This was written on Saturday 3/14/09 I didn’t post it because I wasn’t ready to release the pain. Now I am, it's time to heal.

Happy Birthday

My son came to me at age 6. His father and I were living together. His mom sent him to us. We were getting married, he was cutting up back home. So there he was. We trying to make it, trying to get married and all that and here comes this little boy. Absolutely off the chain, in the beginning we didn’t get along at all, he reminded me and anyone who he could tell it to, that I wasn’t his mother.  He called me by my name.  I was fine with that. After while we got along alright, then better than alright. He became my son. We were together, always. Every PT conference, every game, every Sunday school program. When he was 12, he and I were baptized together. It was my second time, but I wanted to do it again as I had rededicated my life and I wanted to be there with him. This was a funny child, a brilliant child, he was my son. I took him to the King Center, I took him to museums, he did AIDS Walk, he went to Alvin Ailey. We talked, he was comfortable and would tell me some real whoppers some time but I was the MOM I could handle it and I taught him the best that I could. I loved him as hard as I could, I protected him as much as I could but it was not enough.

Shortly after the baptism, the boy went wild. Yeah he was feeling himself, I knew that because he told me about being horny in class, yes this chile said horny to my face without flinching, neither did I, I was so glad he felt he could tell me what he was going though with the changes in his body it was all good, but then it wasn’t.  There was something in him that was always restless.  He never wanted to be contained, I loved that about him, he was very free, loved to discover things and he didn’t have any fear. That all turned into something very devastating though. There were calls from the teachers, craziness about threats at school, being bought home in cuffs by the police from school. Then came lying about school, then came not going to school at all, then came weed, strange and shady friends, suspensions, expulsions and juvenile detention. Let me say that broke me into a million pieces. Going there on those Saturday’s, seeing him in that detention gear, going through the drill, what do you need, buying candy, seeing those parents every week. It was only a little while though, a few months. When it was time for him to get out, and it was a Friday I told his father, we need to grill out, let’s have steaks, my son is coming home. He wasn’t back home 2 months before we put him on a bus to go back up north. He was stealing and lying and smoking and all kinds of foolishness. I said “you not gonna bring this heat on us, you got to go, if you change your mind about how you gonna behave you can come back” He didn’t change his mind. He didn’t come back. He was in and out of trouble, but he was making money, doing his thing. We talked from time to time, but not much. I said that’s it, it’s on him, Can’t do it. He couldn’t either. My child is in the pen now. I haven’t seen him in 5 years. We have written a few times. His father and I have split.

This summer was my first summer alone. One Saturday I got a letter from him. He said something to the effect of he knows me and his dad aren’t kickin it right now but no matter what happens I am still his mother and he appreciates all that I had done for him. I cried that day.

I am crying right now. My son is 21 today. I cannot see him, talk to him, hug him. I cannot tell him happy birthday. I’m sick as shit over it right now.  Thinking about all of it the good and the bad, what was supposed to happen and how it went so terribly wrong. There isn’t shit I can do about it. Not a damn thing.