Category: Parenting

10 Min Read, Donna Maria Thomas-Walker, Family, grief, Holidays, Mental Health, Parenting, Relationships, Robert Samuel Walker

I hate Mother’s Day.

Regina Lynette

As a child Mother’s Day was not a huge deal to me specifically. It was always hot that Sunday. I would usually have a new shorts ensemble. I don’t think it was a “ring curls” event but I can’t really remember and for some reason I can’t find a single photograph from Mother’s Day. And as a motherless child with a dream of parenting deferred, it was hell and now it’s just unpleasant. But I remain slightly melodramatic and declare I hate Mother’s Day.

At my church – the place where I was baptized and a member until my last year of high school, Mother’s Day events happened for my family mostly on the Sunday and Saturday before. We still attended whatever rehearsal or practice or meeting that was scheduled even though we weren’t going to be in town on that Sunday. And at the end of either the Sunday before Mother’s Day or on that Saturday just before the day, we’d go to the ladies with the trays of corsages – carnations made from tissues – in red and white. I can’t be certain, and it doesn’t seem quite right, but in my mind the ladies were selling these faux carnations. We received 3 – white for Daddy and red for me and Mommy. Remembering this transaction means this memory happened only a couple years but they were obviously poignant years. It was after Grandmommy died and before Dorothy died. (Mommy’s mother was always identified by her first name instead of any version of Grand Mother.)

And for a period of time, I remember the 3 carnations – one white and 2 red – carried a little bit of pride and a little bit of sadness. I was sad that Daddy had to wear a white carnation, but he seemed to wear it proudly. And I took on that emotion and carried it as if it were my own. I was sad that Mommy wore a red flower and as she pinned it on her left side she’d always say, “I don’t know if my mother is dead or alive so I will wear red. I hope she’s still alive.” She was sad, but hopeful to some degree and I took on that emotion, added it to Daddy’s, and carried it as if it were my own. And then she pinned my red flower on my left side, and I was proud. My mommy was still alive, and I saw her every day and I knew for sure that she loved me. I chose to put my feelings in my back pocket, carrying my parents’ emotions as an expression of loyalty. Even though she received the tissue carnations from the church ladies, we usually wore a different faux flower, a pretty one that Mommy bought, to go to Mississippi.

If my memories are accurate, we went to Corinth and Rienzi in Mississippi – the place Daddy always called home – every Mother’s Day until I graduated high school. I don’t remember the years before Grandmommy’s death vividly – just little flashes of only her like when she saved me from a grasshopper and would have to call me out to come and greet her because I was too shy to just jump in and hug her when we got to her trailer on my uncle’s land. I’d hang outside the door or against a wall, maybe hiding behind Daddy’s leg until she asked about me.

We dressed in our Sunday best, I remember Daddy wearing his clergy collar and I felt like it made him royalty for a Sunday. We’d get into the car and drive toward the country. We would make one stop before heading to church – the church I always believed my entire family for generations belonged, even though truthfully I don’t know for sure how many generations before my father’s attended that church.  We’d stop where Grandmommy was buried, beside the grandfather I never knew and Daddy would go alone. Then we were off to Mount Pleasant Missionary Baptist Church. On the way to finding a seat we’d speak to everyone – I told you I felt like Daddy was royalty that day, greeting all of the parishioners who seemed so excited to see him. I determined after all those greetings that we were related to no less than half of the congregants. Daddy preached the sermon. My aunties and cousins sang in the choir. My uncle was a deacon and usually led devotion. After the service was over we spoke to the people we missed or who arrived late. This is when I tried to figure out how I was going to ride to my uncle’s house with my uncle. Most of the time that meant finding his wife, my auntie, because she always just told me I was going with them. There was no asking permission and no risk of hearing “no”. Uncle would always call me his “pretty little niece” when we greeted and for some reason my braids and shoes didn’t feel so tight anymore. We’d head to my uncle’s house where I’d change into my shorts ensemble to play with my cousins. Sometimes we ate at my auntie’s house in Corinth and sometimes she came to my uncle’s house in Rienzi. The fried chicken – Grandmommy’s recipe – was the star of the meal for me. After filling up on dinner and getting to have sodas – pops – without permission (carbonated water irritated my system so they were off limits) I spent the rest of the day playing with my cousins. We’d return to the city (Memphis), and we’d do it all again in one year’s time. Nothing about that day meant Mother’s Day to me. It might as well have been called Mississippi Day.

When I was 6 or 7 years old, Dorothy surfaced. She was dying of cancer and the family who had been estranged to Mommy for what seemed my entire life were calling her to California. After what felt like an eternity of Mommy sitting at her mother’s bedside, she came back home to me. But Dorothy took another turn without Mommy with her, was refusing to obey some doctor’s order – like eat or something – and was calling for Mommy to return to her. I wanted to go but she was going for an indefinite period of time and I had school. Dorothy died a few days after she returned to California and it ended up being about 2 weeks from the time she returned to California, Dorothy died and was cremated, and Mommy returned home to me. The next 4 or 5 Mother’s Days, mommy wore a white flower. Even though she seemed sad, she also seemed relieved to a degree. She would shed a couple tears, but I think just knowing for certain whether Dorothy was dead or alive was enough. I also think whatever happened in Dorothy’s last days allowed Mommy some closure if not a repair of over 40 years of a challenging mother-daughter relationship and she could more easily wear that white flower.

Two weeks after my 13th birthday, I lost my own mother. That first Sunday going to Mississippi the only assertion of my own rights (as opposed to unspoken rules) was to wear a white corsage, one that chose and found beautiful, and I wore a white dress. Even though I had been sitting alone at church services for about 5 months, that Sunday felt particularly lonely. And it was the last time I would wear a white flower. The main reason was because that white flower served no purpose to me and all it did was made me angry. But the secondary reason was because people – I think Daddy was one of them – told me to wear a red flower because I had a step-monster the next year. I hated the entire system of red and white flowers and determined to leave Mother’s Day on the calendar as simply the 2nd Sunday of May and Mississippi Day. Who the hell thought I was supposed to replace my white flower with a red one because of a step-monster? Did no one see that it meant replacing my mother and dismissing that she ever existed? Why didn’t anyone think of at least saying I should wear 2 flowers to represent both women? I wouldn’t have but at least they wouldn’t be suggesting that I erase my mother completely and embrace the monster that my father married in her place.

I tried to pass on some love for Mother’s Day to the other “mothers” in my life. I tried to come up with something to honor Sissy because she was a mother. I always made sure to tell Ms. Bell because she loved me with a mother’s heart and hand, but she was gone I believe just about two years after my mother. But it soon felt that acknowledging other mothers meant dismissing my mother further. It highlighted her absence and was painful. I would be in my 20s before I realized I needed help for my grief and I was going to have to find it for myself – professional help. Until then whenever I remembered Mommy, I felt the exact same trauma and pain that I felt the moment I found her. Once I had been alive longer than I had had her in my life, I determined the pain should have lessened over the years and that it was a problem.

