It's All Love

by Marita Golden

  I am not alone in this dilemma. The inability to love oneself may be the biggest issue most women suffer from in love relationships. When we don't love ourselves completely, we try to fill ourselves up with what feels good for the moment but is ultimately toxic: drugs, alcohol, overspending, and the ever-popular bad relationships with men. I write an advice column for an online magazine, and most of the questions come from women and most revolve around relationships. Here's an excerpt from one such query: We've been having sex for three months, but he doesn't want a relationship—help!; I'd rather have a little something from a man than no relationship at all, what's wrong with that?; Why am I only attracted to men who don't love me back?

  When I read letters like this again and again, I am grateful for my experiences in this arena even though they were very painful. Knowing I may be helping someone else makes it feel like it wasn't all in vain. I wrote that young lady back and told her the importance of self-value and suggested she create a set of vows to herself. I shared mine: I vow to love you and not let anyone harm you emotionally. I vow to take care of your heart and not allow it to love precariously or recklessly anymore. I vow to protect you from those who do not value you completely. I vow not to enter you into toxic relationships.

  Lately, I've been hearing that some women want to function more like men and have sex just for the sake of having sex. The premise, I suppose, is that these women won't get hurt because their hearts will not be involved. I have trouble believing that deep down inside they don't mind being objectified. Usually when a woman isn't interested in love it's because her last memory of it was a painful one. At the ripe and rich age of fifty plus, I want so much more than sex with someone who wants only that from me. I know I deserve a several-course dining experience and not just an appetizer to tide me over. As a dear friend says, “I'm on my way to becoming a phenomenal woman, and I need a phenomenal love to match.” With my past experiences noted and tucked away, my parents’ time-tested devotion emblazoned in my heart, and self-infatuation at long last, I'm determined to find that rock-solid love, the one who'll know, without being told, to come correct this time.

  The Heart Does Go On

  DEBBIE M. RIGAUD

  ON THE NIGHT my cherished godmother, Madone “Dada” Nicaisse, took her last breath, the full moon was luminous and low to the ground.

  It was September of 2006.

  My godmother was my mother's aunt, my maternal grandmother's big sister. But in our clan, there is no distinction between grandmother and great-aunt, immediate family and extended family. Before their 1960s migration to the States, my mother's family lived together in one house in Haiti, the island republic from whence my parents hail. Therein adults regarded each household child as their own.

  Dada carried out this tradition, even as relatives settled in different addresses throughout Brooklyn, New York, and East Orange, New Jersey. When my maternal great-grandmother died in the mid-1980s at age one hundred plus, Dada—her firstborn—inherited the crown of eldest member in our extended tight-knit family.

  Dada was our royalty. Everyone held her in the highest esteem. As a child my eldest sister christened her Dada when she could not pronounce ma tante Madone. This became a cherished moniker, affectionately uttered by the family's generation of American-born children delivered into Dada's care in the 1970s and later.

  From Brooklyn, my parents and sisters moved to East Orange, New Jersey. Dada moved with us. We felt blessed that Dada lived in our house with my parents, three sisters, and me for over fifteen years. She could have chosen to stay with her son, her only child, who lived in Brooklyn with his wife and children. Throughout our childhood, when our parents headed across the river to Manhattan for work, Dada sprang into action. Her signature wake-up call of “I'ecole, I'ecole, I'ecole” rang out like a school bell, piercing our sleepiness and prying our eyes open each morning. She then prepped us for our day, combed our full heads of hair, and embossed us with “Pm-Haitian” talcum powder on our collarbones. Later she was there to greet us when we returned home.

  My cousins lived next door, and we all walked to school together. Dada usually stood at the top of our home's walkway to watch us until we disappeared around the corner. She'd float a silent prayer over us as we headed to the school building a mile away. I felt her wrap us in a cocoon of love and safety. Dada's prayers were that powerful. In fact, she was the family's designated prayer; everyone called Dada before taking a test, traveling on a flight, or anything in between. There was nothing like knowing you were on Dada's prayer list. Her physically frail, elderly body was twisted with osteoporosis and afflicted with asthma, but it housed a mighty spirit. She was like a force of nature that you feel rather than see.

