Mothers and Fathers

Mothers and Fathers

Not because you give birth does not make you a mother and not because you are unable to care for you your child does not make you a bad mother.
Not only because you are a sperm donor, that makes you a father. And just because you are a sperm donor you are a father.

I grew up with my paternal grandmother, aunts and uncles with instruction from my father that if my mother shows up she could visit but she was not allowed to leave with me.
As I get older, I began to wonder why my mother never visit or write when she was living a stone throw away from me.
I started hearing stories of how she visited when I was a wee babe but as per my dad she was not allow to leave with me. However, I was still hurt that she was not in my life. For whatever reason my dad took me to his mom, my mom was angry and decided that she was going to stay out of my life.

Did that make her a bad mother? No, not in itself. When I was fifteen years I was introduced to her and instead of trying to connect with me she tried to destroy the relationship I had with my father. Did this make her a bad mother? As I grew older, it was clear to me that my mother did not love me as she did the others; she had no empathy for me. When I was in my late thirties I went to her to chat, mother to daughter and she started talking about my sisters. I was so hurt I screamed at her, I try to show her how I felt how she made me feel and asked her why she could not accept me just for me. She told me that she had asked God to forgive her and there was nothing she could do for me. That made a bad mother to me! I was hurting at that moment and she did not even try to help.

At this point in my life I did not want anything much from her, just for her to treat me as her child and she could not.
She became a foster mother and was very good at caring for those children, she even asked me for help sometimes (to wash their hair and such).

I have seen many men who took care of children that they did not fathered, and many abandon their own children.

Mothers and fathers are people who are care givers not only to their own flesh and blood children but to all children who are in need.
If you adopt a child and you love them, you are a parent, (mother/father), if you show love to your neighbor’s children you are a mother/father. I have three children, my youngest is twenty eight years old, and still today their schoolmates still calls me mom whenever they meet me in the street.

We could all be mothers and fathers, it’s in us but like a seed that is planted, it we don’t water it, it will not grow. It is up to us to take the gift that the Lord gave us and nurture.

Circumstances may come up and interferes with the natural order of life, but we have to decide who we are and what we want for ourselves and our children.

Looking back at 2011.

2011 was a year with many blessings, some challenges and some pain.

My preemie granddaughter went home after three months in the hospital. I sold my house and bought my retirement home.

We had an earthquake in August and a blizzard in October.
The president had promised to bring home the troops and by the end of December he was making good on that promise. All out troops was out of Iraq.

However, my worst pain was to hear that someone that I love very much thinks that I don't or should I say didn't love them. I have done all I can, went to war and fight their battle, extend myself financially whenever I can and to hear those words, it was hard. However such is life.

I hope that 2012 will be as good a year for me and for YOU.
I have learned that one cannot have good without bad, sweet without bitter and happiness without sorry. We must take the good with the bad.

Moving ahead to see what is in store for this new year.

Moving on

Yesterday I cried………….
This is the title of a self-help book I had attempted to read some years ago but got so lost I just put it on my bookshelf to read later.

I was talking to my younger daughter last evening and she was telling me some of what is going on in her father’s (my ex-husband) life. At the end of the conversation I said to her, the next time you talk to your father tell him that he is better off without her (his wife who had just walked out on him).

I said she was of no help to him even when he was sick and needed her, she was missing in action. Therefore move on with life knowing that now he has to fend for himself and not waiting for her to cook his meal or to do whatever a wife does.

My daughter said to me, “I did not expect to hear that from you”, meaning she thought I would be glad for the situation he was in. I told her even though I was hurt and disappointed at the way things turned out for us and all the pain he had put me through, I wish him no harm.
I would never reconcile with him again, he is my past but he is still a person and I have to live with me. I cannot spend the rest of my life being so angry at those who have done me wrong. I will not get pulled back in their mess or let it bough me down.

YESTERDAY I CRIED…….BUT TODAY I AM LAUGHING, not at those who has done me wrong, but for the joy that I have found in letting go of all that stuff.

"thank you" and "You're welcome"

I grew up in the country in Jamaica and was not accustom to certain things as those who grow up in the big city.

“You’re welcome”, is one of those phase that I never heard until I went to boarding school at the age of fifteen. My principal was a very big English woman (Mrs. Robinson). She was very stern, and rightly so, she had to care for over one hundred and fifty girls from fifteen to eighteen years old, who lives on campus, some of whom has never left home before.

