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John Randolph Price, in With Wings as Eagles

ALTHOUGH I WAS ASLEEP, I could feel the chill in the room. As the scenes of the dream unfolded, I began to shiver.

I could see Damon sitting alone on the floor of a huge, dark room. I was standing in the corner of the room. Even though Damon was not tied up, I knew, for some reason, he could not move. I called out to him several times, but he did not answer me. I heard voices that sounded angry and dangerous. In a panic, I ran out of the room, calling out to Damon. Again, he did not respond and he did not move.

I saw myself running up a long hallway, screaming Damon’s name. I looked back to see if he was following me, then I saw the men enter the room. I stopped and watched as the angry men walked over to where my son was sitting on the floor. One of the men hit him. “Please stop!” I screamed. “Stop it!” I ran back toward the room. As I reached the door, I saw that one of the men had a gun pointed at Damon’s head. For some reason, I could not step into the room. I stood at the doorway, begging them not to shoot my son. I heard the gun click. One of the men turned and looked at me. I begged him, “Please. Don’t do it.” The gun clicked again. My heart sank. The telephone rang.

I was sitting up in the bed, shivering and crying, trying to remember where I was, when the telephone rang again. I grabbed for the receiver and knocked it and the clock to the floor. It was 6:30 Saturday morning. I put the receiver to my ear, but I couldn’t speak.

“Ma?” It was Gemmia, calling from Morgan State University.

“What’s the matter? Why are you calling so early?” I yelled into the telephone.

“Ma, you’ve got to find Damon. He’s in some kind of trouble.”

Gemmia recounted the dream that had just awakened her. She had seen a mob of people chasing Damon. She was trying to help him get away, but they were separated. When she looked back to see where Damon was, a huge truck appeared from nowhere and ran over him. She was crying on the other end of the telephone.

I told her to pack. I would pick her up in two hours. My car was in bad shape, so I rented one, borrowed forty dollars, and picked Gemmia up in Maryland. Six hours later, we were driving through the streets of Norfolk, Virginia. I had no idea where I was going or where Damon was.

I knew Damon lived somewhere in Norfolk. His father and I had been there once when Damon first enlisted. I was sight driving, trying to remember what I had seen the last time. I pulled into the parking lot of a motel to ask the desk clerk where the housing complexes in the neighborhood were located. I turned the car off, unbuckled my seat belt, and reached over to open the door. As I looked up, I saw Damon running across the parking lot, headed for the pay telephone.

I never would have imagined that my son would be involved in the sale and transport of drugs, but he had a booming business that he ran from one of the rooms in the motel. A rival dealer had put a “hit” out on him. That morning, two gunmen appeared in his room. They didn’t realize who Damon was, and he convinced them that he was not the person they were looking for. He was in the process of making plans to move his operation when I showed up. It took me two days to shut the operation down and take my son back home.

There were few things in my life that I felt guilty about. How I had raised my children was one. When I hear “Iyanla, Great Mother,” I cringe. I may have been many things, but a great mother was not one of them and I knew it. Great mothers love and nurture their children. They teach them games and they play with their children. I had not done that, partly because I didn’t know how and partly because I was too busy chasing men and creating drama in my life. I did not know how to be a mother because my heart was closed.

In a very secret place in my soul, I felt I did not deserve the children I had been given. When I think of all the days I left them alone to go to work, or go to school,