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Fellow BlogHer Contributing Editor Jenn Satterwhite wrote a post earlier this month called Tributes for Mothers: A (re)definition." Jenn ends her post blog giving kudos to the person who said "Mother is a verb" and she asks bloggers to write posts this Mother's Day about people, both female and male, who have been like a mother to them.
When I read Jenn's post, which is very touching and well done, I knew I wouldn't write a new post in the way she requested because I've written about the women who were like a mother to me and my actual mother who definitely mothered me before in a poem called "Three." I've mentioned this poem in the post "Alzheimer's in the Family."
My three mothers are my Grandmother Mamie, my Aunt Ruth, and my birth mother, Fannie Naomi. My grandmother died when I was in my twenties. My Aunt Ruth died when I was nine.
I was in my mid-thirties when I realized I had been blessed with three mothers for a period of my life. Thinking on this I wondered, God, what must I be destined to face that you should give me three mothers. How much support does one person need?
There's nothing that unusual about my life, and all the mothers in the world can't protect us from common human tribulations. The most bitter trouble for me came a few years later after I wondered about my three mothers, the kind of trouble humans face all the time, loss and grief. I faced the dissolution of a twenty-plus-years marriage, the news that my mother had both stomach cancer and Alzheimer's, and that I would need a kidney within 10 years, now down to six or seven, all in the same year. Two years later I watched my hometown drown on TV, and right now, facing economic realities, I'm torn about returning to that hometown while it struggles with desolation.
I am a woman of faith and so belief in God keeps me going, but so many times it's the belief in the strength of these women that moves me along day to day, the knowledge that their blood runs through me. Sometimes in bouts of darkest depression, I say, "What the hell is wrong with you, Nordette? You cannot fail life. Think of Mamie, think of Ruth, think of your female ancestors before them, and think of your mother. They faced challenges much harder than you're facing. You can't be the weakest link. Stand up for your own children, your own life, and be real woman."
Mother as Poem
As a poet I channel emotions through words. Usually the emotions and concepts spring from the muses, but as a practical, working writer, I occasionally craft verse for special occasions. When I watch my websites' statistics, I sometimes get a sense of what people want to read. Each year people pop by my websites looking for poetry about mothers, which is why last year I wrote a brief piece called "In Honor of Our Mothers" that points people to some of my mother-related poems.
Possibly many people are disappointed because they're not looking for the kind of poetry I tend to write. They're probably looking for greeting cards to recite at a Mother's Day program, something to which most people will relate, shed a tear, or that the congregation will "oooh an ahhhh" to when a children's Sunday School class recites it.
My poems about mothers are specific to me or to a certain individual. However, I know that despite their specificity, they still touch readers who grapple with the loss of a mother, memories of their childhood, mother-child conflict, or what it means to be a mother themselves. People grapple with the meaning of motherhood all year long, and sometimes a few write to tell me how they feel about a mother poem.
In particular I see search requests like "poems about black mothers" or "African American mothers day poetry." Perhaps some website owners catering to African Americans are looking for poems to post on their sites or a black blogger wants to recognize Mother's Day in a post. I don't know. I keep the poems posted and hope that whoever looks for such poetry is honest enough
