“I finally understand
for a woman it ain’t easy tryin to raise a man
You always was committed
A poor single mother on welfare, tell me how ya did it
There’s no way I can pay you back
But the plan is to show you that I understand
You are appreciated.”
-2Pac, may he rest in peace, “Dear Mama”
As I sit here in Arkansas, the first Thanksgiving I can remember that my mother and I aren’t together stuck in either some insane drama or peacefully doing the two-person holiday, I’ve been thinking about all the stuff I’ve been saying to people about the work I’m doing and the work I’ve done, the work I’m going to keep doing, where I came from, etc. I’ve also been thinking about how my mother told me, before I left Oxford, how she felt like she wasn’t contributing much to the world anymore, due to her disability and the pain and the limits it puts on her. So today I want to share with everyone all the reasons I’m thankful for you.
I’ve pointed this out in a few posts– and it’s actually in my teaching philosophy– but what a number of people don’t seem to realize about me (not that it’s ever been a secret, or that I’ve had any shame) is that I was raised by a single mother who had to shield me from her crazy adoptive family, my crazy abusive father, my briefly-there abusive step-father, and a community who expected me to be white. She managed to raise me right and to teach me my culture even without me realizing it. She sacrificed and sacrificed so I could have cool toys to learn with, gadgets, expensive shoes and decent clothes, a car that people wouldn’t laugh at. In short, she gave everything she could so that I could be the person I am, and she took her role as a parent very, very seriously.
More than that, though, she’s always been my best friend and the person I could always talk to, and as much as it pains me to say this about the rest of the world, my mother is literally the only person I know who hasn’t at some point, in some way, betrayed me. She taught me the value of trust and the value of nurturing. She fed my curiosity and helped me to become a critical thinker and a writer. She kept me humble and kind. During the brief time that she tried to leave me to stand on my own, I stood, but I wasn’t standing all that tall. I needed someone to help me, and without my mother, no one was willing to extend their hand.
I had a moment, and I’m just going to outright say it, where being in academia was changing me. In bad, bad ways. It was the influence of people around me at the time. I was short with people. I was always angry and walking around in a fog of depression. My mom found a way to drag me slowly back into the light and to rescue myself from becoming an insufferable, suffering jerk.
So she might be a number of things: in need of some help now herself, tired after a life of hard labor and absorbing hits for both of us. She might be at a time where she just needs to understand how life changes for all of us and she needs to find happiness in this new role and enjoy her hobbies, her learning, being an advisor. But the last thing she is, or ever will be, is worthless or useless.
In fact it is I who often feel I’m the failure among us. You see my mother made all these sacrifices for me, and presumably, if I trust the people who advise me and who mentor me now, I’m “good” at what I do. I made something of the sacrifices. I made good.
But I continue to be set back. I don’t make as much money as I should. I continue to be passed over by people who, on paper, are not as good. I feel as if I am worthless, as if I cannot pay what I owe. I’m making it, but just barely. A thread holds it all together. It shouldn’t be this hard given my qualifications and presumed skills.
And so often times, I am distraught, or even a little bit depressed (in the “not feeling so hot” sense and not in the “clinical” sense). On this Thanksgiving, I wish I could give back what I’ve been given, and until I can, I’ll never know if it’s enough to say, “thank you, Mom, I love you.”
But it will have to be.
Thank you, Mom. I love you. Don’t ever underestimate your value.