  My mother, Viviane “Mummy” Rigaud, and Dada were very close. This is mostly because like my mother, Dada was an outwardly gentle, shy, reserved Haitian woman, but also equally strong-willed, proud, focused, and completely in charge. Along with my mother, Dada was like a study of a distant era when dignity, not diamonds, was a woman's best friend.

  Dada's passing was heartbreaking because for long I'd considered her my soul mate. I never stopped flooding her with letters, postcards, and phone calls professing my adoration and appreciation. She loved me unconditionally and treated me like a princess. We even had a special nickname for each other, Bou Bou. Growing up, my unconventional personality had often placed me at odds with my mother. I kept my hair natural, moved out of the house before marriage, and broke other Haitian traditions/expectations that my elder sisters upheld. But Dada accepted me still. She comforted rather than criticized, soothed rather than scolded. I never felt judged in her presence.

  I learned how to celebrate Dada from my mother. My sisters and I followed Mummy's example of placing Dada on a pedestal, giving her the utmost respect, value, and appreciation. Mummy revered Dada as an elder and as the matriarch of our growing extended family.

  Mummy had been in Atlanta undergoing chemotherapy when she received the news of Dada's passing. I called her for help with the bio I had to write for Dada's funeral program. Even though my maternal grandmother was Dada's sister, my mother remembered the details and milestones of Dada's life more vividly than she did. Dada's position as family griot and historian seemed to have passed down to my mother. Even though my mom lived in New Jersey, she chose to get treatment in Atlanta in the privacy of my elder sister Judy and her husband Jerry's home. An intensely private person, Mummy didn't want an audience to her hair loss and side effects. So Dada's funeral became a reunion of sorts.

  At the services, I remember people complimenting my mother on how healthy and radiant she looked. “I juice veg-e-ta-bles,” she revealed in her Haitian New Yorker accent, stretching the word into four audible syllables.

  Two months later we tried to keep the Thanksgiving mood festive in honor of Dada. My younger sister Golda, her one-year-old son, Xavier, my husband (then fiance), Bernard, and I flew to Atlanta to spend Thanksgiving with our mother and sisters. After dinner, my mother played with her six grandchildren and we took family portraits. Everyone then danced to my mother's favorite songs in Judy's living room, laughing at baby Xavier's great sense of rhythm.

  We celebrated through our grief.

  Those moments of joy were short-lived. Barely two months after that Thanksgiving, Judy called from Atlanta. It was a Thursday night. “Mummy's not eating, and she's getting weaker,” she told me, fearing the worst. “We're taking her to the hospital in the morning to get some fluids.” My sister is a doctor of internal medicine and her diagnoses are usually spot-on. “I think she may have three to six months left,” she said.

  I couldn't believe what I was hearing, so I brushed it off as negative talk. My mother had been fine the week prior. These symptoms had surfaced only over the last few days. And now I was supposed to believe that her days were numbered?

  I told Judy that I'd fly out the following weekend, which was eight days away. The next morning, Friday, Judy and my eldest sister, Shirley, too
k Mummy to the hospital. They called us often with updates. By then my father, maternal grandmother, and aunt had flown down from Jersey.

  On Saturday, Judy called me at nine o'clock. “You guys need to fly down here today.” She sounded emotionally weary from spending a precarious night beside Mummy's hospital bed. “Her blood pressure is dropping fast. I had the hospital chaplain give her her last rites.”

  Clenching the phone, I looked over to where my sister Golda was standing, her pregnant belly extended and round. My sisters and I had tried to shield Golda from the hard news. We didn't want to worry her too soon. And so Golda didn't realize the gravity of Mummy's condition.

  “I'll book the next flight out,” I said before hanging up.

