Mama Bear

by Shirley Smith

  “No ma’am. I’m good.” I was nervous and just wanted to get to it, but with support. I thought that my mother’s twin, Aunt Anita, would be the person to do this with, but she was back home in Alabama. We sat knee to knee on the sofa, put the bag at our feet, and took out the first thing, a green folder. Written on it in Mom’s perfect sixth-grade penmanship: “Personal: Bertina Marie Harris, I Love You Today.”

  I looked at Aunt Brenda and asked, “My mom had a journal?”

  She said, “Shirley, I don’t know. Open it up and see what it is.”

  It was like she was leaving me a book she had written with a title and everything. The cover was tattered and worn with tape holding it together like she had been carrying it everywhere with her. I took my time just feeling and looking at the cover and Aunt Brenda was patient and rubbed my back, because the tears were already flowing.

  I opened the cover and inside on the left side was her schedule for the day of everything she had to do from the time she woke up until ten p.m. each night in rehab. On the right side were yellow legal-pad pages with her same beautiful penmanship, and I had to blink to clear my vision and to right my mind so I could take it in.

  I remember just going, “Wooo! Oh my God!” and giggling nervously at the impact. I remember Aunt Brenda saying, “Take your time, Shirley.”

  I read them all in one day. Slept at Aunt Brenda’s and read until I was done. I remember that I felt complete. I remember that I felt like I understood my mother more after that. Of course I only understood her as much as I could. At the time I wasn’t even a mother myself.

  Something about the day with my spiritual sisters was leading me to go back to my mother’s bag of belongings. After making my list of those generational curses, I felt like there was something I needed to understand all over again. I needed to see it all, hear my mom’s words.

  In my current house in New Jersey, I keep that same colorful striped bag in the top of my closet. I went to it as if it was the first day that I went to look at it at Aunt Brenda’s house. It was late, around eleven p.m., and the children were asleep. As soon as I went to pour it all out on my bed, Demi came in like God’s angel and lay down. Big eleven-year-old girl taller than me in her body and in some ways in her spirit. I went quietly about my business.

  Mom’s first journal entry:

  April 7, 2005

  My journal. I was suggested to start this journal by my counselor. I am in a spiritual treatment program/drug rehab. I’ve been going through some ups and downs here lately. I have attitudes, anger, resentments. I really don’t know how to deal with life on life’s terms. All I know and felt like was I wanted to get high and smoke. I basically wanted to take my will back because of the pain in my body. I just wanted to use so bad [in rehab]. I went through this for four days before it passed.

  The sunny weather triggers me to want to use drugs. Rain depresses me. I’m early in recovery this time around and folks suggest that I stop being hard on myself. This task that I went through was real hard. I didn’t like myself or like how I felt. I couldn’t figure out what was going on and why I felt the way I did, but that was a part of the necessary process, I guess.

  Exhausted.

  Mom’s last journal entry was six-months before she passed away. I didn’t remember what it said from back in the day, and avoided it. I went rummaging through the other things in the bag.

  There were her Alcoholics Anonymous chips and her AA notes.

  There were all of the letters I sent her while she was in recovery, which were the echoes of the letters she’d sent me. It was like everything from our separate struggles as mother and daughter were coming together in that moment. The range of emotions I was feeling was like being on a roller coaster. One minute I was happy; one minute I was sad. One minute I was still and quiet; the next minute I had questions that somebody needed to hurry up and answer. My feelings were all over the place. My mother was so transparent in talking about her past, her hurt, her pain, her anger.

  She talked about family, about incest, it was just so much coming from my own mother that I understood now from the place of being a mother. The worst feeling was similar to what I felt in the NICU. I could feel that tugging that a mother feels when her own child is in pain and she doesn’t know what to do. This was as bad if not worse, because my mother was gone, and I couldn’t do anything to soothe her.

  The only thing left was to read her last journal entry:

  September 4, 2005, Sunday

  Went to the Love of Jesus, had a wonderful time.

