Letters to My Mother

Contents

Introduction

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Dénouement

Introduction

It was a quiet morning in September, a very memorable morning. This particular piece of work you’re now holding, sincerely a labor of love, had been on my mind for months. I had just completed my morning workout with vigor, having reached a new level of performance I was proud, and felt the day was off to a good start. I was now looking forward to a productive day at work. I considered the completion of this activity, and my perspective towards the coming day, to be good positive portents; but when I looked out the window and stared at the morning sky, the day that was in the offing could only be considered tenuous at best, dark clouds, rumbling thunder, crying sky, big droplets, endless waterfalls, in a word … gloomy.

Why?

Why gloomy, why tenuous at best when the air still seemed sweet and mind and body appeared to be strong? Looking out at the sky as the sweat dried and my mind wandered I heard the words in my head, giving life an implied meaning. The day itself communicated. I turned on the news and the usual manic mantra cycled. Twenty-four hour news interfered with my peace, and the words, the question of the day grew louder.

Yes, the morning held a question, a question asked of itself and of us, that is to say us humans, the denizens of this world. The gloomy question, was this morning a precursor of days yet to come? As the morning progressed, despite the rain the heat would soon break through. The cool and calm would be disturbed by mankind, his presence upon this Earth, what he has done to it, and what has been done to him in response, a cycle of explicit negativity seeking a positive exit. I heard the sky ask, why?

Atlantans as one had grown tired of the summer and the interminable heat. Yes, this was Hotlanta, but many felt that this summer, our second Obama Summer, a summer where the zeitgeist seemed to be open to the possibility of Global Warming … again, this summer was quite enough. We had grown tired of the heat and pined for the cooling fall. The leaves had already started falling, falling in hundred degree weather.

The trees were clearly confused.

As adults we become very accustomed to the cycles of our lives. We come to accept our finiteness; that we, as well as our works are not forever. However, the inevitability of loss is painful and always makes one think, and consider, when one is brave enough to face the truth. Even as we now change our world and affect it on a more grand scale, with some very critically adverse consequences, we persist in the movement forward as finite beings. We must learn to come to grips with who we are during this short but special time, what makes us, and how we can make ourselves so much better, thereby in the aggregate leaving lasting works that move our world and the works therein towards the positive, a world of growth and prosperity.

On this morning, after my wife left for work, before my child woke to get ready for school, after my workout, as I cooled and meditated, I considered. I considered loss. I considered what can and should be gained. I considered what made me. I considered parents. I considered love.

I opened my eyes and found myself sitting at my desk considering how … how would I start this book? On a memorable morning after the high of endorphins and flexed muscles, a body in synch with its spirit geared towards achieving Critical Success, utilizing mental tools to provide myself with answers, the clear answer danced just beyond reach, but only for a moment. In my mind’s eye the answer, the approach danced into my mental arms. A smile slowly spread across my face.

There was so much to say. Indeed, there was so much to consider. However, I knew. In my smile, the smile of the inured, the soul that knows, understands experiences, recognizes and knows how to relate, I knew.

I recognize that as a child, I am the culmination, the creation of love between people who desired me, wanted me to be, and in the being grow to be something more, something they could be proud of. My father and my mother made me. I am their child. They loved me without restraint. They loved me and nurtured me. My smile grew wider with the flood of memories. I was remembering parents, remembering fathers, seeing mothers, strong mothers, women who hold this world up.

How do I start? Where do I begin? I sat. I thought. I typed. And in the thinking, the words began to take shape, in the typing I began to craft what you see. On a memorable morning of melancholy mixed with the joy of possible success I drew forth my order from the mental chaos, an order that conveyed love.

It made perfect sense. I would say the things that should be said … from my perspective of course. I would start simply, at the beginning, with what was, then move to what remains, what will always remain as a part of me, and then endeavor to convey what I pray I pass on to my own child.

I’ll start with the love.

My mother loves me. And I so, so, so love my mother. When I stop and think about it, when I reach deep inside, I feel my love for her. I know its depth. I take joy in knowing it is boundless. I take joy in remembering the moments over the years, the times shared. The lessons both hard and soft, harsh and delicate. I remember the loud and the quiet. I remember the perseverance. I remember the unwavering support. I remember these things and in my mind’s eye the chapters of this book take full form. I remember particular formative events and the pages come to life. I can see them so clearly. The words form the images, the images have life, another powerful gift of the mind almost without limit, a gift that so many seem to have discarded in our modern world, but my mother pressed into me relentlessly. I owe my love of reading, the power of my imagination, to my mother.