  Golda reacted nonchalantly to the news. In fact, she didn't think she'd be able to fly out that day “I have to clean the house, so I'll book a flight for tomorrow morning,” she said. I remembered the defeat in Judy's voice and urged her to come with me. We booked a flight leaving at 1:30 P.M. that same day. When I told Judy that Golda couldn't prepare the baby in time for the 11:30 A.M. flight, Judy sounded worried that we were cutting it too close. “Okay, but get here as soon as possible,” she said.

  By the time we got to the airline check-in, it was 1:05 P.M. “It's too late for you to make the flight,” the woman behind the counter told us.

  “But our mother is dying,” I said, panicking.

  The woman rambled off something about policy and tapped her keyboard in search of seats on the 3:30 P.M. flight.

  And then something miraculous happened.

  “The one-thirty flight has just been delayed by ten minutes because of a mechanical problem.” She stared at the screen in disbelief. “You can still make it, but you better hurry.” Golda and I grabbed Xavier and rushed to the security checkpoint to oddly find no one waiting on line. Because we purchased our tickets the same day as our flight, security pulled us aside for a closer check. We got through the whole process in mere minutes. A passenger transport vehicle was waiting on the other side of the checkpoint. At our request, the driver sped us to our departure gate in no time. Upon boarding the plane, all the passengers, including my cousin Natasha and her grandmother (Dada's youngest sister), who were also flying down last minute to see my mother, were anxiously awaiting takeoff. Golda and I took our seats with gratitude in our hearts. Somehow, and for some reason, we had made the flight.

  Once we arrived in Atlanta my father and brother-in-law picked us up and drove us straight to the hospital.

  It was jolting to see Mummy in such a state. Her covered legs were the first thing that came into view as I entered her room. I was eager to be by her side but wasn't sure I was prepared to see more of her. Our entire lives my mother had never been admitted to a hospital. It was a strange feeling to be visiting her there. She lay on her back, semiconscious and unable to speak. A Haitian church group was in her room, praying and singing hymns.

  “We're here, Mummy,” Golda and I said, rushing to her bedside, masking our shock. “We're here.”

  When we touched and spoke to our mother, her eyes fluttered in response. She tried to focus on our faces but couldn't completely control her eye movement. The whites of her eyes were jaundiced because, we'd learned, the cancer had spread to her liver. Judging from her eye flutters, she knew we were there. Although he is a toddler, Xavier seemed to understand that this was a somber moment. His eyes were watery and replete with sadness. Golda held him to the side of her pregnant belly. As she bent over to kiss my mother, Xavier lowered his head to my mother's chest and stroked her gently with his little hand. Mummy gasped in shock and widened her eyes at Xavi-er's obvious comprehension.

  Golda and I voiced encouraging words in my mother's ear as we kissed her and comforted her. My father and cousin stood at her bedside in tears of disbelief. Gripping grief seized my great-aunt and chased her to the hallway, where she broke down.

  “It's okay, Mummy,” I heard Golda bravely whisper, giving Mummy precious peace of mind. “You can go.”

  When Mummy's panting relaxed, we knew she felt soothed by our presence. We then sang “His Eye Is on the Sparrow,” one of her favorite hymns. Everyone formed a circle and held hands around her bed and prayed.

  Seconds after the prayer ended, Mummy took her last breath and drifted away

  It was January of 2007-

  A high-pitched wail traveled from my core and escaped out the top of my head. “Mummeeee!” Golda's shriek merged with mine. For that brief moment we let the sorrow overcome us fully.

  Not fifteen minutes had passed since we'd arrived at the hospital from the airport, and Mummy was gone. Had we not made that flight, we would have tragically been too late. God cleared the way so that we could spend one last moment with our beloved mother. It was clear to everyone that although she was slipping fast, she held on for this long because she was waiting for our arrival. My older sisters, who returned to the hospital from home minutes after Mummy's passing, told Mummy all day that Golda and I would be flying in. And she waited.