After finding more peace with the loss of my mother and dealing with the associated trauma, I still found I hated Mother’s Day. For at least a week prior, everyone from the checkout counters in stores to the man who detailed my car, wished me a Happy Mother’s Day. And people who knew I wasn’t a mother came up with a list of reasons I should still be recognized as a mother – aunties and sisters and nearly all women were recognized as a mother for Mother’s Day. And in addition to highlighting the fact that Mommy was gone, I was reminded that years were ticking by that I imagined I would have had my own kids. And then I’d approached the age where I’d decided that I would give up on biological children and began grieving my children who didn’t exist and a dream I’d had since I was 11 years old. So, I started staying indoors on Mother’s Day avoiding social media, heartsick.

What happens to a dream deferred? Hope deferred makes the heart sick, But when desire is fulfilled, it is a tree of life. (Langston Hughes, Harlem plus Proverbs 13:12 AMP)

The only joy I find is knowing that my niece and nephew make sure to celebrate and honor Sissy. I hate carnations and sometimes have peonies in a vase on the day for myself – my favorite flower. I celebrate Mommy’s birthday as Mother’s Day, my Mother’s Day, instead of the 2nd Sunday of May with cupcakes and champagne and tulips – her favorite flower – when I can find them (her birthday is in fall). And I wish the mothers in my family a Happy Mother’s Day on the Monday after.

I hate Mother’s Day.

5 Min Read, Parenting, Relationships, Robert Samuel Walker, Spirituality, What's In A Name?

Runaway Spirit or Wandering Spirit?

Regina Lynette

I once walked away from Christianity as I knew it. I didn’t exactly denounce Christ as my savior, but I let go of every single thing except the fact that I accepted Jesus Christ as my Lord and savior and was therefore saved – my anchor point of remaining a Christian. I joked (because it was uncomfortable to talk about) that I was going AWOL from the Army of the Lord. I wanted, no needed, to let go of everything and get down to the basics. I stripped away everything that felt limiting and tried everything I found curious. I wanted to learn for myself what it meant to be a Christian because my teachers and preachers had taken Christianity and packaged it in manipulation and contradictory philosophies bound with illogical rules that were not Biblical. This action didn’t please Daddy, although he wasn’t around for the peak of my departure. He was around when I started questioning things and even challenging him on things. Most often he responded to me calmly, matter-of-fact-ly (I did that on purpose), and honestly. Occasionally he reacted from past traumas from past experiences with “church-folk”. But never did he use Christianity or our Baptist beliefs as a weapon or a tool to sway me in any direction. So when my questions turned to a need to physically explore, he told me it was okay. He said that I have a wandering spirit and though he didn’t say it explicitly, he believed that because Christianity, specifically Missionary Baptist was the truth and the way that I would return.

At the peak of my departure from Christianity as I knew it, I had a couple of close friends who were “church friends”. Our friendship was based on living according to Christian principles and almost served an explicit purpose of keeping each other on the straight and narrow. While I knew they were very pious, I didn’t learn the nature of our friendship until it ended, you know 20/20. When I was exposed to the leaders and preachers that they followed and called anointed, I began to see more of the hypocritical and manipulative tactics used against parishioners and their ignorance and this caused fissures in the friendships. I was told that I have a runaway spirit – among other demonic spirits that had supposedly overcome me.

Senior year of college, standing in front of the church I belonged to at the time. A friend is cut out of the picture.
Dear friend, if you remember being in this photo, it’s nothing personal but I just needed to be a solo picture and I didn’t find another.

Wandering Spirit was a compliment and Runaway Spirit was an insult. Well, maybe Wandering Spirit wasn’t intended exactly as a compliment but it was something that my father saw in me and accepted, allowing me to choose to embrace it if I wanted. Is that really true? Yep. Runaway Spirit was a term to encourage me to get back on track, whatever that was, and it felt derogatory and manipulative. Is that really true? Eh…

I’ve only shared one situation here in which I was called a Wandering Spirit by my father and a Runaway Spirit by others but both of those identifiers have a long list of items behind them. And my behavior has been both Wandering and Runaway at times. When I learn that something I’ve always believed is true is flawed in some way, I need to test it for myself. I need to get to the root of the truth, the unadulterated truth, the pure truth, and I need to be right – not insisting that people agree with me no matter what but to know the thing that is true and right. When something is no longer serving me I let it go – sometimes quickly, sometimes slowly, but always completely. When a person is crushing my spirit or rejects the parts of me that they don’t particularly like or understand, I remove them from the closest parts of my spirit, my soul, my heart. And anything that gives me bad vibes – a space or a person – is something I leave quickly. If I wander and don’t return to the thing I wandered off from, have I runaway?

College years again, at a collegiate Christian conference. Again, a friend is cut out of the picture.
Dear friend, we took a lot of college + church photos together. And I didn’t find any of me alone. Nothing personal.

Runaway spirit is an identifier, placed on me by limiting and closed minded people, probably with what they believe to be good intentions. I’ve left it behind.

As a little girl Mommy would always tell me to stay with her whenever we entered a store. If my big brother or sister was with us I would beg to go with them. Sometimes she let me but often she insisted I stay by her side. I think that every single time we entered any of the stores we entered during all 13 years I had her in my life that I managed to get lost in that store to some degree. Eventually I mastered the return quickly enough to not cause too much trouble but it all depended on what caught my eye and prompted me to wander off. Sissy has told me that often she turns to say something to me when we’re walking and suddenly I’m not there. And there have been plenty of times that I’ve had to stand still and be found in a store, like I did three weeks ago. As an adult I’ve truly felt like telling a stranger that I lost my sister in a store so I can get some help. But it’s always because I’ve needed to know more about something I’ve seen. And I always return to the original purpose of our outing.

Runaway Spirit or Wandering Spirit?

Iam Regina Lynette. I am a Wandering Spirit.

5 Min Read, Donna Maria Thomas-Walker, My Body, Parenting, Smart and Pretty, Why This Blog?

I absolutely hate having my photograph taken.

Regina Lynette

When I decided to explore my identity publicly via this blog I decided to include a photograph of myself with each post. This makes me extremely uncomfortable but I thought it was an important part of my identity – the entire topic of the blog. And I believed it would be a way to become more comfortable with my appearance and photographs.

