Thedewsperspective

Before I personally knew Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior, I knew my mother as such.  I was raised by a wonderful human being that made me believe the unbelievable about myself and the world in which we live.  This is a memoir about my favorite girl, my mother, Pearl Dolores Muse.  Like many fathers who so commonly think so high of their male offspring that they honor the child by making him his namesake, my mother was named after her mom, my grandmother.  In the family they’d be affectionately distinguished as Big Pearl and Little Pearl, or Sister, as my mother was commonly referred to.  I could talk forever about the impact that they both had on me.  But this is special.  This is my story about me and my mother, and it’s entitled Dear Mama.

During my 50^th birthday dinner party, in the absence of my mother who’d succumbed to Lung Cancer six months prior, the celebratory moment was all but that.  It dawned on me that the one person that my birth day meant more too than even myself was my mother.  I couldn’t tell you what transpired on that rainy Fall Friday evening in September fifty years prior.  I could only imagine.  I couldn’t tell you what my mother went through and all of the pain she had to endure to successfully give birth to a healthy child, who she would commit the rest of her life to loving, protecting, providing for, rearing and teaching.  Yes, on September 28, 2023 I was sung Happy Birthday to and served cake, but in actuality the person who should’ve been celebrated wasn’t there. 

I loss my mother on Thursday March 23, 2023 at exactly 3:26pm she was pronounced dead.  I was holding her when she took her last breath.  I felt her body stiffen as life exited her physical dwelling.  She was sweating profusely so as I held her I desperately tried to cool her body by applying a damp rag to her forehead.  But she knew that there wasn’t anything that I could do besides comfort her.  My only problem since has been reconciling with the fact that the person that I’ve known to be my first comforter is no longer here to comfort me.

I am an only child.  But not only that, I am a momma’s boy.  I used to take offense to being referred to as a momma’s boy, for obvious reasons of course.  The term “momma’s boy” oftentimes has a negative connotation associated to it.  People deem you to be soft and overly sensitive.  All characteristic traits opposite of what society deem masculinity to be.  And you know what?  I am, all of those things momma’s boy’s are characterized as being.  And I’d like to believe that portion of who I am has been to the benefit of my wife, daughters and any other woman that I’ve had the pleasure of interacting and engaging with.

I’ve benefitted in countless ways being mothered by Pearl.  And not to digress from the personal story of me and my mother, but any person who knows my mother can honestly say she was one of the best people they have ever known.  I’ve seen her give her last to family and friends without hesitation or a second thought.  I’ve seen her love and mother children, that she didn’t birth, as if they were her own.  I’ve seen her love a man who along the way had forgotten to love himself.  I’ve seen my mother defer her dreams to help others manifest theirs.  When I tell you that I personally know an angel from heaven, I’m not just putting words together in an effort to make my mother sound special.  My mother was special, truly special.

Ever since I can remember, my mother always made me feel that there wasn’t a problem that she didn’t have a resolution for.  As a child I would easily take my concerns to my mother and she’d always say, “is that it”?  Can you imagine feeling the burden of the world on your shoulders, but having someone in your corner who welcomed your troubles, relieved you of your troubles, resolved your troubles, all while along asking “is that it”?  I now know that who I describe is far greater than common man, but I’m telling you, that’s who my mother was to me!  Amid storms, I always seemed anchored and stable; not because of my relationship with God, but because of my relationship with my mother, who had a relationship with GOD.  I benefitted from her relationship with GOD. 

Now as a child, I didn’t know that my mother was an intercessor between me and GOD.  I didn’t realize that it wasn’t her, per se, who was actually resolving my issues.  But instead, it was who she prayed to, on her child’s behalf, that was the answerer.  Nevertheless, it was my mother who gave me the physical comfort and mental and spiritual fortitude that allowed me to not coward in the presence of turmoil and defeat.  My mother made me believe that there wasn’t a problem in the world that was unresolvable.  All the way into my adulthood, even years after I’d established my own personal relationship with JESUS, my mother would still ask me, “what’s wrong”?  Then when I would reluctantly share, she’d say “is that it”?  Then tell me to leave those concerns with her and to go on about my day as if my troubles were already taken care of.  Before I even knew Christ as my personal Lord and Savior, my mother embodied for me what that relationship should look like.  I’m thankful for my mother introducing me to the Lord by the way she handled me.  We didn’t go to church regularly on Sunday’s.  I wasn’t in Bible study during the week.  But the relationship that my mother intentionally created between us gave me the ability to understand love beyond measure and exhibited for me a person willing to sacrifice themselves for the betterment of those she loved.  Maya Angelou had to have used my mother for her muse.  Because she was a phenomenal woman indeed. 

