The hand that rocks the cradle

I have corneal transplants in both of my eyes from a condition called Keratoconus.  It’s been over 10 years but one could say that I see life out of someone else’s eyes.  This is pretty much how most of my life has been.  My biological mother never raised me and then died at the age of 24 from a heroine overdose.  I met my father when I was 26 years old.  5 years after already having Teddy, so I never learned how to be a daughter.  Now don’t get me wrong, I’ve had wonderful support growing up all things considering between my grandparents and my mom’s sister who I call my mom today.  I thank God for her everyday.  She taught me that there are no obstacles I couldn’t overcome.  It’s what sparked the title of the book that I’ve been writing in my head for many years entitled, It’s not where you come from….   I should of/could of, been so many things with the dna that I’ve come from, but by the grace of God….  I’m not any of those things!

So when I came up with the grand idea at the age of 21, newly being on my own, making really good money at the time and still being a full time student, to go and have a child…One would say that I was plum crazy.  Teddy’s father and I had long broken up a while before but he was a good guy all things considering, and he agreed to father little Teddy.  It was really that simple.  One, bam boom session, plopped up on a pillow to marinate and 30 days later, I was pregnant.  Hence, the hand that rocks the cradle became solely mine.  For the next 19 years.  So when I say that Teddy and I grew up together, I totally mean it literally.  I learned how to mother, as I learned all of the things that was messed up in my childhood.  You see things have a way of coming out one way or another.  This was similar to the dysfunction example I had made in my ‘normal’ blog.   I never knew what normal parenting/being a daughter was and yet here I am responsible for not only a child but a male child, with NO male involvement.  That’s a whole other blog, his father’s involvement.  That’s a whole chapter in the book!!!  Anyway, refocusing….  there were a whole lot of hit and misses in our relationship.  But one of the things that I absolutely loved with me and Teddy’s relationship was our ability to accept responsibility for our shortcomings and respecting each other’s feelings enough to come back and apologize.  Now did it go to some great heights before this happened, ooooooh yeah.  Even as late in life as about 2 months before his murder which led us to not talk for over a week.  But the crazy thing was, we missed each other so much that when we did come back and resolved it, the first few days, we just continuously called each other telling the other how much we missed one another and hated fighting.  His friends would call me his woman instead of his mother.  I laughed it off always saying it’s because I looked so young.  Truth was….  I would always compare a guy I was dating to my son.  I would always think it SHOULD be I want a man to love me like my dad did, but in my case, my man would have to love me as much as my son does.  Take just as good care of me, if not better.  He never let me carry bags, a woman isn’t supposed to he would say.  He would do all of the repairs around the house, heavy lifting, all of the ‘manly’ things.  One could say, that I taught him well.  I guess I did.  I think however, that he saw the need of me needing be taken cared of so much that after a certain age, our roles switched.  I would take care of things on the surface, all of the maintenance of the family, and he took care of me.  He was the only person who got me.  My depression bouts, not really being a people person but needing to have that time with someone who really understood me.  It’s like he knew when I ‘needed’ him and would drop everything and everyone.  He would just sit and talk with me, listen to old jams and dance with me, sing with me, watch television and just lay on my lap like he did when he was a little boy.  Those times was so priceless because he never made me feel like I was keeping him from something or bothering him.   I was so grateful to him for that.  For having that inside of him.  For loving me that much.  The hand that rocks the cradle reversed the last few years.  I miss him so much.  He helped me raise Jalen to this point.  There are so many variables missing in our lives right now, I guess that’s why our grieving changes from day to day.  I’m just praying for the day where it seems to get easier….

Normal Times

When it seems like things are ‘normal’, my mind goes haywire.  It goes into overload because I think about what normal is supposed to be.  Laughing is someone’s normal.  Laughing to me is stopping time for a moment, taking a breath, and then once it exhales, it’s back to regular ‘normal’.  I guess all dysfunction is someone’s normal because they don’t know any better.  Does a child know that it’s not normal to not get beat everyday if that is what’s happening since they were conceived?  They don’t know what goes on in other people’s home so once they are introduced to a ‘healthy’ environment later in life, it is going to mess up them up more before it gets better because now they have to process the old from the new.  The positive from the …………..’normal’.  Makes any sense??