I didn’t always hate having my picture taken. When I was a kid I photo-bombed as much as possible before it was a thing. I can remember actually crying real tears when Mommy was taking pictures of someone outside in the backyard and wouldn’t take one of me. She had one shot left on the roll of film when she finished and allowed me to pose. Did she save me the last one? Was it by chance? All of that is irrelevant because I loved the photo in my sundress, arms up and out (which seems to be my favorite pose, even now).

Above: Some of my favorite photo bombs – back when you didn’t know what you had for weeks while you waited for your film to be developed. My height worked against me but I still tried to get in there.

Below: I managed to dry those tears real quick, throw my hands in the air and work the camera.

Mommy’s insistence that I smile a certain way and pose a certain way grew old. School photos became a source of mild anxiety. If my hair was not the same as it was when I left the house that morning she didn’t understand why my teachers didn’t fix it. If I didn’t smile quite right she didn’t understand why I made that face. If flaws were shown – snaggle teeth or squinty eyes – she told me what I needed to do to correct or hide them. It sounds horrible, and it felt that way, but I do understand fully what she was trying to do. You had one shot to get a beautiful picture when using film and she believed I was beautiful. She just wanted the camera to capture what she saw.

Then as I gained weight and became a fat woman, I hated documenting that in pictures. And when I lost weight I still saw that fat woman in photographs and that was usually the end of whatever diet I was trying because why work hard if I couldn’t achieve what I wanted. And today I hate to wear makeup having struggled with acne since I’m 9, contact lenses mostly because pollen and an astigmatism, and anything other than destructed denim and graphic tees for comfort. I wear sneakers everyday and fight to cover my fast-growing gray hair that cruelly started along my hairline, impossible to disguise. I don’t like taking pictures, but I take them for one reason only – family memories. Mommy reached a point in life where she hated having her picture taken, too, and we regret not having enough photos of her to show people documentation of our memories. I know that photos are your source of remembering life events and that it’s important to have them no matter what you look like at the time.

After seeing this photo, I was literally disgusted at the sight of myself. But I didn’t demand a re-take because we were making travel memories (a family member is the blurred and deleted image beside me). And no re-takes were going to make me look smaller. And I was already convinced I could never look better.

I hope to stop avoiding the camera during this phase of peeling back the layers to expose my true self. I hope that I can ignore whatever I consider flawed and begin to embrace the things that are the charm of me. And I hope that I can look back on photos and remember the joy of celebrations, the enlightenment of travels, and the love among loved ones and close ones. For now, the way that I am working on that is by posting as many photographs as I can find and take of myself (click here for the gallery updated often) while I talk about who I truly am as a whole person. It won’t be me in every post but I’ll make a significant appearance.

5 Min Read, Brothers And Sisters, Donna Maria Thomas-Walker, Mental Health, My Body, Parenting, Robert Samuel Walker, Smart and Pretty

I am a Fat Woman. And I don’t love that Fat Woman.

Regina Lynette

The women in my life during those tender years when a baby girl starts imagining what she will become when she’s older were my mother and her second child (Sissy). Mommy was 34 years old when I was born, and I was her third child. And in the end she found I had stolen her girlish figure and threw it in the trash when she wasn’t looking. To little girls imagining what she will become when she’s older, a person who hates her own body is not the person you want to become. So this little girl looked to her older sister.

Sissy was 14 years old when I was born. And what I didn’t know then but would soon realize, God didn’t design me to be my sister’s twin. And to make sure I was never confused about His intention, in His infinite wisdom and with His ultimate creative self He made us opposites in nearly every way but gender and race.

Me and Sissy

When I could see that I was already “curvier” than Sissy somewhere around age 5 (19 for her) I wanted to start dieting. Mommy was forever on a diet so I wanted to get started early so I could make sure I grew up to look like Sissy and not Mommy. Well, I don’t know what you tell a mother who understands exactly why her 5-year-old little girl wants to diet – the world was still calling her “healthy” – and also knows that it’s completely unreasonable for her 5-year-old little girl to go on a diet. It would take a couple years but unfortunately, Mommy eventually gave me her blessing and we dieted together well before my first signs of puberty. She was careful to monitor my dieting and modified it according to whatever standards she thought best and we added intentional exercise to the regular roller skating, bike riding, and running I did while playing with my friends. And I always managed to lose some weight but never in the places I wanted and never enough to keep me from being called “healthy”.

Me and Sissy

God was also constantly reminding me that I was not created in the image of Sissy. To really hammer it in that I was not her twin, He showed me just how different we would forever be. She was pregnant when I was 12 years old. In her early pregnancy, you know those weeks where your clothes are just starting not to fit but you’re not quite ready for maternity wear, was the first step toward my resignation of my fat-girl destiny. My clothes were the clothes she borrowed when her own were too tight. In case you didn’t catch it, at 12 years old, my 26-year-old pregnant sister needed to borrow my clothes. My 12-year-old clothes were maternity clothes for my 26-year-old sister. I blamed this one on God even though I was angry at the entire world around me. It just wasn’t fair.

Me and Sissy

Just before I went away to college I weighed myself and started accepting my fate as a fat-girl with less anger. I was what I judged too close to my father’s weight at the time. And then my only goal became to always weigh less than he – a man 4 inches taller than me and slim with long limbs. The day I outweighed him, I went to the “fat-girl” shops to find something large enough to drape my sow-shaped body and found little solace in the fact that the smallest sizes were too large. I was struggling to find my size – how could I be fat at Lerner New York and skinny at Lane Bryant? I couldn’t understand it and hated my body more. I resorted to what I’d done my entire life – diet and exercise and lose a few pounds, giving up after not losing enough weight and not in the right places.

Me and Sissy

I would repeat this cycle until 7 years ago when I just gave up. I don’t imagine I’ve given up forever, but I am still stuck in the give up. Just before I gave up I had lost over 40 pounds and was very excited about my progress. The first blow was that my bloodwork didn’t show enough improvement to match the effort I was putting in. The second blow was when I looked back on some photos of me as a kid and I didn’t see a fat girl looking back at me. I felt betrayed by all the people who had called me “healthy” when I was a perfectly average little girl. It was enough to push me over the edge into a depression that would take nearly a year to climb out of (with medication and talk therapy) having regained all but ten pounds of the weight I’d lost.

Me and Sissy

I had always believed that I was a fat girl. But I also had always been told (and believed) that I could fight it and become what I’d always wanted anyway – slim. And I am not sure if we’re in the middle of that story or the end.

I am a Fat Woman. And I don’t love that Fat Woman.

10 Min Read, grief, Holidays, Mental Health, Parenting, Robert Samuel Walker

I used to like February 14th. Then I didn’t. Now it’s not so bad.

