The Survival of Birth

image via angela mayhoe

Coming Into The World

There is a presence of despair, sadness and hope - it wafts through the air like expensive french perfume. The lingering scent unfolds as the notes began to peel away, each emotion evaporates to reveal the next. They reside wobbled on top of a foundation of misfortunes that have been meticulously placed over decades of generational oppression. My mother was born in El Campo, TX circa 1946 and spent the first 18 years of her existence navigated by “colored only” signs and disadvantages. What should have been the most liberating time of her life, being a child with endless summer days filled with cold drinks and excessive laughter was tampered by privileged whites that left her importance on the side of dirt roads in the ditch alongside their crumpled candy trash. Taking for themselves the sweet tasty treat to savor while disregarding the wrapper.

My mother’s pregnancy story is layered, the base is laid with an unimaginable level of distrust but once you step back, the image began to introduce itself as a masterpiece. Each step, each layer of medium serves a purpose and is only understood by the Creator. As the viewer, there is room for judgement without knowing all of the nuanced puzzled pieces of inspiration that will eventually complete the work. It requires time and a gracious amount of patience that will slowly melt into mountains of manifested favor.

When I heard the story of my birth announcement, it wasn’t told directly to me but as a featured guest of an adult conversation - I was 13. I can clearly hear each annunciation as my mother voiced, “Angela is special. When the doctor told me I was pregnant with her, I cried. A neighbor gave me something to drink to abort the pregnancy but it didn’t take. She was meant to be here.” It was in that moment that my adolescent emotions began to churn - everything that I have ever felt was now palatable and could be digested with one smooth swallow. For as long as I could remember, I had this distinct feeling that I didn’t belong in my humbled surroundings. The littered streets that were sashayed by delicate heeled feet throughout the night that belonged to misled women or the dark corners that supported addictive habits and swindled acts were my backdrop as I was occasionally driven to school, when the car was mobile.

My earliest childhood memory was standing at the bus stop with my mother, two older sisters and me wondering why I was there - it had to be a mistake. The tickling lanyard that hung around my tiny neck with an image of a 3-year old that looked liked me to confirm to the bus driver that I was cleared for free passage was both exciting and embarrassing. I liked having something that belonged to me with my name on it but I was also confused as to why of all the beautiful things in the world, I was given a piece of tattered plastic tied to a string and was told not to lose it as if it was a precious gem. Now I was finally validated in my knowingness - I was meant to be here! Maybe after all, I did choose to insert myself into this dynamic but the question that I’ve been asking myself since that day, is why.

“ I can clearly hear each annunciation as my mother voiced, “Angela is special. When the doctor told me I was pregnant with her, I cried. A neighbor gave me something to drink to abort the pregnancy but it didn’t take. She was meant to be here.”

I am the baby of the family of two older sisters, my mother was my father’s 2nd wife and accompanied by a collection of various women he collected and situated for his convenience. My mother was raised in a strict household where she was the oldest sister to two brothers. Her father was a preacher and traveled locally spreading the word of God. The weight of holy expectations began to give way and my mother desperately desired a way out - my father extended his smooth masculine hand and walked her across the street. His family lived in the same neighborhood and my father’s youngest sister was my mother’s closest friend. She introduce them while my father had swoop back into Houston from his nomadic residence in Los Angeles, he was 14 years older but carried a young distinguished aesthetic that stayed with him well into his early 60’s. According to my father, he thought my mother was kind, beautiful and would make the perfect wife for another litter of his children. He explained that you should pick the “good ones” to marry and have fun with the rest. This was probably the one and only time my father had given me advice and even then it had nothing to do with enhancing my well-being. After a curated courtship of lies and deception, my mother decided that my father was her one way ticket out of her childhood home, so she married him and moved to Los Angeles. Once away from all that she knew, reality began to settle in and the diluted fairy tale began to reveal itself as a fable equipped with life lessons and villains. The sweet charms of my father faded away and the consequences of his actions began to seep into the household. My mother would receive random phone calls from women, my father would disappear for unlimited amounts of time and the juggling of already having two toddlers to nurture was a lot. My mother simply didn’t want to add another child to the already challenged relationship that was unveiling as a puppet show, my father being the master, stringing everyone along to his benefit. I was definitely an accident but I always wondered if my creation was made in love or obligation.

image via angela mayhoe

My mother never elaborated on her feelings that day in the doctor’s office. Like every other experience tailored with the possibility of family embarrassment or deep emotions, it went unspoken and sank to the inner weavings of the generational timeline. It was just another layer of unresolved emotional sediment added to the ancestors’ wall. I never blamed my mother or looked at her differently from that moment and I definitely knew not to cross the line to inquire about any other details. As a child, I had been trained to know my place and respect adults by not interrupting them or asking too many questions. Information was only passed around in fragmented pieces, over a period of time, only to be creatively pieced together by the next generation when it was too late to get accurate answers to a plethora of family mysteries.

I was very close to my mother, we shared a special bond. Although I never felt that I was handed special treatment, I did feel a deeper connection with her that was always present throughout my life. Being the youngest child of three, my sisters are two and five years older than me, I already required a kid glove protection from my environmental elements. The code of “baby proofing” was not yet solidified as I was born in 1976, predating the requirement of outlet covers and car seats. I can only imagine the amount of relief my mother felt everyday of my existence but being left to nurture her secret of wanting to abort me just 9 months earlier. I feel that the need to insert her desire to abort me into a random conversation with my homeroom teacher, Coach Spivey during a parent teach conference was her therapeutic moment that appeared into the world as quickly as it dissipated into nothingness. My mother had a way of bonding with people by sharing intimate bits of herself. Revealing her stories, as if she was verbally writing her memoir while a subtle gust of wind would simultaneously blow away the pages of her manuscript, never to be witnessed again.

As an adult, I have often forgotten about my survival of birth because it was just the facade of my life. Although it had imprinted my subconscious, which could explain why in the past I was more comfortable blending in the background and allowing others to have center stage, I have reprogrammed this dynamic. Reimagining myself being protected by a golden ball of light as the poison began to trickle down my mother’s throat has both healed me of self doubt and assisted me in being my whole self at all times even if it makes people uncomfortable.

image via angela mayhoe

My mother passed away 15 years ago at the age of 60 from colon cancer. Everyday since then, I have yearn for her warming smile to comfort me in my times of sorrow or her gentle embrace to celebrate me on my personal wins. I still speak to her often, as I can feel the stillness of her presence constantly protecting me and being grateful that her desperate actions did not yield to her split second decision that she thought was necessary. She still gifts me with incremental acts of love as I randomly get a whiff of the sweet smell of roses throughout my day or I feel her laughter, the kind of laughter she was denied throughout her lifetime that now resides in my heart and ease my moments of sadness. This is not a story of despair, it is a story of strength and resilience that flows through the women of my family. It defines my connection to Source and solidifies my place in this lifetime as a warrior - silently conquering battles while being grounded in the magic that my matrilineal descendants have sowed for me.

My mother’s pregnancy story is layered, the base is laid with an unimaginable level of distrust but once you step back the image began to introduce itself as a masterpiece. Each step, each layer of medium serves a purpose and is only understood by the Creator. As the viewer, there is room for judgement without knowing all of the nuanced puzzled pieces of inspiration that will eventually complete the work. It requires time and a gracious amount of patience that will slowly melt into mountains of manifested favor.

I am the gift, I am the manifested favor that she left behind, I am my mother’s last girl child - I was meant to be here!