Strength of Yo Momma
By K. Michael Williams
So, it's Mother's Day. Here’s what makes yo momma so special she deserves to be celebrated..
Who else is willing to wipe yo ass? For free?
Yo momma cares what you think, even when you’re dead wrong.
Gives lots of unconditional love.
Better, gives lots of hugs.
Yo momma’s patient and skilled at it.
Somehow, yo momma takes her love and spreads it across multiple kids. Most of us can’t love more than one person at a time.
Yo momma will try to be your friend — until she can’t.
Makes sure you know you can do better.
Yo momma lives with a lotta regret.
When you break her heart, yo momma hangs on from the precipice and waits for you to pull her up.
I hope you’re all as lucky to know this shit.
Here are a few moms that made this so clear to me. They are stories that both warm and break my heart, tales familiar and close to me because they remind me of why parents — mothers! matter. Both big and small, our mothers sacrifice themselves for our greater good even as the world tries to destroy their will. You gotta love them for that, right?
Livey Van Wyk. At the tender age of 17, Livey learned she was HIV-positive and pregnant. During a time and in a culture when being either one was stigmatizing, Livey joined a program that helped mothers prevent HIV transmission to their unborn babies. Her son was born healthy, HIV-free. After becoming a mother and wanting to change the culture, Livey turned activist and politician, becoming Nambia’s youngest mayor (for the town of Witvlei) ever at the age of 26. Livey's teenage son remains her greatest strength and courage and inspiration for changing the world.
Mary Ann Bevan. Mary Ann suffered from acromegaly. The disorder creates too much bone growth in adulthood. The bones increase in size and result in gigantism. Very pretty until the disease physically altered her, Mary Ann married, had children and worked in hospitals. After she began a widow and acromegaly took its toll, Mary Ann's world took a bizarre turn.
Destitute, Mary Ann made a major sacrifice to care for her children. Due to her disease, her once lovely appearance took a dramatic turn and left Mary Anne unable to work. She joined a freak show and toured the world as the “World’s Ugliest Woman.”
Ironically, she found lopsided success in the profession. In Europe, she was a successful sight of disdain. Eventually, P.T. Barnum found and brought Mary Ann to New York. There, Mary Ann became a societal success. Like the infamous Elephant Man.
Mary Ann and her children. [Image courtesy of sinisterisles.com]
Mary Ann was given clothes that heightened her masculine physique and made her look unattractive as possible, often evoking horror from paying crowds.
The "freak" was shy in nature. So, Mary Ann was not happy with her celebrity position but needed to care for her family. She refused to not get her children the education she and her husband wanted for them.
Mary Ann only worked the circuit for two years, during which she was ridiculed and insulted and humiliated. She also made over $600,000. A fortune in the 1940s.
The money was enough to put her four children in boarding school. Mary Ann had secured her babies’ futures through humiliation and debasement.
Mary Ann’s children adored their matriarch forever.
My Momma. For a year or two in the early 1970s, my family lived in an abandoned building. We had no lights, no gas, no water, no nothing. The only family in the building, we had no neighbors if you didn’t count the junkies and winos who occupied apartments on the lowest floor.
Our door had been knocked off its hinges during an attempted break-in so we basically had no front door. But no one ever came in uninvited. No one ever walked in and stole. Mom had built up too much goodwill with the winos and junkies. One swore he’d stay and look out for us until we moved. And he kept his promise.
Mom cooked on a barbecue grill set up in the kitchen. We bathed with water brought up from the hydrant. I had one of those Close-n-Play battery-operated record players and a lantern. I read my comic books and played my 45s by candlelight. Kids made fun of me for living in that broken-down shuttered tenement. But I don’t remember being embarrassed. In fact, to this day, I see it as one of the warmest periods of my life. I felt safe. If I wasn’t, no way in hell would Mom have us there.
Mom refused to move from one rat trap to another. Mom said some of the apartments the city showed her were worse than what we already had. So, she held out.
Today, the city would’ve forced Mom to take a worse rat trap. They’d’ve threatened to take her kids.
Mom woulda never allowed that. Her kids meant the world to her. Today, I often wonder how many mothers and their children are living in worse conditions just to keep the family together.
To my mind, these stories exemplify what a mother's capable of when it comes to her children. They say we should celebrate them. Anyone who knows the strength of yo momma is blessed. And anyone who was slighted, I hope you still know the greatness of love and found a way to give what you didn’t have.
I wish our universe of mothers every happy day they deserve. And you too.