Regina Lynette

After my mother died my father remarried. He was looking for a way out of a financial bind and a new mother for me – or a way to not be alone because he knew I wanted to live with one of my sisters. So, my father made a mistake and he married an abusive witch who made my life, our lives, hell until we escaped. I left for college; he left for heaven. The last five years before I graduated high school was not only a hell created and maintained by my step-monster, but my father emotionally abandoned me at the same time. His abandon was driven by many things, mostly those pesky good intentions, but mainly by my step-monster’s “rules”. I was not allowed to talk with my father alone. Ever. And that was one thing he and I had my entire life – time alone together for philosophical conversations, even as a very young child. I tried to hold on to the fact that my father loved me during this time but many of his behaviors did not demonstrate love. However, on the other side of that period of time it would turn out to be the knowledge that he loved me that would facilitate the healing of my broken heart.

Tell me that old man doesn’t adore that little girl!
That’s me on my first birthday in my Daddy’s arms.

I went to university in another city and only visited him once a year and only at our church building. I refused to return to that witch’s house ever again after I left town hours after high school graduation. Then he was diagnosed with lymphoma. I can’t remember any details of that except I kept up to date with his progress through my sister – his oldest daughter – and I was able to talk to him on the phone occasionally. Even though I’d prayed for his healing and elicited prayers from my Watch-Care church, I prepared myself for his death. He was in his late 70s living with an inhumane abusive human, trying to help pastor a church while our pastor was in jail. I found a level of resolution and peace about his death, which would possibly happen during critical classes in my final year, and would alert my professors and the dean that I might miss a week of classes with little notice should he die.

Because my father was old and ill (he was healed of the cancer, but his body was worn out from the chemo) I went to visit him over Christmas break during my last year in school. Unfortunately this meant I had to go into the step-monster’s house and she had the nerve to try and keep me away from him – I’d had a lingering cough from pneumonia but was well. She and I almost fought, physically, twice during that short visit. But it was during that visit, he and I finally and truly reconciled. We shared a few poignant moments that I am very grateful for because that was the last time I would see him alive.

Before going to New Nonconnah Missionary Baptist Church in Memphis one cold Easter Sunday morning.

That Valentine’s Day, a Monday, was an early day in my teaching schedule – I had to get up about 5AM to be sure to arrive at school in time. After I finished my shower, still standing in my robe, I saw my answering machine flashing. My heart fell. No one would call me at that hour unless it was horrible news. I listened to the message hoping the person would have left the details of the call in the message but they didn’t. It was my sister – my father’s oldest daughter – telling me to call her as soon as possible. That could only mean that something had happened to Daddy. I thought to take a moment and calm my breathing, maybe get dressed to feel less vulnerable but I couldn’t wait to hear the bad news. She spoke with nervous energy and asked an odd question – she asked if I knew why she was calling. I suppose someone else should have called me first because someone called her to tell her what she called to relay. But no one had called and I didn’t expect anyone to call me with any news about Daddy but her. And I really wanted her to get to the point. I told her I assumed it was something about Daddy and she told me that he’d died about an hour or two before she called.

I told her I needed to get to the school but to let me know as soon as anyone decided on a date for the funeral so I could alert the dean and try to work something out to be at the funeral and to graduate on time. I didn’t really cry – a few tears made their way through but I didn’t give in to the urge to cry. I had business to take care of, like figuring out how to get to a funeral and back to class within the allowed days of absence required to pass. I couldn’t break down – be non-functional – so I didn’t allow grief to set in.

I went to school and told the lead teachers that my father had died that morning and that I would need to speak with the dean when she arrived. The dean’s son was in my class and one of my assigned students to monitor development (no pressure, right) so I would see her when she dropped him off. One of the lead teachers interrupted me just after I said the words that my father had died and unofficially suggested I be allowed more time off and still be allowed to graduate on time. She gave me the standard 5 days that the employed teachers received as a part of their benefits and I was so grateful. I asked to stay and finish that day because I had no idea when the funeral would be. You see, there are many things that can delay a funeral in the Black American culture and I was the only black person in my whole major at that school. I hoped they were ready back home and could pull it off within that week but I didn’t know.

Because that day was so exhausting emotionally, and I was developing some weird nervous ticks, I started my 5 days leave the next day, that Tuesday. I still hadn’t really cried and was making my heart harder by the minute. My friends indulged me – I sort of lived those days in a weird haze, both wanting people to know my father was gone and not wanting anyone to say anything that would make me cry. And I took phone calls from various loved ones in Memphis annoyed by the fact checking of all the scandals – not only was I entirely uninterested in the drama I’d left behind for school, but I was the only person not living there so why would I know the answer to any of those questions? But I suppose that is a part of it all – what secrets did they know that I didn’t and vice versa. Anyway, not quite soon enough, I was on my way to say farewell to my father.

Again, I was everyone’s concern, just as I was when my mother died. But I vowed to do some things differently with his death. I wouldn’t wait on the adults to figure out what they were going to do about me. I would take care of myself as much as I could.

I refused to be a part of the funeral procession because I’d learned to hate limos since the first time I rode in one was on the way to my mother’s funeral. I’d always hated following hearses and didn’t want a police escort. I didn’t want to ride with headlights on. So I stayed with my father’s oldest daughter and went to the funeral with her promise to be my shield, allowing me to manage the funeral just as I wanted to. I also refused to view the body. That was the best choice I ever made – the last memory I have of him was us sitting together and laughing, having dinner. I have absolutely no memory of him dead and I’m glad. But this refusal meant I would not go into the church until the family processioned in because the service started with the casket open. My father’s oldest daughter, all of his children in fact, were near the back of the procession. That was not where we were supposed to be but it demonstrates just how my step-monster tore us apart. Thankfully my father’s siblings and some cousins were near the front. Some of them thought it was inappropriate that they sat in front of us but I didn’t care. I only wanted family up there and not just church folk holding step-monster up.  In fact, they didn’t even know I was there until I went to speak on behalf of the family. Yes, I was on the program. No, none of the people who wrote the program told me. These were also people who claimed to be unable to find a phone number to call me and let me know my father had died. My sister let me know I was on program, thankfully, and I was able to prepare.

The funeral was not until the following Saturday, and he wasn’t buried until the following Tuesday. I returned to school that Sunday, missing the burial. I had a degree to get and no more grant and scholarship money. I managed to only need a loan for a semester and a half and I would be damned if I had to repeat a semester for a burial service. And honestly, I believe my father would have understood and even encouraged me to get my degree under those circumstances. I’ve always felt that the burial was the worst part of any funeral – dropping the body of your loved ones into freshly dug ground feels cruel. That’s not particularly logical, I know, but it’s how I feel.

It would be more than 17 years before I went to the cemetery where my father was laid to rest. I felt so much peace.

