Beware Of The Daddy’s Girl

The father’s toast to his future son-in-law at their engagement party started like this “I already showed you the gun… here’s to taking this last expense off of my hand.” I hollered! 

It reminded me so much of the one time both my dad and then boyfriend/now husband both accompanied me to buy my first new car. They haggled on my behalf. Both standing on each side of me protecting me from this salesman’s pitch. I will never forget the look on my boyfriend’s face when he saw the five one-hundred dollar bills that my dad pulled out. I didn’t miss a beat and took the cash to handle the transaction. Boyfriend talked about that for weeks. He would soon come to learn in our pre-marital counseling sessions that I was a bonafide Daddy’s girl. 

Daddy’s Girls are a dangerous species in the human race. They come with a long list of instructions and warnings attached. Like, she buys shoes every two weeks and because her dad paid for her prom dress (though she was working), she kinda expects you to spend your money first before she spends hers. She doesn’t like bare pantry cabinets. She doesn’t like buying one toilet paper at a time. Costco is her favorite spot and she likes to buy things in bulk. 

She’s sorta, kinda impatient. Her daddy gave her field trip money every time and extra just in case. He was always waiting after her shift ended and she’s since hated having to wait for anything or anyone. No isn’t in her vocabulary because much to mom’s chagrin he could never say no to his baby girl. 

Daddy disciplines but would secretly cry after for doing so. When she is old enough to understand, she can cry you a river and you will never know the difference. Beware because she’s only gotten better at this. Lol!

Daddy reminds his baby girl that men are a dime a dozen and her self-fulfillment comes first. Get your education. Get your own money. If you found someone you could see yourself being happy with, then and only then would you consider putting them first. When this joker doesn’t work out, have a good cry and get on with your life. Remember Daddy taught you to have your own anyway. 

Daddy’s Girls don’t take no for an answer. As they get older they accept the no, but not before trying to find a way to make it a yes. She’s determined and tenacious. She’s a natural born leader. She doesn’t need anyone to tell her she’s cute or smart or the ish. Daddy always told her. So the blah blah compliments and yada yada commendations will always fall on deaf ears.  Daddy already beat them to it. 

Beware of Daddy’s Girls! We, ehem, I mean THEY, are hellions in heels. They run organizations. They run households. They run DIS! And lawd forbid you come across an only Daddy’s Girl. You know the one who had a josue full of brothers, one brother, or no siblings at all?! There’s no competition in a house with the one girl.  There’s no competition other than herself in life for her either. 

Prayers now being accepted for my husband. LMBO! 

Mourning Period

Queen Victoria had the luxury of mourning the death of her beloved husband, Prince Albert, for forty years. Black was her dress and seclusion was her choice. It would naturally be a queen’s prerogative to dress in all black, refuse visitors, and spend the rest of your life as a recluse. Ah…the life of the rich and famous!

Mourning period has since been synthesized into “stages” of grief. Bereavement pay is a luxury (not a right) most employees don’t have. Get the funeral over and done with and get back to work is the American way.

There are no longer “norms” of what’s expected of a grieving family member. No one to say well this specific time is what’s spent in recluse, slowly entering back into society, and finally able to go about “normal” activities. It’s pretty much mourn as you go.

I feel like a loss ship at times. Here it is two weeks after my mother’s funeral and I get the eery feeling that I’m “expected” to be done with it. But I’m not and I don’t want to be “over it.” Asking me to be over it means asking me to get over my mom and that’s not happening.

People went back to their life minutes after the repast. Condolence cards stopped coming a week later. And other than the brave souls who, bless their hearts, are ill-prepared to talk to a grieving person, it’s like walking on egg shells here on out.

That loaded question “how are you” needs to be stricken from conversation one has with a grieving person. It’s pointless and insensitive; especially if you aren’t prepared to hear that I cried on my way to work this week or that I ache each time I have to say to a doctor or service provider that my mother is dead.

One’s “mourning period” is a lifetime in the making. It will be expressed through tears, joy, solitude, purpose, and plain old daily living. It is the proverbial black garb to be worn over one’s heart hidden away. It is a shared language among those who have had loved ones go on before us. It alienates us from some and draws us to others. It builds our faith, our truth in life as we now know it. This new normal.

Send In The Clowns

Isn’t it rich?
Are we a pair?
Me here at last on the ground,
You in mid-air.
Send in the clowns…

I’ve always liked that song. Sung by everyone from Barbara to Frank to Judy, it is a poignant song of missed opportunities and love lost.

I turn 40 next year and the realization that my Maman won’t be PRESENT in life is a shocker. She was never much the celebratory type. Birthdays and holidays hadn’t been her thing for many years now. Yet oddly enough this year I got a beautiful bouquet of flowers.

I’m truthfully not the flowers type but it was from her and I was elated. Texting my friends a picture of this huge collection of pungent flowers, never knowing it would be her last birthday gift to me.

