Mama Bear

by Shirley Smith

  New Jersey to Sedona, December 2018

  What’s that Dottie Peoples song? “He may not come when you want him, but he’ll be there right on time.” There were ten years between dealing with my daddy-abandonment and finally getting away from everything and dealing with my core wounds with my mother.

  The winter after hitting my mental wall and going to therapy and resurfacing all my daddy memories, I needed to get away to process it all. I looked at pictures of myself and I saw me, but I didn’t see me. I didn’t even look like myself. There were pictures of me taking Dakota to outpatient therapy, pictures of me giving Dakota a bath, pictures of me and Demi at soccer practice. The images are like looking at a ghost. I was doing, I was functioning, but I didn’t see me. Then my brother’s girlfriend gave birth to a preemie and I just wanted to be there for them, but it was a serious flashback. I needed to get far enough away from the stress to hear God, and to hear myself.

  PopaAuntie was at the house so I was able to leave the kids in New Jersey. On December 28, I went to Sedona with my best friend, Kawana.

  Dear Diary,

  Day One Sedona Soul Adventure with Our Guide Sequoia and My Best Friend Kawana:

  We were in the red rocks today, climbing. The energy was powerful. We walked two and a half miles through the rocks. The views were phenomenal. We did a rock breaking exercise that was a physical release of years of pain, but then there was the writing exercise where I was able to write down to my core wound of feeling like I didn’t matter. I have been carrying that in my body and on my back all of these years, but that changes today.

  I do matter. I matter to me and I matter to my children. I truly feel like today is the new beginning of the rest of my life.

  I will now reprogram and reprocess the new me. I will make myself a priority from now on. I don’t need to be perfect, I am worthy of good things, of everything. I will start treating myself better than I have in the past.

  Dear Diary,

  Day Two after Sound and Breathing Exercises with Penny:

  My vibration was high, no words, but I will try to write my experience. Penny was so sweet and subtle. She explained that I would learn a breathing technique to take home with me to do once a week for eight weeks. I have no words for what I experienced. I just know besides the Holy Ghost it was one of the most powerful things I have ever had happen to me.

  The breathing technique gave me a feeling in my body like it was tingling and about to explode. My hands felt swollen and I had no control, then my breathing shifted, and I put my hands on my pelvis, then my vagina area and I felt a healing in my cervix. Next, through my sound my ancestors were communicating with me.

  Then, I saw my mother, she was on the red rocks. I saw her visually on the rocks and in the sky. She had angel’s wings and she was so beautiful. She settled on Coffee Pot Mountain high in the rocks. My mom said, “I’m sorry, but you had to suffer to get the skills that you have.” I then saw Jesus. His wings were huge from one side of the sky to the other and he was smiling at me.

  Finally, I saw myself standing on the rocks, but it was my eight-year-old self.

  I started calling out to Jesus. There was radiant light and butterflies. I reached out to my younger self and she was crying. We were holding each other, and she didn’t want to let me go. I told her thank you and that I love her very much. I told her I am free and that my life has changed forever, that I rebirthed myself.

  It was like when you see a baby and people be happy and know something is now different. I told her that’s how people will see me, because I’m new, I’m different.

  Freedom is an inside job.

  I was able to say goodbye to the broken parts of my mother and my eight-year-old self and let the healing begin.

  Dear Diary,

  Day Three after Reconnecting My Womb to My Heart & Soul, Transformation

  In my last workshop, this sweet elder lady, Giah, showed me how to dance with my energy and release it back out. It felt good to channel energy and move it into breathing. She showed me a breathing technique that makes the brain sit on one wave and slow down the thinking: breathe in through my nose but breathe out while pushing the air from back behind my throat.

  She then laid me on the table and performed NIS (neurological integration system) on me, something I had no insight on. She relinked my brain with the cells in different areas of my body to reconnect them all to work together. It’s like hands-on healing, which she said is the best way to go. So I was slowly being healed in Jesus’ name.

  Giah then took her jewel and as she dangled it, she said I have a stain in my heart from ten years ago, which is when I was twenty-four and pregnant with Demi. That pain I went through during that time made me feel that same core wound, like, I don’t matter.

  That was the time in my life when I also found out that JR had another child around the same time that Demi was conceived, the time I thought, I don’t matter. It was also around the time that I found my father only to realize he didn’t want a connection with me. I don’t matter.

  She then told me to climb backward in my mind to younger years and pinpoint what sticks out to me about not mattering. That was when I was eight years old and left with my brother when my mother went out on binges.

  She told me to put myself in the scene. So I put myself at 24 South Grove Street in East Orange. I placed myself in the scene sitting on the couch in the apartment. She said put yourself in the scene and hug and hold your eight-year-old self and tell her, “It’s okay, you are loved, and you do matter.” The tears flowed down my face onto the table as I hugged my arms around my body.

  She then asked me if there was a place where I would go sit and rest and be safe, what would that place be like. I said there would be sunflowers, water streams, waterfalls, birds, and rocks. She guided me to go back, pick up, and carry my eight-year-old self and place her in that deep peaceful scene in my heart. I thanked my younger self, hugged her, and sat with her for a little while. I would take care of her forever; I would protect her forever.