  This struck me as an amazing act of love. And she waited for Golda and me, her younger two eccentric daughters who were known for unconventional philosophies that strayed from some family standards.

  My mother's final act was to express her deep love for her daughters. That was her way. I have never come across a mother as maternal and nurturing as mine. She was such a “mommy.”

  Her overprotective parenting in childhood gave way to a wonderful camaraderie as we entered adulthood. When she visited me in London (where I lived for two years), Mummy was adventurous and full of curiosity. She saved the British Airways menu as a keepsake from her first transatlantic flight. Her excitement energized her as we toured London and Paris. As expected from any tourist, Mummy was awed by world-renowned sites like the Eiffel Tower, but she especially marveled at quirky standouts like the miniature elevators or the bonjour-greet'mg shopkeepers in Paris.

  A week after she returned home, I received a card from her in the mail. In it was a photo of Mummy and me in front of the Arc de Triomphe. Her handwritten message on the card thanked me for the great time we shared together. “I am so proud of you,” she wrote. I was overjoyed to read those words. I was touched because she was proud of me being myself, rather than the me I was expected to be.

  Days after her diagnosis and surgery to remove a cancerous lump under her right arm, Mummy came out dancing with my younger sister Golda in celebration of my thirtieth birthday. It completely surprised us when she agreed to come along. She threw on something nice over her fresh surgery bandages, and we headed to a low-key wine bar. We were joined by my cousin, her husband, and three other friends. I will never forget how we hit the vacant dance floor and jammed together like girlfriends.

  My sisters and I valued my mother. Mummy was a clever woman, an operating room nurse with a passion for books and for pushing us to excel academically. My sisters and cousins all knew that acing school was the surest way to win Mummy over. Still, it was her easygoing personality that we loved the most. Because of Mummy, we knew just as much about manners, self-respect, and discipline as we knew about burping out the alphabet and cracking jokes about the crazies on the New York City subway. She balanced both sides of her personality well. We were able to speak plainly and debate her about our curfew, straight vs. natural hair, and her painfully mismatched outfits. My mother used comedy to entertain, ease tension, and connect with us. The most vivid memories I have of my mom are our laugh attacks, spawned by her hilarious, witty comments about her casual observations.

  “I'm not with you,” she'd say in Creole with a straight face when we couldn't hold our laughter in public as well as she could.

  Days after her passing, as I searched for old pictures of my mom for a memorial slide show, I was overcome with sadness. I felt inconsolable. Then in a box of photos I found an envelope addressed to me from Dada. Inside was a card with a short message written in Dada's distinct handwriting. “Bou Bou my dear,” it read in F
rench. “I send you words of comfort: courage, patience, joy and happiness to you. …”

  I fell to my knees in gratitude. Once again I felt wrapped in Dada's loving and protective cocoon. She had reached through the beyond to touch me with comfort when I needed it most. Dada's love extended from the beyond to comfort me in my dire time of need. It's a love that's everlasting.

  At my beloved mother's funeral, my three sisters and I linked arms with each other and began a most agonizing procession down the wide, cold aisle. Everyone in attendance stood on either side of us and watched with leaking eyes. Over three hundred people in attendance were in painful shock. A majority of them, including close family members, didn't even know my mother was terribly ill. She had kept her condition a secret.

  We followed our mother's casket out of the Catholic church. Six male members of our family—my mother's two brothers, three cousins, and a nephew—carried her out like spiritual guardians. I wondered how their grief didn't compromise their physical strength. A single tear slipped down my right cheek to remind me to feel and to live in the moment.

  My mind had the tendency to wander lately.

  Mental meanderings became a survival skill I'd learned to perfect in the past few months. The shock of my mother's sudden death would have been too much to bear otherwise. This, on the heels of Dada's passing four months prior, would've surely sent me forever into orbit. Both women had raised my sisters and me with a lovingly gentle yet steadying hand.