Honoring Mom

Friends,
I know it’s been a long time since I blogged, but I’ve been dealing with the sadness and grief over the death of my mother. My Mom, Mildred McCray passed away in March, and my world turned upside down. I will forever be changed.

For all of you who know me, you know I’m just a little different. Special, my friends say with a smile and a wag of their hands from side-to-side. I never take offense, because somebody got me. Mom got me. She got my brand of “special.” She let me get away with stuff nobody else could get away with. I say I can’t cook. I can, but I say I can’t because when I was little I hated being in that hot kitchen all holiday long cooking when there was so much football to watch on TV. I would inevitably get in trouble, get a spanking and sent into the living room to be dealt with by my father. Other nutcases would have been scared. Daddy could be scary. But I figured I'd already been in trouble once, what else was he going to do? Daddy was cool on those Sunday's. He'd kiss my beaten thigh and sit me right next to him, then return to yelling at the TV. His favorite word was and still is Shiiit.

So to this day, I’ve never cooked a turkey, I have no idea how to make macaroni and cheese from scratch or greens or cabbage, and to cook a lot of food at one time fills me with so much anxiety, I run for the movie section of the newspaper.

Mom got that. She once tried to tell me how to clean a turkey, picking stray feathers and hairs--over the phone. First, how gross is that and second, let's be for real. Me?? I'm holding this thing that has filled my sink, and it stinks like raw meat. Ok, it was raw, but still--Mom asks me about necks and gizzards. I start feeling faint. No kidding. She asks if I have the bag. Huh? I have an English degree, but huh? Then I know what she's talking about. I tell her, hell naw. I'm not sticking my hand up a turkey's ass to get a bag of innards. I promise if she doesn't get to Atlanta by the next day, I will hurl me and the turkey off my second story balcony. One of us isn't going to make it to Thanksgiving dinner for 42 at my house in two days. After she laughed her head off, she let me change her ticket, and the turkey was the hit of the holiday. Yeah, I'm special.

I miss all the things that made Mom special. Her laugh, because she always got the joke. Her temper and intelligence. Her peacemaking and hellraising abilities. The sterness and the kindness of her hands. Her words and intuition and her thoughts. Her fortitude and creativity. Her ethics and her dreams. Her wisdom and her unflagging support. Her love. Her love. Her love. I am a part of her and she is a part of me. I’m living my dream because of her. I’ll love her forever. Happy Birthday Mom. Tomorrow she would have been 64.
Love Always,
Carmen Green