Last year, at this time, I wrote on my personal blog a variety of reasons why Mother’s Day is not a holiday for me. You can read it here:
Last year was rough. This year was a series of learning experiences, and it started early. Here is a list of just a few of the things I learned on Mother’s Day Weekend 2018.
1) Go to the mechanic at the first warning light. I tried to make it to the weekend. That was not a good idea, as my battery started to die on the highway just as it started to rain. My car went into battery saver mode… which meant my windshield wipers no longer worked.
2) No matter what, I’m rocking with Ernie Radford. My husband is no mechanic, and immediately upon my car shutting down, I called my longtime boyfriend. (We are legally married, in case you’re wondering.) I knew there wasn’t much he could do, but I called him first anyway, even before the tow truck.
3) My car’s battery is not under the hood. I found this out, as my aforementioned boyfriend and I stood in a hail storm trying to figure out how to hook up the jumper cables. When we couldn’t figure out how to open the box under the hood that we thought held the battery, I jumped in the car and used my good friend google. Turns out that box was a fuse box. My car battery is actually near the rear passenger seat.
4) I am too prideful for my own good. As I sat silently on the side of the road in the rain, waiting for the tow truck, I called into my daily prayer line. Not only did I not respond when they asked for prayer requests, I didn’t even tell them that I was on the line. I don’t like people knowing my business. I don’t like people making a fuss over me, and I felt like that situation would have invited both.
5) Tow truck dispatchers lie. When I called at 7:30, they told me the driver would be there shortly. I called an hour and 15 minutes later. They said the driver was 15-20 minutes away. The nice officer who pulled up behind me then requested the status from the exact same dispatcher, and he told the policeman it would be an hour. The officer called another company, who showed up in minutes.
6) I really do believe in God’s providence. Sitting beside the road, I determined that the Lord orchestrated my car trouble so that my husband and I would be forced to spend some much needed time together. I was grateful for it.
7) Toys R Us is not trying to sell their assets yet. Much of their inventory is marked down 20-30%. It’s still cheaper to buy that stuff at online retailers, or at a big box store.
8) My son is a card. Shortly after noon, I got two calls, one telling me that the auto repair would eat up most of a paycheck, and the second from the school nurse, telling me to come get my kid. Hubby and I rush to the school, we pick up both ginger ale and 7up. The boy says, “Somebody spilled ketchup on the table. I don’t like ketchup, so I gagged.” Then in the next sentence, he tells us that the nearby Italian restaurant sounds good. I don’t think he was actually sick.
9) I struggle with celebrating my accomplishments. We were at a Mother’s Day brunch and each guest was asked to introduce themselves by stating something they were good at. I said i’m an Excellent speller. Spelling! Nobody spells any more. I was in a room full of other black women, the most supportive group on the planet, and the only skill I felt comfortable enough to brag about was my ability to put letters in the correct sequence in a word!
10) Peach Cobbler makes almost everything better. There are still a lot of things about this Mother’s Day that went completely wrong, but my uncle’s freshly baked cobbler almost made me forget why I was mad. Almost…
Anyway, another mother’s day For the books. I survived it. Amen.
Mama Radford
TheWRITEaddiction.com 