The images are the powerful remembrances. The remembrances are what I wish to share. This book is one man’s monument, my monument to mothers. Understand this is not just for my mother. Though this book is to her, and for her, I know she would take pleasure in knowing that my words are meant to be shared, to serve with strength and conviction, and spread the lessons of love from mother to son, and son back to mother.

Why am I writing this? Because I recognize and know intimately what parental love looks like. I know and will always feel the love of my mother. Why am I writing this? I’m writing it to share, to provide an example. You see, far too many children in this world are not loved. No one cares for them. In this, they are disadvantaged, and so grow up as broken things, human beings with an ever increasing possibility to tend towards failure, destruction, a loss of hope, or with hope at best the lowest subsistence. My life’s experience is the exception, not the norm. I hope to help change this.

Why am I writing this book? Because I love my mother. She is mommy, still mommy, my succor, the woman who nourished me in a manner that all mothers should nourish their children. She, and my father, set the example. What I do for my own child has a basis in what they taught me. There are differences. Of course there will be differences, things that my wife and I do differently. However, with every step I take I will consider my mother.

This book is dedicated to her.

Dedicated to my mother, Bessie Louise Williams Brown, my foundation, the table upon which my own foundational rock rests. Completing my circle of birth and growth into manhood is my foundational rock, my father, John Heard Brown, upon whom I have established my personal basis, my inner strength, my rule of life. I was blessed. Yes, I was definitely blessed. This book is dedicated to my mother, and the community of mothers who all had a hand in raising me. Yes, this book is dedicated to all the mothers, all over the world, the phenomenal women who nurture us, care for us, raise us to be strong, and then release us into the world, thankless in their responsibility, thankless in their burden of such duty, thankless but never at a loss for love. This book is for you.

Chapter 1

The Little Sugah Lump

And then there was a miracle.

I was a miracle. Yes, I say yes resoundingly with unequivocal certainty. Yes, I was a miracle. What miracle do I describe? Well, in all honesty, considering it comparatively there is nothing special about me, though I am indeed very special. The dichotomy is not really all that complex. Grasp the understanding that we all, the many multitudes are truly a miracle. There is a reason we call it the miracle of birth. It is not a mundane thing. Though we may one day grow to populate the stars, and I certainly hope we do realize such a momentous future, each and every birth realized is truly a miracle, a gift.

Consider a woman, all that she is, her mind, body and spirit, the entirety of her being; when it’s made ready, it can and through a specific process gives rise to a whole new life, a new person. Her body, a human being full of a million million possibilities gives rise to another human being, a new person full of a million million possibilities. This is such a profound miracle as to almost boggle the mind and defy description. Yet it happens again, and again, and far too many of us have come to consider it mundane, such is the limiting nature of our readily finite minds. We don’t take the time to grasp the greatness, to truly internalize it, look at the everyday of humanity, and wonder.

We are wonderful, beautiful, bright beings. We are truly miracles.

My earliest memories involve the apartment where I spent my first years. Atlanta’s Seven Courts Complex on Martin Luther King Jr. Drive was a seventies model of modern efficiency, the latest in middle-class luxury, as far as apartments went. Back then MLK Drive was called Gordon Street. I can remember my bedroom, my bed, the furniture. I have often tried to remember even more, back to when there was no bed, but I can’t.

I have sometimes wondered whether hypnosis would uncover finer, earlier details.

Though I can’t remember any further back than what I assume to be three years old, it is enough. I firmly remember love. I remember love so pervasive as to warm the heart unto breaking, to remember how my father and mother felt about me. I remember being loved, being wanted. My daddy called me his little shit pot. I know, strange right? I’ll save the explanation for another time.

My mother gave birth to me, one such miracle, on a wintery night in 1971, February 12th to be exact. The way my father lovingly explained it to me again and again is something I’ll never forget.

How was it, Daddy?

What, you?

Yeah, me.

Sitting back on the sofa, taking in a deep breath, he smiled, chuckling as he related to me again