safe to come home.

So I went home.

And we continued living like nothing had happened.

Nobody rescued me.

Nobody said, “This girl shouldn’t be living like this.”

Not my dad.

Not my brothers.

Not my aunt.

Nobody.

That was when I started understanding something that would eventually change my life.

Nobody was coming to save me.

So I saved myself.

I joined the Navy.

And My Mama Helped Me Leave

Here’s the fucked-up part.

My mother supported me.

I went back and forth about joining several times. I stood my recruiter up for MEPS enough times that eventually he told me he wasn’t working with me anymore.

And you know who called him?

My mama.

She apologized on my behalf and told him I was finally ready.

I eventually joined. I spent eight months in DEP and never missed anything again.

A week after my 22nd birthday, I left.

And I was sad.

My mama was sad too. She couldn’t even take me to the hotel the night before I shipped because she was crying.

Then I got to boot camp, and Shirley wrote me every damn day.

She kept me updated on the world and sent me articles.

I had a dog named Nala who apparently decided that while I was away serving my country, she was going to shit all over my mother’s house.

My mother mailed me pictures of the shit.

Petty as hell.

And I loved every letter.

Whenever I got to call home, she was so fucking happy to hear my voice.

We missed each other.

Because even through all of it, that was still my girl.

She Tried

When I graduated boot camp, my mother came to Chicago.

She had been drinking heavily while I was gone, but she tried to stop before coming to my graduation. She was going through withdrawals—weak and shaking.

At some point in the airport, she fell coming off an escalator. She was wearing brown tights almost the same color as her skin, so apparently it looked like she wasn’t wearing pants.

My brothers thought that shit was hilarious and heckled her about it.

Then her Chihuahua, Valentine, went missing because somehow that damn dog jumped out of my cousin’s truck.

She was devastated. My brothers picked on her about that too.

Then she was arguing with my aunt.

Everybody was arguing with everybody.

My Navy graduation was supposed to be this proud, happy moment, and somehow we were right back in the middle of family bullshit.

But I remember looking at my mom differently.

I felt bad for her.

I knew what she was going through and why she was shaking.

She didn’t have any money, so while we were eating, I bought her a drink.

I knew what that drink was.

I knew why she needed it.

And I remember being proud of her.

Because she tried.

Sometimes, when somebody is deep in addiction, trying looks different than we want it to look.

But she came.

My mama came.

I Didn’t Know I Was Saying Goodbye

Later, I got stationed in Key West.

I met Cristian’s dad there, and eventually I wanted to take him home to Charlotte—to show him where I came from and introduce him to my mom.

When we got there, she was drunk.

Really drunk.

And I was immediately embarrassed.

So I was mean.

I said little nasty things. I gave her a hard time.

She cooked us steaks, baked potatoes, and a salad. I think she burned the steaks a little.

Nothing serious.

Nothing that warranted the way I treated her.

But I was embarrassed, and I was tired.

In the middle of the night, I woke up and told him I was ready to go.

So we got in the car.

I didn’t tell my mother I was leaving. I didn’t hug her, kiss her, look at her, or say goodbye.

I just left.

Later, she texted me asking why I had gone. She told me she had some canned goods she wanted to send back with us.

Canned goods.

My mother didn’t have much anymore, but she still wanted to give me something.

And I left without saying goodbye.

That was the last time I ever saw my mother.

The last time I could have hugged her, kissed her, or looked at her face.

And I didn’t.

That is something I will regret for the rest of my life.

Have You Seen My Keys?

We did talk one more time.

She called me drunk and asked if I had seen her keys.

I lived in Key West, Florida.

She was in Charlotte, North Carolina.

No, Mama.

I have not seen your damn keys.

I hadn’t even been home.

I was irritated. I told her she was drunk and to stop calling me.

I hung up.

That was the last conversation I ever had with my mother.

I think she died that night or the next day.

She went to sleep, and her heart stopped.

Years of alcohol abuse had done tremendous damage to her body.

But another part of me believes my mother died of a broken heart.

Not the medical kind.

The life kind.

Life broke her heart.

Loss broke her heart.

Love broke her heart.

Betrayal broke her heart.

Maybe never becoming the woman she knew she could be broke her heart too.

Her Name Was Shirley

My mother was more than an alcoholic.

I have to remind myself of that sometimes.

Her name was Shirley.

Before I was old enough to understand her pain, she had already lived a whole life.

My mother was a daddy’s girl.

Her daddy’s name was Willie B. Hill. I remember him as a handsome, light-skinned older man in a wheelchair with Alzheimer’s.

He was in a nursing home, but I don’t know exactly what happened. I remember my mother going to get her daddy, bringing him home, and taking care of him.

Then I remember being a little girl in ruffle socks, a dress, and hair bows, climbing over church pews because I couldn’t sit still.

We were at his funeral.

Years later, my mother’s brother Nevada was murdered.

He was my favorite uncle.

And he was her person.

