Mom (6 page)

I
had
to survive: I had kids to take care of. And I had nothing else—I just squeaked through high school, had kids when I was really young—so I had to hang in there. And I did. If you can get to the job, you can do the job. Sometimes the rest of your life can stop you, and that’s where you have to just say:
No matter what happens from three thirty in the afternoon to seven o’clock the next morning, I just have to deal with that so I can get back into that shop.
And that’s what I did. I was proud of that—I
am
proud of that.

I go to places now and I see reception counters that I helped build, and I’m just proud that I did it, you know? Now I’m going to college for the first time—today was actually my first day—and I know now that I can probably learn anything. But I didn’t know that before.

Kasima:
I just had a baby; he’s four and a half months old. You make me motivated to support myself and my son. I’m not exactly sure what I want to do yet or how I’m going to do it, but I’m going to do
something.
I’m just wondering how I can be a good mother to him by myself.

Johnella:
I think that the creator puts something in front of you, and you just have to grab it and see what you can do with it.

Kasima:
I hope I can be as strong as you are.

Johnella:
You
are
as strong as I am.

Kasima:
Do you have any words of wisdom for me?

Johnella:
As a parent you can make a lot of mistakes, but you can always fix them. If you say something that you didn’t mean, just say: “I didn’t mean that; I was upset.” Just fix it right away, because people carry things inside and you don’t want that. You’ll make mistakes—you’re a human being. So just forgive yourself and move on.

I know there’ve been days when I raced home and tried to get dinner on the table, and somebody’s lost their bus pass, someone’s done this, someone’s done that—none of that matters. What really matters is that you keep your cool with your children. The house being clean—forget it, it doesn’t matter. Having dinner on the table—it doesn’t matter. If you’re stuck and it’s raining out and you’re in the car, have a picnic in the car. I know this for a fact: it’ll mean more to your child than rushing home, screaming at them, and trying to get dinner on. The baby can be in his car seat and you can sit in the backseat with him, and you’ll just have a beautiful time that he’ll remember forever.

Kasima:
Thanks
a lot
for being my mother.

Johnella:
You’re welcome. I just wanted to make life better for you kids. I know that there’s only so far I can go. Now it’s up to you to take it and run.

Diane Gayles:
When I was in Buffalo in kindergarten through third grade, I was a very good student. Unfortunately, when we moved to Lancaster, a suburb of Buffalo, the course work was much more rigorous, and so I didn’t do as well initially. There was quite a lot of civil-rights activity at the time, and it was very difficult being the only black children in a white neighborhood. But it taught me a lot.

I was going into fourth grade—it was my first day of class, and the teacher’s name was Ms. Devaney. She was calling names and having everyone line their desks up according to her chart. As she was calling off the different children’s names, they were helping each other move their desks and put them in the different rows. Then when she called my name, no one came to help me. So I had to struggle to move my desk by myself. The teacher said, “Won’t someone help Diane?” And no one would, so she came and she helped me move my desk. That was my first introduction to racism.

I was all alone and I knew I was all alone, and quite honestly, my father had told us that that was probably what would happen. But there was brightness there as well. This is back when you had recess and you actually went out on the playground and played. Everyone was out there playing, and I just knew no one was going to talk to me. I was standing there watching the boys—they were playing, roughhousing and kicking a ball, and the girls were on the swings and they were chatting away. So I just stood next to the building by myself. And then this one girl in our class came up. Every time I think about it, it makes me cry . . . Melissa Tousley. I’ll never forget her. She came up to me, and she said, “Would you like to play with me?” [
crying
]

I never felt so alone. But she came and offered friendship to me when no one else did or would. She’ll never know how much that meant to me. Unfortunately, when we got to junior high her family moved away, and I don’t know where she went. I’ve always thought about her. She has no idea what she did for me. . . .

Jennifer Gayles:
...
I never knew that story.

Diane:
Your father chose your name, but I wanted to name you Melissa because of Melissa Tousley.

Jennifer:
What was going through your mind when you first saw me?

Diane:
I couldn’t believe it. First of all, I couldn’t believe that I had a daughter. Because I had all brothers, I felt that I would always have boys. First, your brother came along, and then when you came along, I said, “It’s going to be another boy.” So when you were born, I just started thinking about all the things that we were going to do and how I was going to dress you up. I had lots of plans for you—still do.

