by Mariah Carey
I understood on a soul level that no matter what happened to me, or around me, something lived inside me that I could always call on. I had something that would guide me through any storm.
And when the wind blows, and shadows grow close
Don’t be afraid, there’s nothing you can’t face
And should they tell you you’ll never pull through
Don’t hesitate, stand tall and say
I can make it through the rain
—“Through the Rain”
THERE CAN BE MIRACLES
When I was six years old, my mother moved my brother and me into a tiny, nondescript house in Northport, Long Island. It sat sadly atop a stack of long, winding concrete steps.
The dull little structure had a few tiny rooms running along either side of a steep, creaky staircase, which led up to even smaller rooms. My mother was often working or out at night, so Morgan was left to babysit me. He had no skills to look after a little girl. He would leave me alone and go run wild with his teenage friends. One night, while left alone, I was watching a special on 20/20 about children being kidnapped—totally inappropriate for a six-year-old. And it so happened that at that moment, some kids in the neighborhood decided to throw rocks at the window. Their voices broke through the dark night, chanting, “Mariah, we’re gonna get you!” I was terrified by the news, by the kids, by the night, by the house, by my absolute aloneness.
I wanted my brother to love me. I was impressed by his strong energy, but it also scared me. This little house couldn’t possibly bear the weight of all of our pain and fear—especially my brother’s. It was such a raw time. I was a scared little girl, my mother was profoundly heartbroken, and my brother—well, let’s just say he was more than simply an angry teen, especially in high school. He’d outgrown anger by middle school and had graduated to full-on rage. As a young teen, my brother was bursting with creative and athletic promise. But earlier in his life he had been bullied and beat up for having a disability and being a mixed-race kid. The visible difference he wore on his skin always distanced him from the white boys in Long Island and made him a target. Children can be mean, but when ordinary meanness is combined with racism, it takes on a peculiar brutality, one very often sanctioned by (and learned from) adults. My brother most likely caught some hell from the Black kids too. I’m sure his distance from their kind of detectable Blackness, the kind that gets you roughed up by the cops for nothing, stirred up a resentment in them that came out in the form of physical blows and name-calling.
My brother was broken early on, and the only tool he had to defend himself was destruction. He would fight everything, his demons and everybody else, especially our father. The relationship he had with our father was not one that helped him rebuild—instead, it ground him down even further into his inner outrage. A broken man cannot fix his broken boy. My brother was shattered into pieces, scattered to the wind, and our father’s outdated tools of militaristic discipline were inadequate to help him collect himself and prepare him for manhood. The misunderstanding and emotional distance with our father was my brother’s perpetual and crushing agony, and it resulted in his absolute rage.
For most of my childhood I was caught between my brother’s fury and my mother’s sad searching. Rage and despondence are both highly damaging, but, I think, one turns inward and the other turns outward. When they collide, it can be catastrophic. By the time I was in kindergarten, catastrophe was already routine to me. When we lived in Northport, mini explosions erupted between my mother and brother daily. I conditioned myself to be still and wait for the outbursts to pass over. Most of the time I tuned out the words and reasons behind their fights—the “why” was big-people territory. To me, their arguments were just a blur of intense voices at high volume, punctuated by ruthless cursing.
One particular night, however, I distinctly knew the source of the argument: my brother wanted to use my mother’s car, and she wouldn’t let him. Certainly they’d had hundreds of fights over the car, but for some reason this night felt different. I was paying attention. Typically, their fights would start off the way I imagined normal fights between most teenagers and parents did, but this one wasn’t like that. It began at blow-up level and rapidly escalated into violent obscenities being hurled across the room. Hurtful words flew back and forth like bullets ricocheting off the walls, gaining strength with each new round. There was no escaping the crossfire; the screaming shot room to room, up and down the stairs, and the entire house became a battlefield. There was no safe place. I felt the air tighten as my mother and brother came face-to-face, mere inches of electrified anger between them. I was terrified. My whole body stiffened. Eyes opened wide, I fixed on the space between them and cried out, “Stop it! Stop it!” over and over again, through my tears. I was hoping maybe my cry could slip into that space and disarm them for a moment.
