05/26/2026
Do you remember your mother's touch 🤔
Storytime 👇🏾
I was watching a movie this morning and the movie was about a young lady who lost custody of her daughter 🥺 and in the end, when she got her daughter back 🫠 there was this long embrace 🫂 and for the tiniest moment I thought I remembered how that felt 🤗, but what I remembered was the embrace between me and my 🫠 daughter, so I closed my eyes and tried real hard to remember my mother's touch 🫠
My mind took me back to "C" Street and of course that was "out Stickney", I had to be about two or three years old 🤔, I know I was so young that I didn't go to school yet.
I remember Mom was making cornbread in a cast iron skillet because that is how I got in trouble 😜 you see the cornbread was done and it was on the kitchen table cooling, she was on the phone 📞 but she must not have been watching me closely 😜 because I kept going in the kitchen and stealing tiny handfuls 🤭 I remember I had to reach up and I could just barely touch the cornbread so I kept grabbing little handfuls, it probably looked like a little mouse had gotten to it 🤭
Once she got off the phone and discovered my little handprints in the cornbread she came and scooped me up, I distinctly remember her popping me on the butt because I had on rubber pants it didn't hurt 😞 not my butt 🥺 but I think it was the very first time that I can remember that she hit me in what appeared to be anger because of course she had a angry look on her face, I now realize it was probably guilt going through her head that if that pan still been hot I could have been burned we all know a mother's guilt and the torture we do to ourselves for being human 😞
But the best part of this memory is after she put me down a few minutes passed and she came back, picked me up and (I imagine) apologized and explained to me why she was angry and why I shouldn't have touched the pan 🥹 while I don't remember the exact words she used 🤔 I can remember it was a sense of regret for her initial reaction 🥹 along with her embrace and the feeling of deep love 🥰
That memory stuck with me and because of that I always tried to explain to my children the reasoning behind the punishment 🤨 and allowed them the opportunity to discuss their thoughts and feelings when they felt their idea was better than mine and a couple of times I changed my decision 🤗 but most times my rules stuck 🤨
Children don't come with an instruction manual or directions we have to rely on whatever our parents did and common sense 🤷🏾
Below is a picture of me and my mom at my baby shower when I was going to have my first baby, and now that baby is about to have a 👶🏾, and while she too won't come with instructions or directions I imagine my daughter will, just as I did, rely on the teachings of our ancestors, and common sense🤔
But she'll also have countless books, articles, documentaries, chatgpt and AI 😳😜🤭🤣✌🏾🫶🏾👇🏾