  I saw my mother in the choir, standing in her green suit singing. I stopped reading and just lay on the bed with Demi and wept. My daughter didn’t even ask questions, just had the compassion to let me cry then get back to it. I read aloud.

  Thank you Jesus for such a blessed day. The arrivals was Storm (Darryl), Shirley, Nita, Woody, Brenda, Kim, Kasandra, Lynette, Kimberly, Kalynn, Kiki, Lynette’s friend, Danica, Walter, Sydney, Bugsy, Tisha, Pastor Barbara.

  We sang our hearts off. The anointing was with us. This church was awesome. Sherry, Debra was there. I was happy to see them there. God I just want and need to tell you how grateful I am for you saving my life. You’ve given me so many chances. I’m truly grateful for who you are. You’re God Almighty. Love you so much. I will forever love and be faithful to you. Please convict me of all things. You must, so I can live Christlike, like you.

  These were the words of her heart, the light that I saw shining from her where she stood in the same outfit that I had her buried in, the green two-piece dress suit with gold trim and a jacket. She stood there singing that Donnie McClurkin song, proud and happy. This was her last journal entry. She was complete on that day, so many years ago when she sang her heart out in my new church home. She was complete. I was complete.

  I now know the value of writing this book. Yes, it is my purpose, but it is also the blessing of being so vigilant to write in my journals. It is about documenting my life for my children, the first of which wasn’t even a thought when I first read my mother’s journals years ago. Today, she is beside me here on my bed as I read aloud, talk to myself, laugh, cry from the place of reading a mother’s pains, thoughts, and wishes. All the while, I am a mother on this journey with my three daughters.

  It is imperative that I continue to write my memoir, write my journey so that my daughters have my experience to feel what I feel reading my mother’s journals.

  I feel healed. I feel a sense of my mother’s healing, like a couple of pounds are taken off of my shoulders because she left me with the answers to so many questions, so I won’t have so many worries. I gained an extra dose of peace knowing that my mother did the work to experience freedom and true eternal healing.

  My mother leaving her journals behind was not by coincidence. She did it for me, for my brothers, and sitting here with Demi, I know that she did it for her grandkids. Now it’s my turn to do the very same so my daughters won’t have to.

  Today, I went back to my bulleted list of all of the negative things in my mom’s life and added all of the things that brought her light to life: funny, loving, a strong will, with the desire to be a better person. All these characteristics I added to my own bulleted list. I have it in me to finish the work she started.

  I don’t know how my own end-days are going to be. I have to leave something behind for my daughters so that they will know what was going on with me, how I lived, how I felt, and that the struggle to bring them into this world was not one that I regret. I am dealing with my Black female life with the reality that I have been handed, but making the best of it so that my daughters don’t end up stressed out, having trouble carrying their babies to full term, having so many mental struggles from childhood to overcome. My body, my heart, my mind, struggles the way that it does because like my mother said in her journals, I am doing the best I can.

  Dropping Jewels

  Reconnect to Heal from Loss

  Two pieces of very important advice:

/>   Acknowledge and heal from mother-loss, because that is the generational loss that gets birthed by mother after mother.

  Reconnect with family by jumping over the barrier of family secrets.

  Reconnecting with family is imperative to your growth and healing because without the truth you will be stuck in bondage. You will be stuck with assumptions and making shit up in your head for the remainder of your life sentence. I call it a life sentence because for me that is truly how it feels when you simply don’t know and can’t remember important details in your life because of trauma.

  You will almost always feel stuck, trapped, useless, and alone because for some reason you cannot connect to your main source in life . . . which is you and the roots from which you sprouted. So by all means, yes please ask questions, yes dig deeper, yes look further to learn what you need to know so you can gain your own key to freedom.

  Family secrets will break you if you don’t make an attempt to unmask them. So before the shit hits the fan and causes more damage to your interior it is best that you begin to do your own heavy lifting of uncovering the truth. The feeling you get from simply doing your best effort brings forth a piece of gratitude that is hard to explain to anyone who has not even attempted to pave their own road.