My kids lived in dysfunction.  They both had fathers who for whatever their reasons, didn’t think that their lives were a priority.  Both had major confidence in my ability to mother and mother (seeing how i can’t be a father), I had to double mother.  But even in this state, I think I did such a fantastic job mothering and counseling and praying and encouraging and taking the blame off of them ( oh because you know a child blames themselves when a parent is absent…), that I know our lives were ‘normal’ in their eyes.  Now mentally of course, you can’t trick the heart, but you can manipulate the mind.  All we knew was, we had each other and no matter what anyone else thought,  or did, we would always be there for each other.  We even planned where they were moving when they  got married.  All of us no more than a few blocks from each other and everyone would still gather for Sunday dinners.  Oh, and the best was, when I died, I wanted to be cremated so I could sit on their mantle ( I wanted to be shared equally between the 2 of them) and watch their wives when they wasn’t home.  Oh trust me, I would of found a way to send them signs if things wasn’t right.  These women were going to treat my sons right.  We had a plan.

We made many plans as things progressed throughout the years.  I would sit and pray and come up with stuff and then we discuss it.  Nothing seemed to out of the box.  Ya’ll trusted me unconditionally and once I said, we can do this, for some reason, ya’ll really believed it could be done, to getting a house in KY, getting money when I say we needed it, etc.  Then we would get out pad and vision cast down to the details.  Write the vision and make it plain.  That was our way of believing that things would not only always get better, but that we were a team and teams work together until completion.  But now what about our new plans?  Our new normal?  Our plans that involve your daughter Teddy or the plans you made with Marissa and Jalen?  The ones where I felt I could begin to rest a little easier because I finally have an adult son on the right road and he would help me with his little brother.  I was just starting to breath a little easier and then….

My new normal sucks.  I don’t even have one.  Each day poses it’s own entity.  The only consistency is making sure Jalen eats.  I sit with my thoughts, on the train, walking in the street, looking at people and wondering do they know the lava that is burning in my stomach right now?  I still get on the bus and say good morning/afternoon because Its only right.  I’m trying.  I try to act like stuff like that really matters to me.  I still say sorry if I bump someone on the train but deep inside I want to say, get over it, at least your child is still alive.  I want the world to know you.  I want the parents of those boys to see your face every single day.  I want when they hang up the phone from talking to their sons, they think of you not being able to call me.  I see the worried looks on their faces when we are in court.  I don’t take glory in that, it doesn’t make me feel better to be orchestrating trying to send their sons to prison.  It actually hurts my heart.  That pisses me off.  Me and God do a lot of talking on this  topic.  Lord, why have you given me a double portion of empathy where I actually feel bad for these families?  Even for these boys?  Why do I think about them in jail praying for their safety?  Oh I want them in jail, nooooooooo doubt.  But I don’t want them harmed.  They are somebody’s son.  They could be my son.  What would I do if one of them was Teddy?  Would he have ‘snitched’ like the kids call it?  What are those parent’s ‘normal’ now?  Are they embarrassed with their friends and family that their children are in jail for murder?  Do they try to justify their actions.  You know our children’s actions are a reflection of our parenting.  Every time Teddy got in trouble, I used to pray, Lord what am I doing wrong?  Are they thinking the same thing?

You know what the difference is from them and me?  I don’t care what the lawyer would of advised me to do or not to do.  From day one, I would of went up to that mother and apologized.  That’s not taking responsibility for your child’s actions, I mean apologize as a mother that her child is no longer here, no matter what the reason.  Let the trial speak for itself but your child is gone and i’m sorry……………  That is the decent thing to do.  I can stilll say good morning to the bus driver even when I feel like crying and you can’t say sorry for my murdered son?

My normal is now eating something early after dropping Jalen off to school/camp so I don’t get sick to my stomach when I take my vitamins and anti depressants and my ‘keep calm’ pills.   I take pills to get through the day and then pills to go to sleep at night.  I listen to gospel songs during the day and sing out loud as I walk in the street.  I may look a little touched but I believe if I’m saying the words out loud, they may have a little more power.  God I trust you, God even though I may not understand, I still have faith in you.  I try to remember those words when I see boys Teddy’s age and cry.  When I pass places we’ve been together and I cry.  When I think of thoughts of events and cry.  When I just cry…..  When the only time I don’t cry is when I try not to think of you at all.  I mentally put you with Marissa and think, we’ll talk later.  Then later comes and I realize that you’re not coming home but hey, I have my go to sleep pills for that…..but I don’t always take them.  Sometimes I just sit in the bed at night and talk to you.  I love those occasions when we just spend time together.  I feel you much stronger at night time.  When you visit me in my  dreams, I don’t always remember those so I’ll rather stay up with you.

Normal…..I’m not sure what that means anymore.  Not at this moment.  I guess it will get to a better place one day.  When i’m not using an emotional off and on switch.  It may take a long time, a short time, whatever but it’ll be in my time.  You was my son.  You are my son.  No matter here on earth or not, you will always be my son.  Ena Marshall Griffin has 2 sons ladies and Gentleman.