The first Valentine’s Day after he died I was furious and found myself feeling that way every Valentine’s Day after that. I thought I’d handled the situation well but in reality there was still a bunch of feelings just swept under the carpet. The refusal to grieve my father until I got my degree really meant refusal to grieve for much longer than that. The reminder that the ex who I’d once dreamed of marrying was not the right guy – he called the day Daddy died, not to offer condolences but to seek sympathy for the “saddest Valentine’s Day of his life”. The inappropriate men taking advantage of my vulnerability by hitting on me at the funeral and during the repast. The guilt I felt for having essentially abandoned much of my family simply by trying to abandon my father and step-monster. And I never knew I hated Valentine’s Day until then.

Men coming out of the grocery store with bouquets, heart-shaped candy boxes, and pink and red balloons pissed me off. And I wasn’t quite sure why. High schoolers getting on buses with giant teddy bears pissed me off. And I wasn’t quite sure why. I asked myself if it was because I didn’t have a “valentine” that day but that didn’t ring true to my emotions. Valentine’s day had never been a big deal to me and I had never received anything that felt significant from any boyfriend I’d had on valentine’s day. Even my secret admirer valentine’s day gifts were blah – I would have preferred to know who the admirer was rather than have a secret gift. So I blamed it on my Daddy’s death. It was easy to do – after all, he died on Valentine’s Day.

When I was young Valentine’s Day meant cardboard valentine’s cards, candy, and a day at school that ended with a party or a dance. Then as a young adult Valentine’s Day meant my daddy died. But now as a not-as-young adult, Valentine’s Day doesn’t mean anything at all. You know how I know? I literally forgot all about it. I didn’t send out social media greetings in memory of my father. I didn’t send any gifts to family or friends nearby. I didn’t even send myself flowers or buy any candy. When was it, Sunday? Yeah, just a regular old day.

I used to like February 14th. Then I didn’t. Now it’s not so bad.

3 Min Read, Donna Maria Thomas-Walker, Parenting, Relationships, Robert Samuel Walker

The Elevator Story

Regina Lynette

My parents met on my mother’s first day of work for the Lincoln American Life Insurance Company in Memphis, Tennessee, somewhere around 1965. The story of their first meeting – literally the first time they laid eyes on each other and spoke to one another – has a little bit of fame in my family. Eyebrows raise, smiles slide across faces, sometimes there’s a little side-eye or maybe a little sneer whenever The Elevator Story is mentioned. I am fuzzy on details and the order of events but basically, there was some flirting – Daddy was being a little mannish and Mommy was being a little fast – and then we jump to a courtship, marriage, and the pleasant surprise that was me.

For me, my parents’ meet-cute is the height of romance. And I cannot tell you how happy I am that the building where they met has been declared an Historical Landmark and they have preserved the look of the elevator lobby. I feel like I get to go back to the moment in history where I first became a possibility whenever I want! For others, my parents’ meeting was not so much romantic as it was destructive.

My mother was the first Black woman hired in a professional position at Lincoln American. My father already worked there, but in a professional role. My father saw her in the lobby on her first day and got into the elevator with her. Some of the flirting involved my mother declaring that all the handsome men are already married when she noticed his wedding ring. I remember what my father’s response was to that but whatever it was, a relationship started pretty quickly between the two and the idea of his already being married became an inconvenience to deal with many years later.

My parents worked together in the same building and saw each other on weekdays. They started spending lunch hours together and they were so in love they didn’t need food – they literally made out on a bench for their lunch hour somewhere around Court Square park. They wrote letters to each other that my father kept in a box that I was never allowed to see.

My father was diagnosed with colon cancer sometime during their on-again-off-again courtship. This marked a crossroads in my parents’ lives and is one of the milestones that affected their families’ lives. The short of it is that mommy was concerned for her man and wanted to be with him and take care of him while my father’s wife and children believed this was a time for family, of which she was not.

Somewhere in this mix other people became concerned when they knew my parents were pursuing a serious romantic relationship which was no secret to anyone after this event. My mother’s grandfather thought he was a dirty old man. Maybe because my father was closer in age to my great-grandfather than to my mother. Maybe because he was married with grown children, the oldest very close in age to my mother. My father’s church had reservations about his ministry, particularly with his choice to recuperate at home with my mother. Some of my father’s nephews and brothers were disappointed but were able to come around to his side very quickly.

But getting back to the fairy-tale, they had so much love between them that they shared a special hug and the love overflowed into a baby. Daddy had to get divorced and married pretty quickly. And on May 27, 1976, my mother went to work Donna Maria Thomas and returned from lunch as Donna Maria Walker. They went to the courthouse on their lunch hour and got married. They moved into a little red house in Whitehaven and had a little baby girl.

I’ve always believed my parents were soulmates. A lot of people think I feel that way because they were my parents. And several people cite the unhappy days of their marriage as proof they weren’t really in love. But I was there for the little things. It’s sometimes in the way a person says your name – that’s often the first time I realize when someone is in love. It’s always in the eyes – even when you are so pissed that you don’t want to look at them, when you lock eyes with your forever person, for a moment nothing else matters. And when you have so much love that it pours over and makes a baby, you spend time pointing out the things in that baby that belong to the both of you, admiring what your love has made. I believe that with therapy and patience everyone would have believed that they were truly meant to be just as I do.

3 Min Read, Mental Health, Parenting, Teaching

It’s Important to Watch Something Grow

Regina Lynette

I taught preschool for ages 3-4 many moons ago and at the school that made me want to quit life altogether I learned an important principle for adulting. As life lessons usually go, it wasn’t clear and direct at the time, but started as a seed.

At this preschool that nearly took my soul, each classroom had an outside garden. There was no schoolwide curriculum assigned so the gardens reflected each teacher’s abilities and creativity. Basically a few looked like gardens that needed some help and a couple looked like abandoned fields. The one I inherited looked like an abandoned field. I am far from a green thumb, but I learned some very basic planting skills as a little girl.

Grandaddy was a sharecropper and did something with sorghum molasses. Daddy worked the fields with him and at least during the last 23 years of his life while he lived in the city, he wanted a little vegetable garden and talked about how different things grew and what they needed to thrive. I was the Daddy’s Girl who toggled between tomboy and princess stereotypical behavior. I watched him do everything outside and begged to help, doing my version of whatever it was right beside him. We mowed the lawn, raked the leaves, trimmed the bushes, and edged the yard – which he hated because that was not work for little girls, but that he loved because he was teaching me, and it was our time alone. And whenever he was able to plant and grow anything, I was right beside him watching and asking questions, not realizing that any of it was really sinking in – I just loved being outside with him in the grass and under the trees.