Suddenly there was a loud, sharp noise, like an actual gunshot. My brother had pushed my mother with such force that her body slammed into the wall, making a loud cracking sound. I saw her frame go rigid; for a moment she appeared frozen against the wall, pinned up like a painting, her feet lifted several inches off the ground. Next thing I knew she was totally limp, as if her bones had melted, folding onto the floor. It was a split second. It was an eternity. My eyes were still fixed in place, only now I was looking at my mother collapsed in a crumpled pile on the floor. My brother stomped out and slammed the door, shaking the house one last time, and sped off in her car.
I stood there for a moment in the eerie silence. I could hear myself breathing, but I couldn’t tell if my mother still was. A chilling clarity came to me, just as a soft part of my childhood left. Without taking my eyes from my motionless mother, I pulled myself together. Picking up the receiver of our one telephone, I felt it heavy and cold, pressed against my small ear. My little fingers pushed down the square buttons in a familiar sequence. It was the number of one of my mother’s friends, whose house she would sometimes visit to hang out. Since I was only six years old, hers was one of the few numbers I had memorized.
Clearing my voice so I could be heard over the telephone’s static hum, choking on tears, I did my best to calmly tell her, “My brother really hurt my mother, and I’m home alone. Please come help.” I don’t remember what she said. I hung up still feeling focused, my eyes still fixed on my mother’s body. I went into a sort of trance.
I don’t know how long I stood there, just that I snapped out of it at the sound of a loud banging on the door. I scurried to open it for my mother’s friend, and several policemen rushed in. I couldn’t understand what anyone was saying, but I watched as they hurried over to where my mother was lying. Next thing I knew, she was moving. The moment I realized she was alive, the spell of shock broke, and a gush of fear and panic rushed over me—the dawning realization of what had actually happened, what had almost happened, and what unknown future was waiting. I tucked my small body into a ball, held on to myself tightly, and quietly began to cry. I could hear the faint sound of my mother’s voice as she stirred back to consciousness. Then I heard a crystal-clear voice, ringing out just above my head. It was a man’s voice, a voice that I will never forget.
One of the cops, looking down at me but speaking to another cop beside him, said, “If this kid makes it, it’ll be a miracle.” And that night, I became less of a kid and more of a miracle.
WHEN CHRISTMAS COMES
I don’t want a lot for Christmas
There is just one thing I need
I don’t care about the presents
Underneath the Christmas tree
—“All I Want for Christmas Is You”
My mother added a leaf to her tiny wooden table, making it almost family-sized for the day. With a few simple decorations, the table became the festive centerpiece, along with a Charlie Brown-ish tree, of an otherwise makeshift furnished living room in the run-down house where the two of us lived. Despite our circumstances, my mother wanted us to have a “wonderful life.”
/> The days leading up to Christmas were an event. My mother always kept an Advent calendar. We would open a new flap each day. I’d read the portion of a story or a poem printed there, and she would give me the chocolates hidden inside. The mulled wine she made camouflaged the dankness of the house with a warm spicy aroma. I was well aware we didn’t have much money, so while I never really anticipated getting any extravagant presents or popular toys, I loved that we’d make an effort to get into the spirit and do what we could to create an ambiance of joy and jubilance. We’d clean up, we’d decorate, and of course we would sing. Christmas carols sung in my mother’s operatic voice brought a feeling of spaciousness to our cramped daily existence.
Mother wasn’t much of a cook, but for Christmas dinner she tried—we both tried. We tried to put all the trauma and drama that infected the rest of our lives on hold and just have a peaceful Christmas meal. Too much to ask? I think not. I was a child craving a childhood, in a house filled with disappointment and pain.
