My mother is a true mother. We kids go to her with every need. It’s as if we think she is the smartest woman in the world. As her kids, we think that, but it is not true. My mother, like me, didn’t graduate from high school, yet we go to her with our health and our legal problems, our spiritual dilemmas, just everything. When I am sick on the road, I call and tell her that I’m sick. She says with her soothing voice, “I’m going to get out there to take care of you.” She books a flight for herself and Zion and comes to wherever I am. Knowing that they are on their way makes me feel better even before they arrive. She gives me her homemade remedies and I’m miraculously healed. I remember one time she came to my rescue when I thought I was losing my voice. She brought some tea and honey with lemon and whiskey. She called it a hot toddy. Mama rubbed my neck with Vick’s ointment and wrapped my neck and chest with white hotel towels, and then put me to sleep with her humming a tune in my ear. I was able to sing the next morning.
As a teen mother of three before she was twenty, my mother has provided me with wisdom that you can’t get in school or in books. She has taught me really important lessons that I take with me in everyday life. My mother’s values continue to sustain me. I hope to pass these valuable life lessons that began with my grandmother, were passed on to my mother, and given to me to pass on to Zion—I only hope it won’t take Zion so long to get it. And I hope that she won’t have to make all kinds of terrible mistakes to realize that she should listen to me.
Mama always said, Respect yourself and others. My mother always tells me that she tried to be the kind of woman who would avoid certain situations that made her appear to be anything less than a good mother. Mama tells me this is because of the kind of mother she had in Addie. She tells me now, “If I ever drank a beer, you would have never known. I carried myself in a respectful way, just like my Mama did and just like you should at all times.” She wanted us to always respect her. “I wanted y’all to be proud of me,” she still says with tears in her eyes, fearing that we don’t because of the mistakes she has made, like staying with Daddy after he cheated on and disrespected her. But I know now that she did the best that she knew how to do at the time.
Because my mother created such an image of who she was and still is, I use the same way of thinkin’ toward Zion. I never want her to be able to say to me that she saw me in a compromising position, disrespecting myself. I make sure of that, even though I’m in an industry where sex sells. I work extra hard to be someone that my baby can emulate and be proud of, so that she can be proud of who she is. I want to have the freedom to tell Zion when she gets to be thirteen years old, “You ain’t wearing that skirt.” And Zion won’t be able to look at me and say, “Why not? You were wearing it in that video you were doing.” That’s because her mama would have taught her to respect herself, just like my mama tried to teach me.
“Believe in God” was what my mother told me every single day of my life, because that was what her mama told her, but also because it was how she lived. My mother taught me from the womb about God. She taught me that God was something bigger than us and something bigger than the eye could see. My mom saw God in action when Aunt Surayda was killed and when Grandma Addie almost lost her mind from the grief of it all. Grandma Addie carried the loss of Surayda in her heart, mind, and body. My mother thought she would lose her mother, too. But Grandma Addie got through it by asking God to take the pain away. She asked Him to lift the pain—and He did. Within a few weeks Grandma Addie was able to carry on with her life and raise Aunt Surayda’s two daughters, who needed her. Mama saw God in action and that’s why she always told me to enlist God in my battles and He will make everything better. And I have seen it happen in my own life time and time again.
Mama also taught me how to pray. Prayer was instilled in me just like the principles of right and wrong. It was just something that we did,often. And I always remember that she would say, “Although, you don’t see the results right away, keep the faith. Faith will give you peace beyond understanding.” Mama said that God was the man who is behind the scenes to keep us going. After those initial talks about God, I still have Him with me behind the scenes, on the stage, and in my heart at all times. One of the things that I love about my mother is that she continues to be a prayin’ mom. I love that her prayers keep a shield over all her kids. But I never knew until I grew up how much praying to God Mama had to do to survive the many hardships her family had gone through. She prayed through her mother’s pain, then her own, and finally her children’s. She is always on her knees prayin’ for us.