From spending that time with Daddy, I knew I could at least start by making our garden look like someone cared and figure out any specific curriculum goals for later based in what the kids showed interest. First, we cleared everything out. That was easy to let them do with their little plastic garden tools and I let them have at it with wild abandon. They couldn’t hurt a thing, could release any energy they had from being inside, and could be as involved in the dirty parts as they wanted. I began to get to know my kids quickly – I saw who didn’t like dirt, who loved dirt, and who could manage to turn anything into a weapon. I saw my leaders, my followers, and my bullies. I saw my dreamers, my builders, and my facilitators. I saw who needed more structure and who needed more freedom. It was the best way to get to know my entire class.

Then I moved on to the next phase that I knew – we needed to turn the dirt, break it up so it was soft. I was more directly involved in this phase because plastic hoes and spades can only do so much with hard ground. I wanted to limit the number of small kids with me since I was directly involved and would have a real hoe in my hand, so I split up my class in small groups taking the more energetic types out first. I needed to talk to them and get to know why they behaved the way they did and understand them as individuals. This is how you find out that your bullies are practicing learned behavior from home or are screaming because they don’t feel heard. This is when you find out that the kids who turn toys into weapons are influenced by what they see in their everyday environment or that they are your most resourceful and resilient students. And this is when you find your artists – they make beats or sing while breaking up earth which they notice aloud has many shades and textures and then their garden tools become paintbrushes or imaginary people in what looks like a play. And after some time in the dirt, we all reach a peaceful energy. All of the kids did a part of this, but this first group really did the hard physical work.

The next phase, planting, was designed for the lower-energy kids and those who by now had a lot of interest in the entire project. The ones most interested in the overall process used their tools to make grooves for planting – any tools could be used, even hands, because our ground was soft and tilled. The ones who didn’t like to get dirty were my seed planters. They held a handful of whatever seeds I found in the previous teacher’s stash and dropped them in the grooves. And those who were uninterested but who quietly obey any directive closed it up for us, gently covering the planted seeds with the dirt. Then we watered the garden. When I left work the evening we finished, I was quite proud of the appearance of our garden. It was even brown and smooth, and I couldn’t wait to see what would begin to pop up – my only goal was for something to begin to grow and I believed that we did enough to at least see some tiny sprouts whether they thrived or not.

Once our garden began to sprout, we had a lot of attention. The parents thought it was a good sign of my teaching ability – anything that looks organized or improved upon looks like there is someone in control and providing guidance. The children had varying amounts of pride of our tiny green sprouts based more on their level of interest in the garden than on their perceived levels of contribution to its growth.

But I had an unexpected reaction to that garden. It was the only place I felt any peace on that campus.

The thing that is obvious to me now that I didn’t see then is that it is important to watch something grow. I find planting makes the biggest difference for me, but it doesn’t have to be plants if that’s not your thing. Anything that lives and needs you to care for it to then grow works – puppies, fish, children. Just make sure to watch something grow.

3 Min Read, COVID, grief, Mental Health, Parenting

DIY Stress Kits Are Necessary

Regina Lynette

I’m a crybaby. It’s one identifier that I’ve accepted even though it’s used as an insult. Angry, enraged, pissed off, I cry. Happy, laughing, in awe of something beautiful, I cry. Scared, startled, fearful, I cry. A cold, the flu, allergies, I cry. Depressed, sad, grieving, I cry. I even cry when someone else is crying. Thus, I embrace being a crybaby because my default expression of most emotions is to cry.

Once I went to a professional development conference and attended a session on stress management. At the start of the session the leader asked us to all take a deep breath. I took a deep breath and exhaled in tears, sobbing really. Once I had a confrontation with an abusive supervisor – with HR in attendance but offering no assistance – and was grateful that it was over the phone because I cried, wept really. Once I had an allergy attack during an interview for an internship and had to quickly explain the tears streaming down while answering questions about why I wanted to work with them. And the worst – believe it or not – was when I cried silently during a staff meeting. It was the worst because there was no provocation. My home life was particularly stressful at the time and I was okay as long as I was moving around and working but sitting still for two seconds was too much time with my thoughts. Embracing being a crybaby does not mean I embrace crying at work for any reason at all.

After crying during the stress session and the supervisor confrontation, I quit those jobs. After crying during the interview, I got the job, one of the best I’ve ever had. After crying during the staff meeting, I went to a counselor.

This wasn’t my first time seeking a professional mental health provider. In college I sought help for sexual abuse from a counselor. After college I was diagnosed with a mental health disorder managed by a psychiatrist. I sought grief counseling from a psychotherapist. I recognized that I needed help and had the courage to find it. Thankfully, as part of my benefits at that job, I had access to six free counseling sessions – designed to refer you to more permanent situation – that were located walking distance from my office. I made an appointment that I was able to take on my lunch break.

I had 30 minutes with this counselor, so I took over the session from the start, speaking as quickly as possible, listing all the stressors going on in my life. This guy tightened his face with every situation I mentioned and at the end of my list I thought he was going to crumble. Then I told him that I wasn’t looking to deal with all of those issues right away, but that I just needed not to cry during staff meetings anymore. He audibly sighed his relief and gave me a list of self-soothing activities to try. He told me to keep a container with some tools in my car, at home, and at work, to use whenever the stress proved overwhelming. I called them stress kits.

I read the list on my way back to the office and then thought about the best way to approach this stress kit. Reflecting on the simple moments of bliss in my past, I set out to include items from those moments. I added a mug (for tea), a small jigsaw puzzle, and an Ella Fitzgerald CD. On my two 15-minute breaks and during lunch at work, I hid away in a small conference room that I could lock. I made jasmine green tea, listened to Ella Fitzgerald’s Love Songs: Best of the Song Books, and worked a small Thomas Kinkade puzzle. I kept to an actual schedule for a couple of weeks and it helped significantly. There was no more crying at work. After a couple of weeks, I skipped the lunchtime stress break and soon I didn’t use the kits preemptively but as needed to combat anxiety and stress.

The last year has been taxing for the entire world. Surprisingly, I managed the confinement relatively well. The public displays of the brutal murders of my people, reminding me of just how little our lives mean to some, made things more intense but I was still managing fairly well. The deaths of major civil rights activists were hard, but I was hanging in there. I had to confront the fact that I needed to search for a job – something I knew I should have been doing for a long time but didn’t have the energy nor mental space to start – because I am running out of time to make sure there is no gap in employment, but I have a plan and a backup plan and an emergency plan and some last resort plans. Then the election hit and boom – regular anxiety attacks.

I have prescription meds to help manage my anxiety, but I only have to take half a dose and that rarely. During the election, I found I needed a full dose almost daily. I believe in taking medication to help the body recover whether it’s healing an ailment or managing symptoms. But I also have a subconscious belief in spite of education that all medication is temporary, and I try to avoid taking anything that can be habit forming or that has to be increased over time for effectiveness. My doctors have actually encouraged me to take more anxiety meds than I’m willing to take. After a week of taking pills I remembered my DIY stress kits.