  Giah asked me what from that scene could serve as a reminder of my eight-year-old self. I said, “A rock,” because I sat her on a rock by a waterfall in my heart. She said when you leave out of here I want you to go find your rock.

  Giah rubbed my head and hair, it was soothing. It was what I always wanted. And I realized that when I was younger, no one ever kissed my forehead or rubbed my hair like I do for my daughters. I touch them, I give them that comfort and that safe space that I never had. Then she picked me up from my back and kissed my forehead, and I lost it. I broke down.

  The necessity of the tactile, the touch. Now I know how important that is. Not just to give it, but to receive it. Now, sometimes I’ll tell my cousin, “Kimberly, can you just rub my hair?” and I’ll lie on her lap and she’ll just rub my hair.

  It’s not enough to just give, give, give love as a way to belong or to matter. We have to get that love and nurturing too. If we didn’t ever have that from our mothers, we’d walk around thinking we don’t need it. But we do.

  That rock that I found to represent the safe loving space for my eight-year-old self is now in my office. Every time I look at it, I think about the love I have to maintain for myself and the nurturing I need and deserve from others.

  I came back home and it was about to be the new year, two years after Dakota’s birth.

  New Jersey, January 2, 2019

  It was Dakota’s birthday, her second year of life. We kept it intimate. JR’s brother Dimitrius was there. We decided to stay in New Jersey because we had family on both JR’s side and my side. We weren’t working and things were calm. Sedona had allowed me to appreciate who he was, who we were.

  I felt anxious being away from Ohio, though, because none of the doctors there knew Dakota’s story. I flew back a few times for her appointments. So much transition was happening. On January 13, I had a speaking engagement for the first time for Kota Bear and was anxious about that, but JR was right there wit
h me cheering me on. Demi started at a new school and got into Girl Scouts and that was a lot of preteen drama. If I didn’t have that transition of going to Sedona, I would have broken with the move, with speaking in public, with trying to help my daughter deal with the transitions of middle school. I mean a bitch would have broken, broken. But the time away on retreat, learning about myself, helped me come back ready to endure and open my heart in unimaginable ways.

  Texas, April 2019

  It was coming up on Peyton’s tenth birthday. Some might call her a love child, but I have turned that around. She is my bonus child. She is not just the photo of a little girl in a car seat that broke my marriage; she is the little girl who with one look stole my heart. She is a little girl; it’s not her fault. And I certainly planned to be a better woman than my own father’s wife.

  I had it embedded in my heart that I was going to take the girls out to see Peyton for her birthday. I had taken Demi out for Peyton’s birthday once before, because I wanted Demi and Peyton to have the understanding of both families and embrace them. It was a milestone for both girls and for me.

  JR and I were now married, Peyton’s mother was now married. I felt there was a lot of growth among the families. Up to this point, Peyton was always having to fly to us.

  I began to put a plan in place. We are members of Bluejack National, a residential golf community in Montgomery, Texas. It is the one with the golf course that is designed by Tiger Woods. The golf community was only an hour’s drive from Peyton’s parents, Myra and Rob. I said to JR, “Why don’t we go to Bluejack in Texas, and go to visit Peyton for her birthday?” JR was super-uncomfortable, but agreed. We booked a stay for me, JR, our three girls, and JR’s cousin Jalah, who wanted to come along for the adventure.

  On our first day in town, I volunteered to help Myra decorate. We rented a vehicle and I went over to Myra’s with all my girls and Jalah. JR hung back to play golf.

  Myra said, “The party will be at the jumpy place but we are going to decorate the house the day before so when all is said and done folks can come back to the house and really party the way we do.”

  We had the music on. I felt accepted by her, and happy to be a part of something. I was happy that her husband, Rob, could see the good characteristics in me, see who his stepdaughter was with when she was away with her father.

  I was like, “Let me see your wedding video.” We all had such a fun and happy night.

  Rob was so welcoming. “Let me run back to the store for y’all.”

  Peyton and Demi were running around playing on TikTok and with water guns. Myra and Rob’s baby, Drew, and my babies, Denver and Dakota, were crawling age. It was happy baby chaos. “You got a pamper?” “Put this one in the highchair.” It was like a mini family reunion.

  It got really late and the girls fell asleep. Jalah and I went back to the golf course to JR.

  The next morning was a beautiful sunny day, April 20; no need for jackets. On the drive to the bouncy world, JR and I got a little confused, because it was in the back of a shopping complex. I called Myra, who had the kids with her, to get better directions: “Girl, we going in circles. Help a sistah out.” I was joking, trying to get rid of my scary anxious feeling. This was about to be for real. JR had never visited Peyton in her hometown. Soon there would be me, JR, Myra, Rob, JR’s two girls who were the same age, and all of our children in one place. I can’t imagine what JR was feeling. We got out of the car, and people who we knew and didn’t know were talking to JR, excited to see a celebrity.

