Mommy's Love Letter to Drew

Circa 2007, Updated 2011

Dear Drew,

It has been so many years since I have written you.

When you were first born, I started a journal called, My Love Letter to You (even then my soul knew I wanted to, needed to, had to write). It was my way of recording my many thoughts and feelings surrounding your entrance into my life. I wrote you assiduously, as Ntozake Shange once wrote in her groundbreaking play about the life experiences of African American women, For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide: When the Rainbow is Enuf (now infamous thanks to one Tyler Perry).

Unfortunately, I have misplaced this precious artifact. And it was really good, too! Alas, one of the many casualties of my decision to walk away from the life of so many others’ dreams; an invisible prison so many could not understand my fleeing. I had to pack hastily and have moved more than a few times since then. 

God only knows where that manuscript is (and I am sure the Universe will once again bring it to me). But tonight I feel compelled to record new musings.

I look at your school pictures and can’t wait to hear your adult recollection of your childhood.

I envision you saying (as we all do when we see these blackmail shots), “What was my mother thinking about putting me in those clothes?!” or “What in God’s name was my hair doing?!”

Or is that my own unmerciful voice scrutinizing my every jot and tittle while you are so much more loving and accepting of yourself (as well you should be)?

I’m wondering if you will remember your childhood as similar to your peers while I have spent a great deal of it feeling woefully inadequate, having fallen short of a single family home and at least one luxury vehicle.

Yes, you have had private schooling (now public) but do you have enough of the trappings of the Prince George’s County Talented Tenth, natural offshoots of the Paper Bag Brigade? Did I measure up to all that Dr. King died for or am I just a wannabee, with a lot of substance but none of the fluff? I used to wear substance sans fluff as a badge of honor (which is profoundly obnoxious – I have some nerve thinking that I am so righteous) but now I see, as most experiencing such eventually do, that borderline poverty and dogged struggle are highly overrated.

People often say don’t judge a book by its cover. Just because people look like they have a lot of stuff doesn’t mean they are happy; have peace in their minds and homes; or even have the money they look like they have. But there are still times I am torn between and have even dreamt about taking such a righteous stance for my life - that decision to flee I mentioned earlier. Even if my marriage and our family wasn’t the passionate love affair I’d always dreamed, perhaps I should have tolerated the discomfort of disappointment so I could have provided for you better. You could have lived in Woodmore. I could have dropped you off in the Rover you love and continued being a Black Stepford. You could have had a dog, a backyard.

Honey, that was not and is not the life I want and I am learning to be proud of myself for not providing you “at least” – at least a nice house, at least a dog, at least a picket fence, at least summers in the Vineyard – while you were learning that living a lie is normal.

In my heart of hearts I know I could not have endured such inauthenticity. God knows I tried. Being at odds with my truest self almost killed me. Besides, who’s to say we won’t have an even bigger, badder, and deffer fat-ass house with a backyard and a dog? We will have our beautiful house that is a home filled with love and peace. 

I want more and want to be more for both you and for me.

I want – and deserve – it all.

And so do you. That’s what I hope I am teaching you.

Love, Mommy