With more education on stress relief and more tools at my disposal, I made a more robust kit. I made sure to pay attention to the senses – sight, taste, touch, sound, and smell. And two more senses I’ve recently learned about – vestibular/movement and proprioceptive/comforting pressure have been addressed in this kit. I still have Ella Fitzgerald as part of the kit because her voice has literally lowered my blood pressure from high to normal within a two-minute period. And I still have tea, but I use my fancy tea kettles and cups instead of a mug. In addition to jigsaw puzzles, I have coloring books. I incorporate incense and candles – usually something spicy. I either take a brief walk or rock in a swing. And I have a weighted blanket that I keep nearby to lay under for up to half an hour.

10 Min Read, Brothers And Sisters, Donna Maria Thomas-Walker, Parenting

I am Regina Lynette. My parents loved me.

Regina Lynette

When I was in grammar school, standing in the school lunch line was the closest equivalent to the water-cooler conversations you could have as a child. Even though we weren’t supposed to talk, we did.

I remember practicing the latest snaps from the “Men on Film” skit on In Living Color. We talked about The Cosby Show episodes. I remember having debates that included everything from the way to pronounce the words milk and pickle – I said milk and she said murk; I said pickle and she said purckel – to scriptures – I told her God is a jealous God and she swore He wasn’t.

But one conversation where we shared our tips and tricks to manipulate our parents to indulge us sticks in my mind significantly, because it was the first time that I paid close attention to the fact that my parents loved me.

One of the tricks one of my friends shared with me was to pretend to cry and say “You don’t love me anymore” to a negative response. It was the only trick left on the table that I hadn’t tried and even though I really didn’t think it would work, I held on to it planning to try it out when all else had failed. I knew Mommy wouldn’t even go for it – pulling on heartstrings wasn’t the way to get what I wanted from her. But Daddy was all emotion with me, so he was my target. Besides, he said “no” less often than Mommy, so my odds were already increased.

The day came when Daddy was being unreasonable and not giving in to my every demand and I decided to pull out the last arrow in my quiver. I turned my mouth upside down, puckered my lips, willed tears to form, and drooped my head. I said, “You don’t love me anymore.” And before I could even put the period on the sentence I burst into laughter.

I tried to compose myself as I listened to my father, extremely offended and dumbfounded, telling me that he knew that I knew that he loved me. I put my hand up in surrender and between muffled guffaws, I told him I knew he loved me and that I was sorry. He told me never to say that again and I agreed. The idea that my father didn’t love me was so absurd that I couldn’t even pretend that he didn’t.

I was born at 9:01AM in the 901 (Memphis’ area code) on a Sunday morning. The story of that day is like a fairy-tale in my mind – even all these years later. I have combined my parents’ stories and tell the story with the same sweet tones Mommy used and the glimmer in Daddy’s eyes.

Once upon a cold Sunday morning, a beautiful girl-child would be born. It snowed for the first time that year on her birthday, making for a picture-perfect wintry scene. Laying in a hospital bed, under rosy pink bed sheets, Mommy laid all tucked in and warm. When it was time for the little princess to be born, the doctors came in, opened Mommy’s tummy, and gently lifted her up and out of the womb. Mommy and Daddy were so proud of their perfect baby girl and beamed when they admired her every little detail. She had all her fingers and toes and weighed 8 pounds and 11 ounces. Mommy said, “Oh Bob, she has your hair.”  Then they passed her on to the family friends who came by to witness the birth of this little girl-child. One of those gentlemen held her and commented, “She looks just like a little Indian!” and then the baby sneezed on him. Mommy had to stay in the hospital longer than was necessary for her youngest daughter, so she spent time recovering in the hospital holding her newborn and feeding her from a bottle.

At the end of their story – along with the embellishments from my very active, creative, and detailed imagination – I felt like the entire world rejoiced at my presence. My youngest sister insisted that my birthday be celebrated separately from the Christmas holiday because I was born almost 2 weeks before Christmas. My youngest brother rescued me from all the love that just gushed out of my family’s hearts in the form of hugs and kisses when my introverted self could take no more. And I had made life special for everyone because they had been blessed with the opportunity to spoil me. There is no way I could feel that way except that my parents made me feel that way – because the story I just told you was loosely based on short answers given to an inquisitive child.

As an adult I heard other events of that day and better understand some of the details. Snow in Memphis wasn’t exactly uncommon in that time, but snow in Memphis was seldom a Winter Wonderland. And if it was, the whole city shut down and that would be a major inconvenience in trying to get to and from the hospital. I was a rather large baby and it would be dangerous for Mommy to give birth naturally so she needed a c-section. And since they recommended the c-section, she decided it was time to officially close shop and have those tubes tied. Have you seen the way doctors yank babies from their mothers’ wombs during a c-section? I have. It’s not glorious nor gentle. Mommy was on morphine for pain after her surgery. She said it made everything beautiful. One time while feeding me from a bottle, she fell asleep. When she woke up, I wasn’t there. She very nervously looked over the sides of the bed to see if I had fallen to the floor – and I guess died if I wasn’t crying, right? But then the nurse brought me back and fussed at Mommy (gently) for falling asleep with me in her arms, telling her to be sure to call the nurse if she felt sleepy while holding me. And when the doctors asked if she wanted a prescription for the morphine when she was released, she refused it. Because it made everything so beautiful she decided it was dangerous and didn’t want to risk a habit forming. And my sister, the one so insistent about how I should be treated, was looking for her boyfriend who happened to be in the hospital while I was being born. I have never heard a thing about what my brother was doing on that day. His recollection of my going to him to get away from everyone else was likely after I was walking – or at least crawling – because, though precocious and smart, I don’t believe I was able to communicate a need to be taken to my brother to be left unbothered the day I was born. I was swollen on my birthday and Mommy was disappointed that whoever was involved in having my picture taken at the hospital didn’t lift me up high enough for my eyes to open more – they had to know I was swollen and if I was to have a good picture, I needed to be arranged properly.

All the characters in this story. This is posted without their permission so don’t tell them.

The “real” story isn’t exactly like a picture book tale, but it’s still beautiful. The most important part of that story isn’t in the details of either version. My parents loved me. And I knew it without any shadow of a doubt. That love would take me through the years that Mommy was not present because she suffered from undiagnosed depression. That love carried me through the years that my father abandoned me emotionally because of a mistake he made when trying to give me what he thought I needed. That love is why I know when someone is lying to me about love or being manipulative citing love as the reason for bad behavior. I know real and true love. And because I have known it forever, I have no idea how to explain it. In all my relationships, despite any person’s missteps, I know what it feels like to be loved and I reject anything less from those who proclaim love.