  The kids got their shoes off for the bouncy world, and it started to flow. I asked Myra if she needed help with the cake. We kept it about Peyton. I was holding Peyton’s younger brother, Drew, and JR got in the bouncy house and jumped with Peyton. It was a beautiful moment that I will never forget.

  Myra asked if we wanted to come to the house. I knew from my own experiences of a girl wanting her father’s attention that Peyton would love for her father to see where she lives, to see her room. I told JR, “Take me out of the equation. We definitely need to go. Your daughter is so excited to have you here.”

  Myra was so instrumental too. She asked Peyton, “Do you want to ride with D. Ma?” They called me Demi’s Ma, D. Ma. Peyton was so excited. In the car she was in charge of showing us her world. It was like she was in Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, “Turn here, now turn there.”

  You know the rest, how all the kid parties turn into adult parties. We were decorating Peyton’s photo wall. There were drinks. The kids got in the pool. Myra and Rob put food on the grill. JR was holding a conversation with Myra’s husband. We had the music on, taking pictures. It was both loud and harmonious.

  Peyton came back with us to the golf course where we were staying. She got to stay a few days of that week with us. It was beautiful.

  I offered Peyton what I wished I’d had with my dad. In some ways I was healing me through her. I didn’t want her to have those shattered broken pieces like I had. That week I kept asking in my head, Peyton, if I was you what would I want? I would want my dad because Demi gets him all the time. I would want to be under one roof—siblings, mothers, fathers, and all.

  This was like the opposite of the day I saw the photo of Peyton on social media and it broke my heart. We posted the pictures of our unique family online, and people were like, “The strength you had to have to do that.” But when you take the adults out of the equation and let the next generation have what they need, love is what shines through, not who has cheated on who. All of the things that could come into play and derail things got pushed aside so we could focus on Peyton and the children. It was a weekend that no one will ever forget.

  That weekend, I was thinking, God willing this is not the only time we all will be able to get together, but what if. We felt full and complete. There should be more of this in the world. I wish more women could get to an openhearted place like this so that all of our families could be healthier.

  I was experiencing the benefit of having a mental break that sent me to Sedona, of coming out of that experience loving myself and having the capacity to love others the same way. God knew I needed my breaking point to happen in order for our connection with Peyton to happen. Whatever there is for me to do in order to prevent Peyton from being like me, the child from the other father, I am ready to do so that she knows she is loved.

  17

  Closing the Gap

  I now had the tools to close the gaps in my life. Not only did I know myself, I knew my little girl self. I owed it to her to finish the journey of seeking self-love by investigating gaps in my memory. Just like with my search for my biological father, it wasn’t about if I found any answers, it was about loving myself enough to take the responsibility to look for them. I was mothering myself by trying to fill in the blanks in my childhood life so that I could be healthier in my mind and body.

  I thank God for the rhythm of life that Lynette gave me back in the day. It was an investment of her time, and of her love, and I was finally able to connect to being a kid. But there’s the gap, though. She had rescued me when I was twelve. There was this big space of time between being eight, those days of Mama’s binges, and being twelve and realizing Mama was on a long-term binge. I remember reading somewhere that the mind can hold on to events for a long time without even remembering them until one day, things are either really, really good or really, really bad in your life and you remember everything.

  When I was twelve, I didn’t remember the gap and that was okay. I was just enjoying my new life in my new community and life felt good.

  It is only with writing this book and delving into the hard time I had with Dakota’s birth that I remembered what happened in the gap. First it came like an epiphany, and then with the difficulty of full-blown memories. I’m glad I remembered, because it helps me understand even more deeply the things my body has held on to and the trauma in my body that came forward when I was giving birth to my daughters.

  North Carolina
, October 2019

  After I started writing this book, I did a spiritual fast for three days and then decided to take the girls and go down South to North Carolina to visit my uncle Sidney, my mother’s youngest brother. I thought I was going for one thing and in came a flood of epiphanies about my past. God is so strategic in that way.

  PopaAuntie and Aunt Anita were there visiting Lynette and Kimberly, Keyera, and Kaylnn, who live in North Carolina. I realized that I held so much resentment toward Lynette for leaving me in New Jersey to live her own life in North Carolina. I had placed all my abandonment from my mother on her since she was my guardian.

  After visiting Uncle Sidney at the nursing home we were hanging out at Lynette’s house and she was looking at me talking about how “Your mother was my favorite aunt.” And PopaAuntie was talking about, “Your mother was my favorite sister. She helped me take care of my kids. She kept y’all so clean.”

  I was like, “Who are y’all talkin about? I think we are talking about two different people.” I was so taken aback hearing them talk about her like she was a saint when I spent half of my life wondering where she was or handling her when she was high. The only reason we had any connection in the end of her life is because I checked out of my own college education to take care of her when she had cancer. I wanted to know her, she wanted to know me, but that didn’t make up for the bad memories I held.

  Before going back home to Jersey, I started my three-day fast. Hunger must have opened up a portal of memory, because I heard God say, “Call Aunt Anita,” my mother’s sister, and I heard, “Tell her what happened, that one of her old boyfriends used to molest you.”