That Moment
It had been happening:
In college classes,
Thinking about my two young kids
Having to go to daycare after school.
How I missed them as I studied and studied
Courses I cared nothing about,
But was required to take to get a degree;
I wanted to make something of myself
So my kids would be proud of me.
It had been happening:
At the doctors office,
When asked about my kids’ milestones
I thought the doc ought to ask the daycare mom,
As I struggled to answer,
Feeling like such a failure as a mom,
Yet there was that thing –
Wanting to be somebody for my two kids.
It finally happened on a Sunday afternoon:
Outdoors with some sidewalk chalk drawings;
A sit down break of homemade lemonade,
With my kids saying they just want to come home after school,
Like so many other kids get to do and be with their moms.
They wanted to have dinner with me, not at daycare.
I heard their voices
Louder than societies voice “to be somebody”;
And my voice, my feelings, could no longer be drowned out by
Everyone around me encouraging me to keep going to college
So I could show everyone how successful a single mom could be.
Yet I heard my kids so loud that moment.
I told them we may lack some extra money through the years.
I wouldn’t be able to get them so many toys they would want,
By dropping out of college.
And they responded that they didn’t care;
They just wanted me to be with them after school in their home,
Not a daycare home.
And in THAT MOMENT
I knew my role was to be a success as a “loving” mom,
Who would be there for her kids and listen to their voices.
Not as a college student,
Not as a supermom with a great career.
We never wound up with much money.
There were all those welfare papers to keep filling out.
Waiting in long lines at the Food Bank.
Taking buses or walking even on stormy days with some umbrellas getting torn in the high winds,
All due to my dropping out.
But my failure at college,
Became my success as a mom,
The real career I had always wanted,
Filled with memories more valuable than any material thing.
So we decorated our year after year indoor Christmas tree with popcorn, small toys, stuffed animals in the tree along with homemade colored cut-out paper ones,
So we shopped at yard sales and thrift stores,
So I lugged groceries home in a worn out looking stroller,
But we had enough.
We played together, danced together, laughed together.
Had “sit down at the table” family meals with check-ins on how we were doing.
We worked through the troubling times together.
We got through the ups and downs of life and really valued the up times.
I am so proud of my two kids for all they went through together with me,
And the close bonds we share today as a family.
And I think I truly became somebody my kids could be proud of;
Somebody I could be proud of:
A loving mom who was and still is always there for them whenever they need me.
The kind of a somebody they and I always wanted me to be
A truly “loving” mom, the kind of mom,
that I never got to have.