I am Regina Lynette. My parents loved me. (I use past tense because they are both deceased.)

10 Min Read, Donna Maria Thomas-Walker, Parenting

I am Regina Lynette. People used to call me healthy.

Regina Lynette

The first time I heard the word “healthy” as one of my identifiers, it was at the pediatrician’s office. The nurse couldn’t lift me up on the table and said, “Ooh! She’s healthy!” in a very perky everything-will-be-okay voice. She found a step stool so I could climb on the table, and I did so with ease and plenty of side-eye. That nurse truly offended pre-school me.

I remember vividly thinking she was so rude, and I was wondering why she didn’t already have the step stool at the table – where it had always been anyway because I was always already on the table even though everybody else in that office could pick me up to put me on the table. And I thought it was ridiculous for her, a medical professional, to use the word “healthy” when she so obviously meant the opposite. (It’s fun for me to recall my thoughts from before the age of five. They are just flashes, but I was a wonderfully precocious child – much to the dismay of all the adults in my life.)

I would go on to be called healthy by a myriad of characters, major and minor, in my life story. I can remember visiting with my childhood best friend’s extended family and hearing many versions of, “Ooh! She healthy! You sure you don’t want some more white rice with margarine butter and sugar on it?” usually in that sugar-sweet-southern-black-Grandma tone of voice. I was the healthy one and my friend was called skinny, and unfortunately neither of us was celebrated for our sizes.

My childhood BFF’s family offended elementary school me. I remember thinking it was incredibly rude to call me fat – because let’s be honest, that’s what it was – and then decide I must need more food than my friend, not the same amount and not less.

As an adult looking back on white rice with butter and sugar, I shake my head when I think of the poison that she was putting down my throat. Okay, maybe not quite poison, but I’m melodramatic and a bit in my feelings right now so I’m sticking to poison. Among the recollections I have around my being healthy fat include being told that I was too heavy for my father to pick up and the cause of his hernia surgery, hearing as part of my birth story  that my size as a fetus was so dangerous to my mother that a c-section birth was required, and having to wear Pretty Plus clothing sizes.

Before I was officially in Pretty Plus clothing sizes, I was close in size to a childhood friend – two years older than me – who was the daughter of one of my mother’s work friends. They would go to a store on their lunch break and buy bags full of matching clothes for us to wear. We tried them on and our mothers would return whatever didn’t fit. Thankfully our entire wardrobe didn’t match but only because we didn’t have identical bodies and different items were returned. That would take me to the most memorable moment of feeling like a fat child and the first time I almost lost my whole life.

There was a dress, I called it the American Flag dress because it was white with red stripes and a blue sash, that both my childhood friend and I owned. We wore it at the same time like Bobbsey twins and continued to grow, as little girls are prone to do. One day I could no longer fit into the dress, but my friend’s still fit her perfectly.

This was taken on my ninth birthday. My friend is wearing the American Flag dress after I couldn’t fit into mine anymore.

One very dreadful day, Mommy gave some sort of lecture about how my friend could still get into her dress as if I should be ashamed that I couldn’t get into mine. I don’t remember everything she said, just the way it made me feel, but I distinctly remember what I said. It was only one word, but it was full of tone and sass and attitude and exasperation – “And?” The look in Mommy’s eyes when she turned her head to look this child dead in her eyes to be sure it was really the one she gave birth to who dared to get smart-mouthed with her. She made eye contact and confirmed that it was indeed her own daughter who dared to utter that word in that tone to her own mother and the room grew very cold. One word almost cost me my whole entire life. My heart is pounding in my chest at the memory. I stammered, “And… that’s good for her. I mean, I … uh …” and finally I just gave in – “I’m sorry Mama. I didn’t mean it.” Because there was no fixing the obvious stank in my response. And once she turned back to whatever she was doing – I think folding the dress to give it away – I ran out of the room and stayed away from her until she looked and sounded like Mommy again.

From the perspective of an adult who can hold two seemingly contradicting truths in her mind at the same time, there was absolutely nothing I could say or do particularly at that age to change the fact that I couldn’t fit into that dress anymore. And the only thing I could have done to change the fact that my friend still fit into hers was to destroy her dress (I didn’t). But silence would have been 100% better and more respectful than “and?” as in “what you want me to do about it?”

I know that I wouldn’t have told that story about the dress if Mommy was still living. I’m not a parent, but I know that no mother would want to know that her actions or words were heartbreaking to her child. And for all my parents’ flaws and imperfections, I know without a doubt that I was loved and loved unconditionally. I’m blessed to have been born at a time when they were at their best as parents – a benefit of being a “pleasant surprise” well after they both thought they were finished with their “multiply the earth” duties. So just in case you are judging Mommy, please reconsider (and don’t you dare tell me, ‘cause them is fightin’ words).

There are many photos of me as a child from the first one in the hospital when I was born to my senior heads in photo albums and boxes. For years I have looked at those pictures and saw a fat girl. But about seven years ago, I really looked at those pictures and wondered what people were talking about – there was no fat girl in those pictures. I had a big ole butt and that was the reason I had to wear Pretty Plus clothes – I just needed room in the hips. I had a big ole butt that astonished grown folks and it was the topic of so much conversation, talking about me in front of my face when it should have been behind my back (or not at all but people aren’t flawless).

I had a big ole butt and shouldn’t have been picked up so much after I started walking. I had a big ole butt that all my childhood friends wanted in middle and high school and I would have gladly passed it on to them all. And I grew relatively fast – everyone thought I was going to be tall. I am 5’4” so not quite tall.

And what breaks my heart most of all is that I believed I was a fat girl and that there wasn’t anything I could do to change it – no diets, no exercise ever got rid of my big ole butt. And then one day as a young adult I saw I had what I called “fat girl” knees. Shirts were tight on the arms. I couldn’t find pants that fit over everything unless they were two sizes too big. Skirts hung high on my butt and dipped low in the front. And I remember the day I had to start shopping in a different section of stores. I skipped all over Juniors which is where my friends shopped. When I saw that I was going to be a fat woman, I stopped trying to be anything else. This was not body acceptance. This is to say that I accepted what everyone else told me as a child that I would be – that I received all of those thoughtless comments and believed I had no other choice but to be a fat girl. I stopped exercising because I was only exercising to lose weight and I wasn’t losing the weight I wanted. I stopped eating with intention and settled into eating for comfort because if I am going to weigh about the same eating kale everyday as I would eating lemon-pepper wings everyday, why not have the wings?

My name is Regina Lynette. People used to call me healthy.