You were just wonderful; you were a piece of cake. Taking care of you was easy because you just took care of yourself! I remember one instance when I had to take your brother to the bus stop. George was five years old, and you were two. We lived about five houses from the corner, and I had to stand on the corner with George, waiting for the bus. So I said, “Jennifer, stay here in the crib—don’t get out,” and I left you in the house and took George down to the bus stop. We had been doing this for quite some time, no problem whatsoever. Well this one particular day I’m standing at the bus stop and I’m looking at the house, and I see the curtains move, and I go, “Why are the curtains moving?” I could just see them moving, and I said, “Oh my gosh!” I knew you had gotten out of the crib, and I didn’t know what you were going to do. So I grabbed George and I ran back to the house—the bus was going to come any moment. I got in the house, and I said, “Jennifer, why are you out of your crib?” And you said, “Mommy, the phone was ringing.”

Jennifer:
I didn’t want you to miss a call!

Diane:
I guess not—you were a telephone operator at a young age. So I put you back in the crib and told you not to worry about the phone. I actually took the phone off the hook and then took George back out, and we caught the bus.

But you were a very easy child. You were just a little clingy. You weren’t my daughter—you were my shadow. When you were four, I said to your dad, “She has to go to nursery school. I can’t take it! Anywhere I go, she’s right behind me!” So we scrimped and saved and lived on beans and rice, and we got the money together to send you to nursery school. That was the best thing that ever happened for you
and
for me. I wound up with peace of mind, and you made friends. When you came back you started telling me about your adventures at nursery school, and then you went off and played by yourself—

Jennifer:
I wasn’t your shadow anymore. That was the beginning of my independence.

Diane:
Hallelujah!

Jennifer:
Do you remember when I left home for good?

Diane:
You were funny because you came home from college and you said, “I’m only going to stay here about three, maybe four months, and then I’m gone.” I really didn’t think that would happen, but it did. At first the house was
so
empty. That first week—I’ll never forget it—it was so,
so
empty. I came home and I just walked from one bedroom to the other, and I was just feeling so depressed. That lasted about a week. Then I realized how free we were. Oh, Martin Luther King,
Free at last, free at last!
And that’s when our life really took off. I can remember you and George calling and leaving messages: “Where are you two now?” We were gone all the time.

I am so proud of you and your brother, of the way that you have turned out. Your dad and I are
so
proud of you. You may not know that, or maybe you do—but it always helps to say it.

Gabrielle Hall:
Mom was amazing. I think she was the coolest person, because she did so many things and was really good at all of them. I picture Mom on the beach in Maine. I picture her with the auburn hair that’s short, not the gray hair.

Danielle Hall:
I see her lying in the bed that Dad made, with the sunshine coming in, looking over the water. That was really my favorite time to go in—we would lie down on the bed and just kind of fuss or talk. That was always our time with her.

She taught me things about relationships that I still use. She told me that when you fight, you have to decide how much it really matters to you. If it’s not worth getting upset about, let it go. And if it is worth getting upset about, you have to be brave enough to bring it up with the other person. And if you
aren’t
brave enough to do that, you have to let it go. Once you’ve discussed it, it’s over and you never bring it up again. That, I think, is just the
best
advice I’ve ever gotten.

I keep remembering the night of the eclipse—it really crystallized for me what I loved about Mom. It was the night before I went on my first date with Brian, and I was really high-strung and worried. I was at home getting ready, and she was trying to calm me down. There was going to be a lunar eclipse, so we turned off the lights, and we put our feet up on the windowsill. We were trying to look at the eclipse, but neither of us had our glasses, so we couldn’t really see anything. The lights were off, and we were just totally giddy. Mom got out a roll of Neccos and handed them to me, and I was sniffing each one in the dark, trying to sniff the colors that she liked to eat.

It wasn’t the big conversations with Mom that mattered; it was just being able to spend time together and be ourselves.

Gabrielle:
She was such a fighter—we knew for fourteen years that she had cancer and that she was dying, but she believed at the essence of her that she was not going to die.

Danielle:
I feel blessed that we had fourteen years. Before she died, I told her that I thought that she had been a wonderful mother, that she taught us how to be strong and independent and smart and capable of doing anything, that I loved her, and that we would be okay. But she really wanted to know that
you
would be okay.

Gabrielle:
I always imagined that I would just die after Mom died. I couldn’t even fathom how my life would go on without her. I think the most shocking thing was just waking up and realizing I was still breathing and deciding to go on.

In the end she went so quickly. We just got into this state of her being chronically sick. I remember taking her to chemotherapy and talking to her in the chemo room, and she was just so sick, she was
so sick
. I would be like, “Mom, you don’t have to keep doing it.” And then it came true. She was back in the hospital again, they had done some tests, and they said, “It’s fourteen days.” And then she died—fourteen days later.

Danielle:
I remember our last Thanksgiving, with Mom in her pajamas.

Gabrielle:
The day she finally came out of the hospital was Thanksgiving. We had always had the same Thanksgiving, but this year’s Thanksgiving was different. Then it started being a
really
significant day, that we really had stuff to be thankful about—that we had Mom. It was the last meal she had. Mom died on December 5th.