Throughout the years, my sister and brother would rarely communicate all year, let alone come to visit where my mother and I were living. Christmas was one rare occasion when we would all be together under one rickety roof. The four of us would sit around the table, eyes avoiding eyes, often unable to talk, clogged up by all the things none of us had language for. I was very young and had not yet accumulated enough of a past to be broken by it. My siblings and my mother wouldn’t communicate for most of the year, so by Christmas dinner my brother and sister would come stuffed with hurt and anger, starving for attention. Eventually, inevitably, they would all explode in a torrent of verbal abuse. I would sit there in the center of the chaos, crying and wishing: wishing they would stop screaming, wishing my mother could stop them from screaming and cursing. Wishing I could be somewhere safe and merry—somewhere that felt like Christmas.
My sister and brother clearly couldn’t stand each other, but their deep resentment toward me was a constant, silent menace simmering right below the surface. I was the third and youngest child, and our parents were divorced by the time I was three. I was what they considered a golden child: lighter hair, lighter skin, and a lighter spirit. I lived with our mother, and they were exiled from each other and us. They existed in a different kind of pain, absorbing whatever hostility under-loved, troubled, mixed kids do in any neighborhood, Black or white. I believed they believed I was passing. There I was with my blondish hair, living with our white mother, in what they considered a safe white neighborhood. Their resentment toward me was perhaps the one thing they had in common; they seemed bound in that bitterness. I actually understood why they were angry and hateful toward me, but at the time, I couldn’t fathom why every year, they just had to ruin Christmas.
But my wishing was more powerful than their pain. I wished with exuberance. I set about creating my own little magical, merry world of Christmas. I focused on all the things my mother struggled to create; all I needed was a shower of glitter and a full church choir to back me up. My imaginary Christmas was filled with Santa Claus, reindeer, snowmen, and all the bells and trimmings a little girl’s dreams could hold. And I loved contemplating a sweet baby Jesus, taking in the powerful joy the true spirit of the season brings.
* * *
Not every Christmas was ruined by my family.
My mother was culturally open when I was young and had a diverse group of friends. I remember I had a friend—let’s call her Ashley—whose mother was gay (Ashley had no clue). My mother was very matter of fact: “Ashley’s mom is gay, and she lives with her partner.” No big deal. And it really wasn’t. Two of my favorite people were my guncles (gay uncles), Burt and Myron. They were wonderful, and so was their home. It wasn’t a grand spread, but theirs was a charming midsized brick house set back on a sweet piece of wooded land. Wild raspberries grew in the backyard, and they had a golden Labrador named Sparkle. When they traveled, my mother and I would house-sit for them. I reveled in the cleanliness and comfort.
Burt was a schoolteacher and photographer, and Myron was, as he put it, a “stay-at-home wife.” Myron was a vision. He wore a perfectly coiffed beard and his hair was always blown out in cascading layers, which he would finish off with a shimmering frosting spray. He was perpetually tanned and sashayed around the house in spectacular multicolored silk caftans. Burt would bring me out in their yard to take photos of me (I just adored showing off in front of a camera), and he totally encouraged my exaggerated poses. He fully supported and understood my propensity for extraness.
I distinctly remember one Christmas photo session we staged. I was dressed up in a green dress with flowers, and, as a special Christmas miracle, I had decent-looking bangs. I pretended to be placing an ornament on the tree as I coyly looked back over my shoulder and Burt snapped the picture: fashion-feature festive.
I enjoyed Burt and Myron’s lovely, cozy little home year-round, but especially at Christmastime. They put so much care and personality into preparing for the season. The house would be perfectly clean, and there would be pretty decorations, precisely placed, and a fire roaring in the fireplace. The house smelled like a new oven with something roasting inside; they always had little savory morsels to nibble and served fancy drinks like brandy Alexanders. I remember being stuck at their house one holiday during an ice storm, which I hoped would never end. Burt and Myron gave me my first taste of what a homey Christmas really felt like. They provided an example of a homey lifestyle in general.