“I love you” had become our parting phrase for some time now but expressions of that love were not as overt as this bouquet. This final parting gift of her appreciation and love for me. Her friends tell me of her pride and love for me. Of new achievements she couldn’t wait to share about me, her daughter.

Oh the irony of me shooting up from a deep sleep searching for the photo of this bouquet, the physical evidence of my mother’s love. She’s gone, I’m here. The subtle messages of love once gone unheeded now blaring louder than words ever will.

Isn’t it bliss?
Don’t you approve?
One who keeps tearing around,
One who can’t move.
Where are the clowns?
Send in the clowns.

Three Piles

It took four sister-friends, great situational satire, and silent prayers to get me through cleaning out my mom’s room. I had contemplated doing it over a period of time. A dresser drawer here, a closet shelf there. But as the clock kept ticking I managed to get three piles together of what’s to keep, what’s to give away, and what’s to throw away.

I thought I would be a basket case sobbing through the whole event–but I wasn’t. I thought I would be numb through it all–yet I wasn’t. Emotions ranged from marvel at how well she kept her things to surprise at finding nuggets of history to regret for realizing some things were forever loss. She still had the doilies from childhood that lay daintily under bric-a-bracs on shelves. She had tons of cassette tapes which I can’t part with just yet. I couldn’t find the VHS of her mother’s funeral. That made me sad. Her bed pads, walkers, wheelchair and unused diapers and wipes are going to people at her church. Even on a fixed income she was buying diapers for another woman in her church who wasn’t blessed to have what she was getting for free. That lady always thought of others first.

I’m so glad I didn’t have to share her with another sister. I used to wear her shirts in middle school when her top size wasn’t that far apart from mine. I realize she loved patterned skirts just like me. She was a blazer junkie and I have the same tendencies. There are some of her dresses I plan to repurpose and make my own.

A couple of brooches will be part of my heirloom. My scarves collection will make room for hers. I’m keeping the Strawberry Shortcake mug that held her toothbrush and the pretty glass mug she drank her tea in. I’m coming back for her fine china (or what’s left of it). My brother and dad won’t know they are even missing. The coat rack, a rarity in modern decor at a friend’s suggestion should go in my office. I’m keeping the DVD player she never opened.

I’m at once relieved and guilty. Relieved that this part of the grieving process is well underway. Guilty because it took four hours and four friends to
make sense of what was left of her earthly belongings. Her full and vibrant life was reduced to three piles–or so I think.

She was more than a pile of clothes and shoes in a basket. And for everything I touched, I knew that her absence, though searing, is what will draw the memories closer to me. I’m not ready to sift through all that I brought home with me just yet. That’s for another day. A private day where I will be left to my tears and sorrow. Where no friends nor chatter will silence the sadness within.

Lessons From Mom

They don’t make them like my mom anymore. I have integrated much of what she tried to teach me in my life. Granted it was definitely a battle to raise a child who wanted so much at the time to cling to all things American. This is the woman who could not accept me living in the dorms at Florida Int’l University. Ladies don’t leave home until they marry, she said. How archaic, I thought, as I packed my bags to move a mere 20 minutes away from home.

I will not lie and say we see eye to eye on every matter because we don’t. Her life journey has brought about many revelations to her that I have yet to learn for myself. Yet she is my mother, a visionary who just knew a tiny tourist island was not big enough for her children. She knew the rough side of Little Haiti would not be part of any “war stories” her children would share.

She was the first hustler I knew, doing double duty as a nanny to the island’s elite and traveling to purchase and return to sell items from faraway places. This woman is so private it takes her sisters to crack the mystery of her.

I subconsciously patten my life after her. I married opposite-like her, only too comfortable to let my life partner be the center of the party while I sit back and just watch. I trust few like her. She never kept much company. My mother’s house was not welcoming to evil spirits in the form of fake friends and posers. No popping in at my house! I too prefer to live that “circle of influence life” where there is a circle for every area of my life–some touch but most don’t.

She is so intelligent, my mother. She reads three languages, writes two including English. I just knew my mom should be working in academia or a business and not a sweat factory in Hialeah. I often wonder of the professional power house she could be. Yet she sacrificed it all for my brother and I.

When faced with a difficult marriage, she remained. In one of her most transparent moments she admitted she could not and would not raise us as fatherless children as she had been. I am torn about this but know I am who I am because she sacrificed for me. She brings out my best and my worse as I fight to be at once the person I am and the daughter she may want me to be.

Cancer has afflicted her body but her soul and spirit remains intact. She is a difficult nut to crack, that lady. No longer is there a wheel chair ramp in front of her home. These days she leaves the chair at home because that unyielding spirit refuses to let a mere thing like cancer take her out. Sharp wit, sharp tongue, sharp mind. That’s who she is.

Our mother-daughter relationship isn’t a romanticized version you will see on TV. It is made of fights fought hard, words that can’t be taken back, and a love that supersedes it all.

Here’s to all mothers present, past, and future. May your example be that which leaves a lifelong legacy in the lives of your children and those they meet.