A Conversation with my Mother

I walk up to her front door and pause. I take a deep breath in through my nose filling my lungs beyond capacity, holding it for as long as I can. Maybe the stress in my lungs will somehow make the conversation easier. My eyes close, and they have that stinging feeling I get when I am about to cry. I am not sad or scared or even particularly worried about the inevitable conversation. Yet, something inside of me still feels like I am that little boy trying desperately to get his mother’s attention. Like I am still waiting for her to look at me and say she is proud of me. 

I release the breath. My lungs feel better but I still have that uneasy feeling coursing through my body. I’m a 50 year old man with a beautiful wife and four wonderful children. My son Noah played basketball overseas and works for the FBI, my stepson, Jason owns his own business after attending one of the top MBA programs in the nation, Elisa performs on Broadway  and my youngest, Abigail is a veterinarian and just got engaged. I have written over 20 books, most of which landed on the New York Times bestsellers list and have become some of the most successful movies and shows ever. My wife owns her own accounting firm. We are financially free and can do whatever we want whenever we want. I make more money than the majority of my family combined. I have a charity that helps black and brown children find their dreams and reach their goals. On almost all accounts, I am a success and have a beautiful life. 

Still, I am standing outside of my mother’s door, hoping that she’ll smile and tell me she’s proud of me. 

It’s not like she’s never said it to me, that would be a lie but the words were usually shrouded by a thin layer of obligation. The words often spilling out after someone else in the family bragged about my success or watched one of my movies or read one of my books. The first time I was on Oprah, I had to call her afterwards, to which she replied, “I saw. That’s nice. But you could have trimmed your beard. It looked unruly.” 

It was either that, or a comparison to my older brother, Felipe, who was clearly her favorite. Everything I do or have done, has been compared to his accomplishments whether or not they were even similar. If they were similar, it wouldn’t matter if I found more success or if my efforts were more effective, he was always the bar. At least to her. 

Maybe that’s exactly why I have been so successful. I think about it sometimes and wonder why I am never satisfied, despite my loving wife thinking I am the most amazing and talented man ever. I often wish that I could see myself through her eyes and instead, I see myself through the eyes of my mother. 

Critical, unimpressed, cold. 

Standing outside of her door in the middle of a New England fall day, the leaves on the grass remind me that my father is gone. He would have never let the grass get like that. I smile and at the same time shed a tear. We’d grown apart over the last 20 years. Really, following his return from the war, a few years before my wedding, but I don’t want to think about that now because I can’t hold that guilt before this conversation. 

My wife encouraged me to come here. What a saint. I haven’t been the best husband to her. Working all of the time, going away for weeks on end and calling it work related but really just wanting to be alone. I go through these bouts of needing to be alone, which I think I get from my mother. When my dad died my wife, Diana told me I should come and see my mother. I mean, I saw her at the funeral but Felipe and his family had moved back to the area, returning after almost ten years in Atlanta and so there was no room for me. Besides Lee, my baby sister, and her husband practically moved in with their kids. 

I love my siblings, but as the middle child, I always felt caught between Felipe’s accomplishments and Lee’s needs. I often had to find my own motivations. 

A cold breeze shakes me and I realized that I had been standing outside of her door for almost ten minutes, just thinking about everything. About my life. Our life. 

I press the doorbell and listen to the muffled chime echoing throughout the house. It feels hollow. My dad not being there must have opened up some space in the house that was way too big for a 78 year old woman. 

I hear her walking towards the door, her slippers scratching the hardwood floor. Knowing my mother, they are probably the same ones she’s had since I was a kid and if not, they are an exact replica. 

The wait feels like forever. Maybe I am nervous, I think to myself. Then a small, grey haired woman opens the door. Her hair in two french braids, her glasses balancing on the tip of her pointy nose. She’s wearing her signature sweatsuit, a heather grey crew neck and navy blue sweatpants. A fluffy white robe wrapped loosely around her fragile body. She looks like she aged a lot since 6 months earlier when Dad died. She looks exactly like I remember my grandmother looking before she passed. 

She smiles at me. “My sweet baby.” Her eyes well up with tears and it’s the first time I see my mother cry since I was 19 years old. 