My mother was the youngest of eleven children, and Nevada was one of the siblings she was closest to.

He was gunned down outside his home.

I remember us getting there. I remember him lying in the street underneath a white sheet.

And I remember my mother screaming and falling to the ground.

She was never the same after that.

Our family wasn’t the same.

But especially Shirley.

Then came heartbreak, betrayal, relationships, and fights.

I watched my mother cry on the floor because somebody had cheated on her. I watched her fight women and bust windows with bricks.

I watched that woman go through some shit.

None of that excuses what happened to me.

Understanding somebody does not require pretending they didn’t hurt you.

But at 35, I can finally see the woman inside my mother.

And I wish like hell I could tell her that.

I Am My Mother’s Daughter

This is the part I don’t particularly like talking about.

Because sometimes I see Shirley in myself.

And not just physically.

I’m generous.

So was she.

I have an amazing heart.

So did she.

I can also be mean as hell.

So could she.

I’m a certified grudge holder.

Baby, so was Shirley.

I love my son more than anything in this world, but sometimes I simply don’t enjoy being a mother.

Maybe she didn’t always enjoy it either.

She had been somebody’s mother since she was fifteen years old.

Fifteen.

My oldest brother is seventeen years older than me. My middle brother is ten years older.

That woman spent damn near her entire life raising somebody.

I became a mother at 26, and sometimes I’m fucking tired.

What must motherhood have felt like to a fifteen-year-old girl?

There are other similarities that scare me more.

Alcohol is one of them.

I started drinking young, and I’ve had to admit that I don’t have the best relationship with it. I have a hard time finding my limit and don’t always pace myself well.

So these days, I barely drink.

Not because I think I’m my mother.

Because I watched my mother.

I know what can happen.

And with a son watching me, that isn’t a light I want him to see me in.

My mother died at 58.

I’m not interested in repeating that story.

Then there are the ideas.

God, the fucking ideas.

I constantly have huge ideas about things I could create, businesses I could build, and all the shit I know I’m capable of doing.

Sometimes, the action is where I struggle.

My mother was like that too.

She was incredibly talented. She could cook her ass off. She had a catering company. She could decorate and turn a house into something beautiful.

She had so much potential.

And she never got to see what all of it could have become.

That scares me too.

Because I don’t want to die full of potential.

Some of Her Gets to Stay

For years, I thought breaking the cycle meant becoming nothing like my mother.

I don’t think that anymore.

Because the truth is, I am like her.

I have her generosity, creativity, ability to make something out of nothing, big ideas, desire to be loved, rough edges, mouth, and grudges.

I also know what it’s like for the outside world to get the polished version of me while the people closest to me sometimes get the ugliest parts.

I’ve hurt people I love.

I’ve lost relationships that mattered to me.

And when I look back at my mother now, I understand things I couldn’t when I was her angry daughter.

I understand hurt.

Betrayal.

Wanting somebody to love you.

Motherhood.

Being overwhelmed.

Having dreams for yourself while real life keeps happening around you.

I understand her.

I just wish I had understood her while she was here.

Maybe breaking a generational cycle doesn’t mean rejecting everything that came before you.

Maybe it means deciding what gets to keep going.

Some of Shirley gets to stay.

I want her generous heart.

Her creativity.

Her ability to make something out of nothing.

The woman whose house everybody wanted to come to.

The woman who cooked.

The woman who loved.

The woman who went and got her daddy.

The woman who wrote her daughter every day at boot camp.

The woman who showed up in Chicago shaking because she wanted to see her baby graduate.

The woman who didn’t have much left but still wanted to send her daughter home with canned goods.

I want those pieces.

The rest?

I’m working on it.

Because I have a son watching me now.

One of my biggest fears is that Cristian will grow up and resent me.

I don’t want him to become 35 before he understands how much his mother loved him.

I want him to know while I’m still here.

If I Could Talk to Her Now

If I could sit down with my mother today, I wouldn’t yell.

I wouldn’t ask why she couldn’t just stop drinking or tell her how much she embarrassed me.

I think we’ve done enough of that.

I would tell her I love her.

Unconditionally.

I would tell her I know she wasn’t perfect. Now that I’m a woman, I understand her in ways I couldn’t when I was her daughter, standing in that house angry as hell.

I would tell her I sympathize with her.

I would tell her I forgive her.

Then I would ask:

What do you wish you had done differently?

What should I do differently so my story doesn’t end like yours?

What do you see when you look at me?

What do you see in me that you wish I could see in myself?

Do you think I’m a good mom?

Where could I be better?

I would want her advice now more than I ever wanted it when she was alive.

Funny how that shit works.

But more than anything, I would tell my mother what I should have told her before I drove away from that house.

I’m sorry.

I love you.

I forgive you.

And Mama, I hope you forgive me too.

Sometimes I look in the mirror and see my mother looking back at me.

I’m not as afraid of her anymore.

I just have to decide which parts of her I want to keep.