In light of recent events

This post will be a detour from the rest.  I had planned to do a birthday recap because I just crossed a new birthday milestone and the semester is finally really over and after noon tomorrow I get my life back in theory for a few weeks as I prep for the spring semester and work for something else.  But you know what they say about God laughing at us when we go making plans.  Friday afternoon I got a call from a sorority sister that I love but we don't speak often really.  I didn't immediately think something bad had happened until I got her text message a few moments later and then called her back.  I'm not sure how many of you know that I'm in a sorority or why this would matter but I became a Delta in 2004.  Well before that moment I stumbled upon a website so many aspiring Deltas did at that moment and have in the interim, The DeltaNet.  The owner was a long time Delta who wanted to provide some honest resources for folks who were like myself.  But the majority of the site was for members and while it stayed that way no one really seemed to care.  When there became a private area for the non members all hell broke loose and the owner, Bonita Jackson Butler, was suspended for a while.  She was suspended when I crossed and didn't come to my initiation but sent me the best gifts because in the five years I had gotten to know her she was one of the most trusted people in my little Delta world.  Even though there were ebbs and flows in our relationship over the last ten years she was still one of the few people programmed in my phone under the Soror tag.  She and others had told me at the time I crossed that every Soror is a Delta but every Delta is not YOUR soror and people had borne that out many a time since then but not her.  If she agreed with me or didn't she was always clear about it and it didn't impact our relationship.

So moving back to Friday and the unexpected phone call.  I was made aware that Beejae had died in her sleep the night before.  If there had been alcohol nearby I would have had a drink but I was in my office working on grades and had to mentally take a break.  She had recently had a few health issues recently but nothing that she should have died from.  She was very much so missing her mother who had died earlier this year but she was enjoying life with her husband and just seemed to be on the road to happily ever after.  I worked all of yesterday because I had to but now that the work is done and I am back to processing life I'm hurt again for her, for her husband and for all the people that genuinely loved her or were the benefactors of her love.

I just watched an episode of Say Yes To the Dress where mom and daughter were in conflict about a wedding dress purchase.  Both of them clearly loved each other and eventually came to an agreement and I was a teary eyed mess.  Which made me think about my own mother.  I love her and I'm sure she loves me as well.  But I have never had the kind of relationship with her that Beejae had with her mom or others seem to have with their mothers--well those with healthy mom relationships.  From tying her shoelaces because she didn't (still doesn't really) know how to making dinner to giving up activities to take care of my brother, I have always felt less like her child than another parent in the house.  My brother would tell you I raised him.  There was a point in time that they hadn't seen my mother's signature on things for so long (because I was told to just sign stuff myself not because I was a horrible child lol) that the one day she insisted on writing me a note for school they called because they thought I had forged it.  She didn't hurt us.  We weren't neglected or physically abused ever.  Mentally her jabs weren't conscious attempts to wound us she was just lashing out because we didn't appear to be siding with her instead of our father when it came to whatever she was upset about.  When she is no longer with us it will hurt just like it did when dad died.  I am just wondering if I'll understand what other folks are going through who clearly get upset when I talk about my relationship with mom as they mourn their own mothers.

I can't say that I will for certain, no one knows how that will go I understand but I do know that right now my heart is heavy because I lost another woman that I respected and whom appeared to embrace those she really cared about with her entire heart.  No strings attached just room for you if you chose to take it.  I know this is part of life.  It's a part that sucks though.  I will be back later this week full of cheer cause my nieces are making me giggle.  If not then let me wish you all a Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, Festive Kwanzaa, Festivus for the rest of us, or just a good day if you don't celebrate a thing.