Wrapping two thin arms around my neck, she pulls me down in the warmest embrace I have ever felt from her in all of my 50 years. I am crying now too, but silently, as tears rush down my cheeks. I want to stay in her arms forever.

She releases me and I feel a bit of sadness as she pulls back. A leathery and boney hand reaches up and wipes the tears from my face. “Come. Come. You want some coffee?”

“Yeah, Ma. I could use some.” I close the door behind me. 

She shuffles into the living room which looks different, again. She changes things frequently, never leaving anything in the home the same for more than a year. I smile, as I scan the walls and look at a bunch of pictures of the grandbabies. There must be 20 images scattered around the living room. I find 3 pictures of my children. One from Noah and Jason’s graduation with their two sisters around them, Noah's senior picture and another of Abigail when she was four. The rest are pictures of Felipe and Lee’s kids. 

I am not surprised. 

I sit down at the long kitchen table and wait for my coffee. Mom pops a k-cup in the Keurig slowly and presses 12 without asking me what I want or how I want it. 

“How you been, Ma?” I ask, breaking the silence. 

“Good, by God’s grace.” She doesn’t look over at me. 

“Seen Felipe or Lee recently?” I ask. 

“Yes, they were here this past weekend. You should see Felipe’s new car. It’s nice, has a third row and fully electric. Has that auto-drive feature. He’s doing good. You know he was on CNN last month?”

“I know, Mom. That’s good.” I look outside at my $80,000 car with all of the same features that Felipe’s car has and just shake my head. I know what Felipe drives. My car cost twice as much and has way better amenities. I don’t say that though.  

“Yes. That boy does so well. His wife is doing good, too. She’s the new assistant Principal at the school down there, in Rhode Island.”

I correct her, “Connecticut, Ma. They are in Connecticut, now.”

‘That’s right. Your sister and them are in Rhode Island.” 

“Yeah.” 

She pulls the hot cup of coffee from the tray and brings it over to me. She can barely hold the cup, it shakes in her hand. I stand up to grab it from her but she has none of that. “Sit down. I got this.” 

Her voice has a sharpness to it, just like I remember. I think I hoped it would have been worn down over time but I was wrong. I comply and sit back down. She sits across from me and I realize that she isn’t having coffee. 

“House looks good.” I take a sip from the cup. It’s watery, I look down and can tell that she just reused her Keurig cup. 

She was always situationally frugal despite my dad having an amazing military pension, and her working 20 years for the state. Not to mention his life insurance policy leaving her with well over a million dollars. It’s not even like she has a mortgage; I paid off their house with my first large check. Still, she always found ways to save a buck when it came to things like this. 

“Cleanliness is close to Godliness.” She smiles, the wrinkles around her eyes become more pronounced. 

“You getting out? Down cape at all seeing your siblings?”

“After your uncle passed I haven’t been down much. You know how they are. Jealous of my success.” 

I nod in fake agreement. I don’t even think she believes that but she says it because it makes her feel better. “You should call them.” 

“I will. You know I love them. I really do and I pray for them every day.” 

I know she means this. She always means what she says. Her problem is that she says everything that she means and her words are sharp and they cut deep and often leave scars. 

“I know, Ma. How’s things since Pop?”

“He’s in heaven and I am so happy he is with Jesus.” She puts on a smile, but this one isn’t like any of the others. It’s forced. It’s fake. 

“Yeah.” I take another sip of my watery coffee. 

“Mmmhmmm. God took him home and to dust we shall return. You know, Jesus got a plan and it is perfect. That’s why I am ok with myself and who I am. I have been faithful to Him and He is so good.”

I nod, smile a fake smile right back at her and sip my coffee. I want to tell her that her faith is confusing to me. That the Jesus she worships never cut with his words. That Jesus loved without condition. At least that’s what I’ve read. Maybe we read different Bibles. Yet, I refrain. 

“So, Ma, what you gonna do with yourself? You still got a lot of life left.” I am dancing around why I came.

“You don’t know that. God willing, I got days but I am ok if I die right now. I am right with God. I am right with myself. I am going to heaven. You better repent and do what you can to get to heaven. You baptized right?” 

Here she goes, I think to myself. “Yeah, Ma.” 