  Being open and honest with PopaAuntie and Lynette allowed to fall off of us all chains that we had no idea had shackled us. The release has been a beautiful sight to watch blossom within us all. Now that I know what that release feels like, I am committed to helping others get a taste of that freedom. How did Oprah used to say it on her show when she gave away gifts to the audience? Everybody gets a . . . Well that’s me! You get a release, you get a release, and you get a release from all that is weighing you down woman. You deserve it.

  At this point in my life I truly believe that transparency, release, and vulnerability have played major roles in getting me to this point where I can be so open and real with myself, my family, and now with you. It is time; in fact it has been time for you to dig a little deeper so you can come out on the other side. No it will not be easy, but it sure as hell will be worth it.

  There is no deeper stress to the body than the stress of mother-loss and grief. Yes, there is all of the other trauma, but my relationship with my mother was the biggest wide-open wound in my life that can now begin to heal and help me to be a better mother.

  It took the birth of my firstborn angel and rock, Demi, it took almost losing Dakota, and it took the difficult pregnancy with Denver for me to lose myself and begin the long journey to figure out what happened to me as a child, why it happened, and how. Taking that journey has helped me to change for my children, so they will not carry on that loss. I had to do the work of healing not just my physical self, but my mental and spiritual self.

  Having a premature baby is one of those life events that sends you back to your own birth. You have to go back to the beginning so that you can heal and be strong for that baby. You have to do the healing for yourself and have a starting point to become the mother you want to be. Not the model of a superwoman mother, but the real human being with wants and needs who is a mixture of the mother you want to be and the woman you are. It is so crucial to the point where if you are reading this book and don’t have the funds to invest in your healing, set up an online fundraiser. Tell people to invest in you being a better person for yourself and your children. Invest in therapy, retreats, and your physical well-being. Ask them to sow into you. You owe it to yourself.

  If you want to experience true freedom, you have to step out the box and do what you’ve never done to get what you’ve never had. You were born alone, you die alone; to be free and released and healed you have to do it for yourself. It starts with you.

  If I have any more children, I am betting this healthier mind, body, and spirit of mine will help me to have a healthier pregnancy. I can’t predict that, but I do know that my three daughters are benefiting from the example of watching their mother exhibit self-love and offer them all of her love, not just in my words but in my actions.

  It is my biggest hope that no matter what happens from here, these drops of love and wisdom that are my life will have a positive effect on the health and well-being of all the women who read this book and the women who are their daughters. Because it is truly from my heart to yours.

  Acknowledgments

  Above all I would like to thank the Father, the Son, and Holy Spirit; without thee there is no me.

  I want to say thank you to my husband, JR; I love and appreciate you. God loves and trust us so much that he gave us a miracle to care for and I am honored to be sharing this journey with you. I want to thank my brothers Storm and Bo. We all we got. I love y’all. Thank you to my bonus daughter, Peyton, for teaching me how to love unconditionally, without limits and stigmas. Thank you Aunt Frances, PopaAuntie, and Lynette for your sacrifice. I hope you are proud to see the fruit you produced in me. Thank you to my niece Heaven Lee’ Aamari Glover, for showing me resilience, strength, and what it is like to experience Heaven on earth. To my dearest Danica I love you! Thank you for your gifts, your persistence, and your drive to please and overachieve. You have been with me, believed in me, and helped me from the start, and I have no doubt in my heart that you will be right here with me to the finish. God knew we would need one another . . . PERIOD. Thank you to my whole family. I love each and every one of you for the ways you have supported my journey. Special thanks to my best friend, Kawana, for always believing in me and just being there: “This is us.”

  I so appreciate and want to thank you, Nanny (Miss Pam). Without you being here, I would have never been able to grow and get myself together and heal properly without having your help with the girls. God placed you in my life at the perfect time so I could get this book done. You came into my life at a time when it was hard for me to trust anyone with my children. For showing and teaching me how to keep my heart right, I want to thank you, Bishop Barbara Glanton. The example you are to your flock is unmatchable.