My guncles supported the showgirl in me. Whenever I wanted to put on my own little production (which was frequently), they would pay full attention to me. They never tried to tame my over-the-top imagination. It was from my little girl’s spirit and those early fantasies of family, and friendship, that I wrote “All I Want for Christmas Is You.” Think of how it begins: ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding … the delicate chimes are reminiscent of those little wooden toy pianos, like the one Schroeder had on Peanuts.
I actually did bang out most of the song on a cheap little Casio keyboard. But it’s the feeling I wanted the song to capture. There’s a sweetness, a clarity, and a purity to it. It didn’t stem from Christian inspiration, although I’ve certainly sung and written from that soulful and spiritual perspective. Instead, this song came from a childlike space; when I wrote it, at twenty-two years old, I wasn’t that far away from being a child. I recorded an entire Christmas album, which was a risk. You just didn’t see Christmas videos on MTV back then. In fact, it was almost unheard of for anyone—let alone such a young singer, so early in her career—to write and record an original Christmas song that was a legit smash hit.
Though I was accessing the private dream world of my childhood in the song, I wasn’t in the happiest place when I wrote it. My life had changed so quickly, yet I still felt lost, wandering the wild borderlands between childhood and adulthood. My relationship with Tommy Mottola, who would eventually become my first husband (and so much more) was already getting weird, and we weren’t even married yet. But to his credit as the head of my record label, he encouraged me to make my first Christmas album, Merry Christmas.
I was feeling nostalgic too. I’ve always been a tragically sentimental person, and Christmastime embodies that sentimentality for me. I wanted to write a song that would make me happy and make me feel like a loved, carefree young girl at Christmas. I also wanted to deliver it like the greats I grew up idolizing—Nat King Cole and the Jackson Five—who had tremendous Christmas classics of their own. I wanted to sing it in a way that would capture joy for everyone and crystallize it forever. Yes, I was going for vintage Christmas happiness. I also believe that somewhere inside I knew it was too late to give my brother and sister peace, and my mother her wonderful life, but I could possibly give the world a Christmas classic instead.
THE FATHER AND THE SUN
Thank you for embracing a flaxen-haired baby
Although I’m aware you had your doubts
I guess anybody’d have had doubts
; —“Sunflowers for Alfred Roy”
My father always reminded me of a sunflower—tall, proud, and stoic, but also bright, strong, handsome, and self-possessed. He labored hard to reach up and out of the harsh ground in which he was rooted. He was determined to transcend the limitations faced by his parents, their siblings, and their whole generation. He was the only child of his father, Robert, and mother, Addie. He was embarrassed by Addie’s third-grade education. Addie was tough on her son, and so he grew to respect and rely on order and logic. By his own strength, he hauled himself out of the violent, oppressive environment that had driven one of his uncles to kill another. My father craved discipline, culture, and freedom, so he joined the military—a logical choice for a man who’d had no say over the time or skin into which he was born.
The military may have taken my father out of the Bronx, but it did not remove him from the perils of being a Black man in America. While he was enlisted, a white woman at the base where he was stationed said she was raped and that a Black man did it. On no evidence other than his not being white, my father was accused of the crime and placed in a jail on the base. To add extra suffering, and to serve as a warning to other Black soldiers, the white officers in charge assigned a Black officer to supervise my father—a deliberate reminder that a US military uniform did not camouflage their race. Much like assigning a Black overseer on a plantation, it was an effective technique of terror.
My father was mortified, but mostly he was scared. Like many Black men, he lived in fear of arbitrary brutality, abduction, or death. Yet perhaps above all he feared exhibiting fear—because he knew for that transgression, death was the certain punishment. My father was eventually released, without any apology, support, or counseling. The military’s only explanation was that they had apprehended the actual culprit. With a government-issued gun in hand, he walked straight out of that prison to the top of a hill. Consumed with trauma and rage, he thought of pulling the trigger—and he was not contemplating suicide.