“You been in church? In ya bible? You know, God don’t like those books you write with all that violence and blood and scary monsters.” 

It was only a matter of time. I contemplate lying to her but I can hear Diana telling me that this visit needs to be truthful not peaceful. 

Peaceful visits are what we’ve had for the last 20 years. I told her how I felt about my childhood and how I felt about her and she dismissed me, her words were, “This is me. I am damn near 60 and I ain’t changing. You should know that by now so take it or leave it.” 

Well I couldn’t leave it but I couldn’t take it either, so I accepted things that I cannot change and tempered our interactions. I stopped disagreeing with her, arguing with her or trying to convince her of anything. She has a tendency to recall events through the lens of her intent but she forgets what actually transpired. There is nothing to be done in those moments other than accept it or fight it. I took fight it off the table 20 years ago and I thought I was ok but Diana helped me to realize all I did was box that stuff up and shove it into a closet. Out of sight but it was still taking up space in my soul. This visit was supposed to be different. It had to be. 

I take a breath, “Nah, Ma. No church. I don’t believe in it. As for the bible, I think it’s a tool of oppression and no, my stories are my creative flow. I love what I do and what I write. It brings me joy and each story has a social commentary and a protagonist from a marginalized community. I represent for those who are not seen.”

My mom’s face tightens up. Her eyes turn to slits, her brow furrows. “I didn’t raise you like that, Gabriel.”

“No. No you didn’t but I have my own mind. I believe in God just not what organized religion tells us. More a combination of the teachings of Buddah, Jesus, the Tao.”

“That’s devil talk!” She yells, but she’s so fragile it barely registers in my mind as a scream. 

“What? Believing in something other than what you believe in?” 

“No, all that garbage about Buddhist and Daow or whatever you said. Jesus is the one true savior. The way the truth and the light. You are going to burn in hell for eternity.” 

20 years ago these words would have made me angry. I would have fought her on it. Last year, I would have smiled and nodded and took her statements. Today, I look at her and realize that she is saying it out of fear. Fear that I will burn in some underground cave of fire for the rest of eternity because I don’t subscribe to worshipping a brown haired, blue-eyed middle Eastern man. Because I refuse to live by a book that has been used throughout centuries to enslave, murder and destroy people and cultures with impunity. In the moment, I see that my mother, who might have been the coldest, hardest woman I have ever known, is scared. 

“Ma, I’m not gonna burn in hell.” 

“Boy, you are blaspheming right now. I did not raise you like this!” Her eyes watering again. 

“Ma, It’s ok.” I say, in as soothing a voice as I can. 

“No. Mmmm. No. No. You have to find Jesus before you die or you and your family will burn. You want that, Gabe?” 

“MA!” This time I have a little more fire in my voice. Not to scare her but to get her to listen to me. 

She stops and looks at me, her eyes foggy from tears and retinal deterioration. “What?”, she says, exasperated.

“What did I do to you?” 

She freezes for a moment, long enough that we both know that my words are accurate. They hit close. 

“What are you talking about?” She pretends to be confused. 

“Ma, what did I do to you that made you so critical of me? What did I do that made you hate me? How come you never said “I love you” back to me? What happened?” 

“I said ‘I love you!’” her defenses shot up, which I had anticipated. 

“Through text, sure but for most of my childhood I would say ‘I love you’ and you would say, ‘yup, you too.’ , if I was lucky. If I wasn’t you’d say, ‘if you loved me you wouldn’t do what you do to me’. Problem was ma, I have no idea what I did to you but I am asking now.”

She opens her mouth to respond but she doesn’t. I wasn’t expecting this because she always has something to say. My mother always had a defense. A reason for her cold ways and tough exterior. I’d heard stories before but I need to know, now and forever, what it was that I did that made it so my mother couldn’t love me the way that I needed. I wasn’t leaving until we hashed this all out. 

I wasn’t going to leave until she told me her story and I told her mine. I needed that closure and so did she. 

She looks down at the table and I see a tear splash off the wood. Looking up at me, her eyes wet with sadness and pain she takes  a deep breath in, just like I had outside, paused, then exhaled. 

I place a hand on her hand, “Let’s figure this out, Ma.”