Funny thing real quick, well, not ha ha funny but I guess it’s Jalen’s new ‘normal’.  He told his camp group while they were all introducing themselves this week that he was an only child.  His counselor told me later on.  It really hurt my feelings but you know what?  I guess that’s HIS new ‘normal’.  He’s not me, he doesn’t want to explain to everyone the pain he’s in or be thought of as the boy with the murdered brother I guess.  I guess.  I guess.  I can’t see how you just don’t claim your brother but he’s 11 and I can’t grieve for him.  So I didn’t mention it to him.  I did to our therapist though.  She said that’s a coping mechanism.  It may change over time but it’s normal and for me not to take it personal.  She’s the expert so I tried not.  I’m trying.  I take it personal with every person in Teddy’s life who seems to have just moved on for the exception a few friends who still reach out to me.  For days, he had hundreds of condolences on his face book wall and now????  Now  I guess he’s just a pair of sneakers hanging from the utility wire in the middle of the street.  Remember those?  ( I guess i’m referring to New Yorkers,), when someone passes away, they throw their sneakers up on the wire in remembrance of them.  That’s their ‘normal’ in the hood…….

Normal times….. Whatever they are, they belong to me now so I guess i’ll claim them.

My Disconnection

I know that losing a child is one of the worse things that can happen to a person, statistics and my heart has told me so.  I was sitting here thinking after a wonderful visit with my granddaughter earlier.  I had a long talk with Marissa and I can see the unconditional love in her face as she looked at the baby.  I asked her, you never thought you could love someone like this before, did you?  She agreed.  I told her, I remember Teddy at this age like it was yesterday and no matter how old he got, he was always my baby.  He would be the who would still climb in my bed, lay his head on my lap so I could rub his head.   He was my ‘save me’ baby.

You see, I was raised without a mother or a father so at 21, living on my own and supposedly believing that I knew it all, I decided that it was time for me to have a child that would love ME unconditionally for me, just for me, no matter what!  Teddy was that child.  Not saying we didn’t have our ups and downs, oh Lord, did we go through some things.  He was always headstrong, one of those kids that had to see things the hard way to fully understand its meaning.  At 18, I decided, to give up the reigns and let him do some good old bumping of the head.  He knew I still had his back, made sure his needs were taken cared of but his wants, he had to ascertain them himself.  I called myself trying to untie the apron strings and allow him to begin to spread his wings.  I think I was doing a great job if you ask me.  He was doing well.  Re-enrolled himself back into school, was very in love with Marissa and was keeping his nose clean.  That in itself was a blessing.

My children are very different.  Jalen isn’t as affectionate as Teddy.  He is more independent.  As long as his needs are met, he pretty much stays to himself.  Teddy would sit with me, watch a movie, dance with me to old songs and just sit and talk and laugh about things that most of the time wasn’t even funny.  He got me.  He knew I was a loner and he made sure that quality time was spent with me.  Even with Marissa entering the picture, he still made sure I got my time in.  He went food shopping for me, did my laundry, got me through my bouts worrying about stuff and got me to open up, talk to him and always assured me that he had my back and we would get through this together.  We always did.

Now I find myself still talking to him about things that are going on and you know what?  He still answers me.  But now it’s more of a trust thing, like me trusting i’m not losing my mind or just wishing it’s him so much that I think I’m hearing stuff.  There are instances where he told me something was going to happen and it really did, so I’m going to continue to trust him.

I feel disconnected in a way, where I don’t think I will ever meet someone like him who will ever love me unconditionally like that and really ‘get me’.  Oh, I know Jalen loves me, but I think he tolerates me more.  It’s alright, that’s what 11 year olds do.  Teddy was an old soul.  At 11 years old, he was more mature and older than his biological years.  I guess that came from not having his father consistently in his life and basically being the man of the house for more years than not.  But I wanted him to still have a childhood.  I guess that’s why I allowed him more freedom than I do Jalen.  It seemed like he already had so much on his plate mentally, I may have given him too much freedom but in the end, he did calm down and thought about his actions more.  Crazy, his murder was the first fight that he tried to walk away from.  He had never did that in his life.  He backed down from no one.  That day, he realized, it wasn’t his fight, he had more important things going on.  He was walking with his soon to be daughter’s mother.  I am so proud of him for that.

I am working on my disconnection in the physical realm.  I know that Teddy is here with me spiritually without a doubt.  But everyone else………… is up for grabs.  I just want to feel connected again!!!!