  I want to thank and acknowledge you, Zelda, for allowing me to be transparent and allowing me to heal throughout this process of sharing my life with you, and being my sister who gave me guidance and wisdom along the way. I feel like our relationship has grown and I’ve gained another family member throughout this process. I want to thank my agent, Rica, for believing in me and saying “Yes.” Thank you for having lunch with me on that special day and believing in the story’s potential. I would like to thank HarperCollins and the wonderful editors Amber and Sarah who dedicated their energy to this book.

  Resources

  Resources for Families with Preemies

  My Kota Bear, Inc.: https://www.mykotabear.com/

  Graham’s Foundation: https://grahamsfoundation.org/

  What to Expect: https://www.whattoexpect.com/first-year/support-for-parents-of-premature-babies.aspx

  PreemieWorld: https://preemieworld.com/

  PreemieCare Support Groups: https://www.preemiecare.org/supportgroups.htm

  Resources for Postpartum Depression and Mental Health Support

  Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration National Helpline: https://www.samhsa.gov/find-help/national-helpline

  Psychology Today: “Find a Therapist” Database: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/therapists

  National Suicide Prevention Lifeline: 800-273-8255; https://suicidepreventionlifeline.org/

  Postpartum Support International: https://www.postpartum.net/

  References

  Of particular interest in illuminating the crisis is Linda Villarosa’s piece, “Why America’s Black Mothers and Babies Are in a Life-or-Death Crisis.” New York Times, April 11, 2018. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/11/magazine/black-mothers-babies-death-maternal-mortality.html.

  Broomfield, Robyn. “African American Women and Postpartum Depression.” Master’s thesis, The College at Brockport, State University of New York, 2014. http://digitalcommons.brockport.edu/edc_theses/163.

  Lewis,
Tené T., and Miriam E. Van Dyke. “Discrimination and the Health of African Americans: The Potential Importance of Intersectionalities.” Current Directions in Psychological Science 27, no. 3 (May 2018): 176–82. https://doi.org/10.1177/0963721418770442.

  Musgrave, Catherine F., Carol Easley Allen, and Gregory J. Allen. “Spirituality and Health for Women of Color.” American Journal of Public Health 92, no. 4 (2002): 557–60. https://ajph.aphapublications.org/doi/pdf/10.2105/AJPH.92.4.557.

  Prather, Cynthia, et al. “Racism, African American Women, and Their Sexual and Reproductive Health: A Review of Historical and Contemporary Evidence and Implications for Health Equity.” Health Equity 2, no. 1 (2018). http://online.liebertpub.com/doi/10.1089/heq.2017.0045.

  Smith, Imari, et al. “Fighting at Birth: Eradicating the Black-White Infant Mortality Gap.” Samuel DuBois Cook Center on Social Equity and Insight Center for Community Economic Development, Duke University (March 2018). https://socialequity.duke.edu/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/Eradicating-Black-Infant-Mortality-March-2018.pdf.

  About the Author

  Shirley Marie Smith was born in Newark, New Jersey, on August 8, 1984. She is mother of four daughters and wife to two-time NBA Champion JR Smith. In 2017 her daughter Dakota was born at exactly twenty-two weeks, an event that brought out the depths of faith and strength in her marriage. Less than a year later, she suffered complications with the birth of her daughter Denver, who luckily was carried to full term. Postpartum depression set in times two and sent Shirley on a journey back to her childhood pains to heal and move forward. She travels and speaks on these experiences in order to educate and encourage parents of preemies and to offer guidance to women who have struggled with postpartum depression. She is CEO of My Kota Bear, a nonprofit whose mission is to bring support to NICU (neonatal intensive care unit) families. She is a seasoned public speaker, bringing awareness to the issues faced by families of preemies. She is also known for her workshops that inspire and empower women and girls.