From the first day of orientation she let you know what was expected of you, and saying you are welcome was one of those things. You just don’t ignore a person when the say “thank you”.

But what does it means to say to someone “you’re welcome”? This is what I have come up with; Saying you’re welcome means, I am glad I was able to help, it was no problem, it pleases me to be able to help you, I was happy to be of service, and I am here whenever you needs me.

Today it is one of the phase that I use quite often and with pleasure. One of my many duties is to collect payment from customers and sometimes I have to extend to them a little time for them to make payment and they are always appreciative and say “thank you” (not all customers are like that, some take it for granted that I have no choice but to give them the time). So when I say you’re welcome, I mean, I am glad I was able to give them the time they need and that our company will still continue to service their business
although they are a little behind on making payment.

A lot of times I don’t have to make a second phone call, they call and keep me up to date on when payment is coming, to which I say, thank you for letting me know and they say’ you’re welcome.

It is just courtesy.

Cell Phone Eitquette

Ok, so I am standing on line in the bank and the man behind me was on his phone, which may not have been a problem except for the fact that his phone was so loud I could hear the person at the other end of the phone.

If that was not bad enough, as the teller call “may I help you” to the next person on line, she gets on her phone, and while talking to the teller she kept yapping away on her phone.

All I am saying is, where is your manners? Does technology makes us so insensitive to our fellow human beings. Doesn’t the teller at the bank or any other person we are conducting business with deserve some respect? And some of us do not know how to speak softly on our phone out in public; therefore everyone around you is subjected to your conversation.

It is plain rude and disrespectful for you to be talking to someone in a place of business while yapping on your phone especially if your phone conversation as nothing to do with the person that is standing in front of you and is talking to you.

Call me old fashion, but I think that when we walk into a place of business (at the bank, in the post office, at the doctor’s office or wherever) we should put our cell phone away until we have finish our business. It is not right for someone to keep repeating themselves because we have no manners.

When we give respect, we will get respect in return and everyone can finish with their business that much faster.

Women, stand up for each other!

It is said that New Yorkers mind their own business and don’t get in valve, but in light of what been going on in the news lately I am glad that that statement is not always true.

On my way to work this morning two people came on the train, a male and a younger female and they look as if they had nothing in common.

Another female passenger notice that the man’s behavior was a little inappropriate for two strangers, she quietly asked the young lady if she knew the person standing behind her. She answered that she did, however, instead of the man being happy that someone was there to make sure that his female partner is ok, he got an attitude.

I for one was glad to know that women still look out for each other. If the situation was different she could have had the help she needed right there on the train.

In the last few months, we have seen in the news where an older man take his partner on vacation and now she is missing, a drunk NYC police officer dragged a teacher behind a building and raped her, and the case that the NYC DA’s office just dismissed. All these are signs that we have to stand up for each other when we see something that makes us uncomfortable.

Remember the next time it could be us……..What I am saying is, if you see something, without putting yourself in danger, PLEASE! Say something.

Why am I on trial?.......I'm the victim

Every morning for the last month I listen to the news and I wonder why when a woman is sexually assaulted, they are the ones that go on trial.

For centuries women have been raped and are forced to live with the injustice for fear of being put on trial as is the case now.

The only question should be, did the assault actually take place? And once the doctors have proof and there are DNA evidence, almost everything else should be irrelevant. Women have the right to say who they will or will not be intimate with and when she says no that should be enough….FULL STOP, PEROID, NO QUESTION.

Because a person is poor, does not give anyone the right to abuse them. One’s past should have nothing to do with the fact that they were assaulted and is seeking justice. If the DA’s office throw out this case, what it is saying is that unless your life is squeaky clean, with no transgression in your past or have millions of dollars you are fair game to be assaulted.

So the question now is, How many of us can say there is nothing in our past we wish to erase? I will tell you, None. The good book says “None is righteous, No not one”.

There are hundreds if not thousands of women who have been raped and we never hear about it because they are afraid of their lives being torn apart.

When are men going to realize that women should be honored for their part in the circle of life? Women are the nurturer, the caregivers.

Wealth, power or a person status in life should not determine who gets justice and who does not……..!