Being Kendra_ Cribs, Cocktails, and Getting My Sexy Back - Kendra Wilkinson [81]
Then the two weeks came and went, and Hank got released from the Eagles and we were trying to plan our life and future with him leaving us. Hank was gone after that day so I was dealing with all of that. Calling my mom dropped on my priority list again. But what I really needed during that time was for my mom to call me. I was twenty-five years old at the time. I still needed guidance and a mom to say, “How are you, Kendra?” I know she probably needed that from me as well.
I could have made more of an effort; maybe I should have made more of an effort to call her and make sure to update her on our lives. But truthfully, our relationship had been deteriorating, and phone calls became stressful for me. I was struggling with some things she had said to me and the way she was treating me. It was easier to push off calling, until eventually I just stopped. Deep down, I love my mom and I just kept assuming that she would always be there for me.
So eventually, I called my grandma and asked, “Why isn’t Mom calling me?” She said that Mom was going through stuff that I would never understand and that as she was getting older, it was hard to watch me have so much in my life. I was so happy and had a family, success, and my whole life ahead of me. But really, I was also struggling at the moment—my husband had just gotten fired from his job and was leaving us to go halfway across the country; my life wasn’t perfect and certainly wasn’t easy. As a mom myself, my family was my concern. I just wished my mom could be happy for what I’d accomplished and help support me when times got tough.
Finally my mom did call me later on that day when she heard I’d called Grandma. She was furious that I had called asking about her. And we got into a big fight!
I asked why she didn’t call me when Hank got released from the Eagles.
“Me call you? Why haven’t you called me?” she said.
And I agreed with her. I said, “I see your point there and I’m sorry. It’s been a really hard time for me, I’m not perfect. Raising a baby with everything going on in my life has not been easy. I’m completely overloaded.”
During this phone call, I realized we had more issues between us than just not having spoken in two weeks.
At that point I had to see her. I couldn’t travel down to San Diego to visit so I flew her into Philly, and we sat down on the couch, face-to-face. She said what was on her mind: “Kendra, you are so mean. You treat people like shit. People around you just kiss your ass and are doing everything for you to please you and kiss your ass.”
I sat there and took it all in. The only thing I said in response was, “Mom, I pay the people who work for me. They work with me. I’m a boss just like any other boss in the world. I run a business; you have to realize that.”
She has it in her head that these people work for free and just do whatever I say because I’m famous and they want to tag along.
Our face-to-face chat only made things worse. I got to see who she really is, and while I wanted to understand her, help her, provide for her, and make sure she knows she can be a part of our lives, it was obvious she had years of anger at me built up. Maybe she felt like she was being left behind, but for most of my life I had always lived less than ninety miles away. I hated thinking it was jealousy or abandonment, because I didn’t want to feel guilty for the beautiful things in my life. My family, my husband, my son, my career—they are all things I shouldn’t be made to feel ashamed of.
But she started saying and doing things that made me question everything.
She actually told Hank that the day he proposed to me was the day she lost her daughter. My heart skipped a beat when I heard that. She was smiling and so happy the day of my wedding. I thought she was so happy for all of us, happy that with everything we had been through I finally had found a man who loved me and we were going to build a life together and give her a grandchild. But I