Mom Is Not a Hero...

Mom is not a hero. She’s the hero. She was bigger than Rambo in the first three films. She was bigger than Arnold in any film. She made me believe in power before Superman did and he’s my favorite comic book character. She made my childhood great. Besides the bags of toys at the flea market and gathering my green army men on the floor of the living room, she made being a hero so easy. Too easy for me to mimic if that made sense. I figured I would have to undergo some form of training. Maybe I had to have kids and teach others for eight hours a day, five days a week while grading papers and maintaining sanity. Maybe I had to pay bills—keep the water on and stop anyone from taking the only car we had. Maybe I had to stop from crying while balancing four lives in a two-bedroom home. I later learned it was something else, something greater, stronger. What made my mom indestructible wasn’t her cape, her chest symbol, or hero stance, but her kneeling in front of the couch, praying.

Mom prayed every morning, every…morning. She created a dip at the end of the sofa near the lamp. She curled unto one cushion in her house robe and fuzzy socks. The house was silent, before my sisters and I awoke to prep before catching the school bus. She made time for devotion and well wishes before heading 20 minutes west to teach in a different county. She never slowed down unless her body forced her to do so.  She would leave in the dark of dawn and return during the sun’s disappearance, but she was always present, attentive, and determined to give us time, whether for homework or check on our well-being. She made each of us feel wanted and acknowledged. How could one do that in the middle of surviving? Again, prayer.

My sisters and I grew older, bigger, wiser, and more curious about the life God had planned for us individually. We graduated high school, went to college, and started careers. We shared holidays in different states up and down the southeast. So many memories, laughs, and movies watched during quality time. It was our love language, our native tongue. We spoke it well because we saw the value in it. It was worth more than our degrees, more than our plaques and accomplishments. People wondered why we were black, well-read, respectful, and intentional. They were traits portrayed by our mom. The same mom who prayed every morning before cooking breakfast, before getting dressed, before warming up the car in the fall and winter. If you were to ask us how we paid for shelter, bread, clothes, and gas money on a teacher’s salary in the mid 90s, we would simply say one word—God.

Prayer got us through hungry nights of ketchup sandwiches and VHS reruns with no cable. Prayer protected us during the storms, from the snakes in the woods, and from everything else in a neighborhood with one streetlight. Prayer made us happy to have one parent who chose to try their best when their worse wasn’t an option. Prayer planted the seeds in our hearts that grew our dreams and talents into full bloom. When you see us smiling, laughing, hugged up in a selfie with our short mom in the middle, it’s because we’re saluting our hero that didn’t fly, leap top buildings, or stop bullets, but stood on her knees, bowed her head and closed her hands. Mom was the hero that knew she was nothing without Him.