My mother raised me to believe that GOD would defend and protect me.  She’d constantly utter the words, “don’t let other people block your blessings.”  As a child I couldn’t understand it.  Nevertheless, I always trusted her word.  Though there were times when I felt the appropriate response to what I deemed disrespect was equal disrespect.  However, my mother would always say, “naw Man, don’t respond like that.  Don’t let other people block your blessings.”  “What you mean Ma?”  I’ve always been blessed.  Even in the midst of the most dire situations.  And it wasn’t because of anything special that I did.  Other then, not responding the way I saw fit, which ultimately could’ve led to others blocking my blessings.  Now the blessings were abound and abundant.  The blessings came in the form of protection, prosperity, opportunity, forgiveness. The blessings came from elders who viewed me differently and we’re willing to take their time to invest in me wise words of counsel.  The blessings came from people who were willing to defend me, speak my name in rooms I wasn’t physically present in.  The blessings came from people who didn’t handle me the same as they handled others.  I’ve been protected because I was raised to believe everything that my mother taught me.

You know, as a 50+ year old man, I had an epiphany.  One day I eagerly called out to my wife “baby, baby I just recalled something.”  I went in to say, “my mother ain’t never lied to me.  Everything she ever told me was the truth.”  Now granted, I may not have wanted to hear it.  But in hindsight, I can’t find a flaw in her speech.  I actually beamed when I realized that proclamation.  Who my mother was and what she means to me can’t be summed up with my finite vocabulary.  If I was a painter I’d paint the most beautiful picture that man had ever laid their eyes on and that would still fall short of who my mother is.  If I was a poet, I’d utter words as eloquently as Maya Angelou and my art would still fall short of who my mother is.  PHENOMENAL WOMAN INDEED.  That’s why, when a person say to me, “it’ll get easier in time” I find their statement to be somewhat blasphemous.  I don’t know what kind of mother you had, nor the kind of relationship you had with her.  But the kind of mother I had and the kind of relationship we had, the length of her death doesn’t make it easier for me.  Instead, it does the exact opposite.

I miss my mother so much!  She recently came to me in my dreams.  She hugged me.  She wrapped me in her arms and hugged me.  In the latter stages of my mom’s declining health, she would ask me, “Man, are you scared”?  And I’d say, “naw ma, I ain’t scared.”  My mother raised me to “not get scared until she got scared.”  And I ain’t never seen her scared.  So, in response to her question, I’d ask, “are you scared,” to which she replied, “yes, for you.”  At the time, I didn’t have a clue what she meant, but it didn’t take long for me to find out.  Even as a grown man, do you know how difficult it is to traverse this world without your parents?  You know the inevitable is, one day you’ll be without them.  But not until that day come, can you ever imagine what it’s like to not have them to fall back on.  I’d argue that you’re not fully grown until you’ve had to successfully navigate this world without the counsel of your parents in their physical form.  Right now I only live off of recollection.  Do you know what I would give to just sit with my mom, talk with my mom, laugh with my mom, be in the comfort of my mom?  I’d give it all.

I’m an only child.  I have rough days.  Rough days.  And there’s really no one that I can share my feelings with, that can totally relate to how I’m feeling.  My wife sympathizes with me and comforts me as best as she can.    My youngest daughter and I share fond memories, pictures and laughs with one another.  My stepdaughter shares kind and supporting words with me.  My homeboy’s, who are more like brothers to me, allow me to vent and don’t judge me, nor deem me weak for doing so.  My mother’s family, the handful of us left, lend silent meaningful support.  As they too grapple with her absence and the great void it manifested.

I’m crying as I write this.  However, it’s important that I write this.  It’s important that I capture in words, photos and emotion who my mother is.  I need others to read this memoir and be encouraged to love and cherish their mother, or just remember the goodness of their mother.  Be grateful for your mother.  Don’t take your mother for granted.  Don’t take the time you have left with your mother for granted.  Honor your mother by living a life that reflects those greatest attributes of her, and how she raised you.  When she call, answer the phone.  Don’t wait for her to die to then post on social media, “I wish there was a phone in heaven.”  Love her as much as you can while you can because we’re all on borrowed time.

The week my mother died, she’d been in the hospital for four days.  With her compromised lungs, she’d caught pneumonia.  The day she was being discharged from the hospital, I was there to prepare to bring her home.  We had to wait for ambulance transportation.  She was being sent home to begin receiving hospice care.  We made it to her house safe and sound by 12pm.  I texted my homeboy’s, my brothers, to inform them that “I brought my mother home.”  The nurse from hospice care arrived to our home at about 1pm.  She was there to speak to me, my uncle and my cousin about what home hospice care for my mom would look like.  I asked the nurse, “how long of a process is this”?  She told me, “it could take months, weeks or days.”  She never told me that it could take hours.  My mother died less than three hours later.  The next text that I sent my brothers was me telling them that my mother passed away.  One of my brother’s responded, “I thought I had time…”

I too thought I had time.  And every now and then, I find myself wishing that I had done more with the time that my mother and I had together.  On my left hand, I now have the words “Dear Mama” tatted with a comma.  It’s a subtle reminder for me to live my life, daily, in a way that honors my mother based on how she raised me.  In her passing, I’m writing a continuous love letter to my mother, who was once my Earthly Angel, but who now resides as my Heavenly Angel.  Dear Mama, I pray that when we meet again, prayerfully after GOD gives his approval for my earthly efforts, you smile at me and say, “I concur son.”  To which I’ll then say, “THANK YOU MA.”