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By Root 835 0

or to shack up with some man, shame grips my heart. When I think of all the nights that I left them to look for John or spy on Eddie, the guilt is almost unbearable. I was a good provider. I was not a good mother. Rarely, if ever, did I tell my children I loved them. I almost never told them when they did a good job. I was a verbally abusive taskmaster, afraid that my children would fail. But I never gave them what they needed to succeed. It was this aspect of understanding my name that gave me more trouble that anything else. How could I call myself “Great Mother” when I knew in my heart that I had not mothered my own children? It felt like such a contradiction. It felt dishonest.

When Gemmia was thirteen years old, she stopped speaking. She went to school, came home, did her homework, and went to bed. If you did not speak to her, she did not speak to you. As busy as I was with my own issues, I noticed it. No amount of prodding or questioning got a response. If she wasn’t doing homework or housework, she would sleep. At first I thought she was pregnant. But two years into the situation, I knew that was not the problem.

I think she was clinically depressed. I think I was so crazy, and she had witnessed me go through so much drama, she became depressed. When I thought about it, I had never taught her the alphabet, how to count, or how to tell time. She figured it out on her own. Maybe Damon had helped her. I know I didn’t. Still, she was a brilliant, straight A student. One day I was talking to a friend who said she wanted to train young girls in the art of hair braiding. I asked her to train my daughter. Gemmia worked in Tulani’s salon for three years. She emerged as a master braider and a great conversationalist. When she was awarded a full four-year scholarship in biology, I knew I had been blessed. I felt like a bad mother, but a blessed one.

I taught Damon the importance of money. I taught him that to get money, you had to work hard, or lie, or be treated badly. I never sat down and said these things to him, but he was watching me. I lived with a man who beat me, because I thought I needed his money. I left my children alone at night to go to work for money. I worked two jobs and went to school, trying to amass enough money to move my children out of the projects. Damon and his sisters watched me work and not be able to make ends meet. They never saw me make a budget, because I did not know how. They never saw me use a credit card, because I didn’t have one. They knew when the rent wasn’t paid and when that was the reason we had to move. They knew when the light, gas, or telephone was off, and that I had to get beat up to get the money to put them back on. In Damon’s mind, why should he end up like me? Why should he work only to end up with nothing? I could have addressed all of his misunderstandings, but I had no idea how to begin.

Once they became teenagers, it was rare to see all my children home at the same time. I remember one particular Sunday morning, they were all sitting on Damon’s bed, laughing and talking to one another.

“I need somebody to help me in the prayer room,” I said as I passed through the room. “But they have to be a virgin.” No one moved. I kept walking. A few minutes later, I came back and repeated the request.

“Who’s going to help me? I need all the virgins.”

Damon spoke first. “Go ahead, Gemmia. Help Mommy.”

“No,” Gemmia said, “let Nisa go.” Damon could not hide his distress.

“Oh no!” he said. “What do you mean ‘let Nisa go’? You go. Why can’t you go?” Gemmia stared at her brother. I was staring at Gemmia, who leaned across the bed and pushed her younger sister.

“Go on, Nisa. Mommy needs you to help her.”

Nisa shook her head. “Uh-uh, I ain’t going. Why don’t you go?” Damon was stomping around, saying, “Oh no! Neither of my sisters is a virgin. I can’t believe this! Gemmia, Nisa, what happened?” I had all the information I needed. They were arguing among themselves. As I left the room, I heard Nisa say, “I don’t even know what a virgin is!”

My children always got along. I had taught