Although I was loved and well taken care of, a part of me felt like an outsider. I was sort of like having the starring role in a film only to feel like the viewer watching the screen. As a child, these emotions were hard to articulate.
Being a part but feeling detached had pretty much been my norm. I guess this is not hard to understand when you consider that I had a father who I only saw sporadically and a mother where the bulk of our relationship transpired over the phone.
I am sure I was an addition to an already complicated equation. My mom was the third oldest of 11 children. At the time of my birth, my family lived in a 3 bedroom, 1 bath Jim Walter home in rural Mississippi. My grandparents had three children under the age of 5 and my mom and her oldest sister delivered babies within eight days of each other. Growing up, there seemed to always be “another one” and it was all taken in stride.
I entered the world on January 7, 1974. My mom was a senior in high school and the salutatorian of her graduating class when I was conceived. Since my mother suffered from a condition called preeclampsia, I was born 4 weeks premature at 4 pounds, 9 ounces.
My grandma would often joke that I was so small that my butt cheeks didn’t even touch! She would periodically recount the story of how my mom had to be rushed to the hospital in a hearse during an ice storm. My mom doesn’t recall much of the birth because she claims she was only partially conscious.
Everyone has always bragged about how smart and talented my mom was. Her intellect and work ethic were both demonstrated after she took a gap year, but still managed to graduate from college at the same time as her high school classmates.
I guess I was too young to remember her not being around during her college years because I know she did stay on campus. Although the University of Mississippi was only 30 minutes away, it was unrealistic at the time for her to commute to and from school every day. My first real memories of my mom’s absence was around the first grade. By then she had moved three hours away to take a full-time job as an operator at Bell South.
Even back then, I knew that my mom loved me, and I understood that she had good reasons for her physical absence, but I often wondered why we could not be together. I longed for her to come and get me. I longed to be the apple of my mother’s eye.
When you are raised in such a large family, you are just one of the group. You just kind of merge into one big concern. We have to feed “the kids”. We have to get “the kids” ready for school. Make sure “the kids” get their homework done.When you have a family this large, the older siblings become caregivers to the younger siblings. By the time I came along, I can only imagine the amount of childrearing my 17-year-old mother had done.
I was much older before I overheard my mom retelling the story of how she and my grandmother discussed whether or not I should move with her when she left to live on her own. My grandmother advised her to leave me there so she could establish herself first. I must admit that hearing this story did bring me some relief that I wasn’t that easy to walk away from.
I couldn’t help but think nobody bothered to ask me what I wanted. I know that I was blessed to grow up in a loving family that willingly supported a young unwed mother. Many in her position probably would have been encouraged to have an abortion.
I do not hold any grudges against my mother for how things played out. This is just one thread of my story that helped to knit the fabric of my psyche. Growing up the way that I did instilled in me a resilience to stand in the face of overwhelming odds.
During the hardest seasons of my marriage, I remember fantasizing about how it would feel to just get in my car, drive away and never look back. These memories from my own childhood made me find the mental and spiritual fortitude to fight to stay with my children so that they would never have to experience any type of abandonment.
I also understand now that my grandmother and my mother did what they thought was best for everyone involved. My grandmother was raised by her grandmother, so I guess it was just natural for her to do the same thing for her daughter.
I appreciate that my mother worked to stay connected to me. She could have easily gone on with her life and never looked back, but she didn’t. We talked every Saturday morning. I remember the excitement I would feel when I got to go to her house to spend some private time with her. We would load the car and drive to Buchannan Hill in Holly Springs to catch the Greyhound bus to Jackson.
My mom lived in a one-bedroom apartment, literally around the corner from my biological father’s house in West Jackson. The one thing that stood out even then was the quiet. The Smith household was anything but quiet back then. I remember feeling so special spending this quality time with my mom.
We would go to the zoo and spend a lot of time at her best friend Dorothy’s house playing with her son. I remember the trips to the Metro Center, the mall that wasn’t too far from my mom’s apartment. Most of all, I remember basking in my mom’s attention. For those visits, I got my heart’s desire to experience what it would feel like to be
