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I made my children laugh today.  I mean, I often make them smile and maybe giggle but today I got them laughing.  I wish I could say they were laughing with me, but I would certainly be lying.  They were definitely laughing at me.

As you all know, tributes to Michael Jackson are being played on nearly every channel.  Well, BET is running all of his videos and, much to my delight, Thriller came on.  As I stated in my previous post, that song was my jam, way back in the day.  I knew the whole routine, every step, every word, every note.  Guess what I found out today?  Man, I still know it!  I couldn’t believe it!  So there I was, definitely caught up in one of those moments of nostalgia, getting my groove on!  I was movin’ and shakin’ right along with MJ and the rest of the zombies, and actually keeping up!  Herein lies the problem…I am nine months pregnant.  Oops…I forgot all about Baby Boy in my uterus, and for that moment was just a thirteen year old girl, dancing along with her crush.

Of course, I don’t think that’s quite what my kids saw.  Actually, I don’t even want to imagine the humorous horror that filled the big, brown eyes of my children, who now sat in awe of their whale-looking mother, laughing their as#*% off. What’s up with that?

I remember that I used to seriously think that if Michael Jackson could really just see me do the Thriller, he would most certainly invite me on tour or something.  There was never a doubt in my thirteen year old mind I could be one of his back up dancers…WOW. Now my own children are just that same age, and after today, I believe they think that their mother is just a very silly old woman.

Tony and I were playing with D’Angelo today, watching in amazement as he so colorfully displayed his ever-budding personality. He was caught up in an anatomy lesson, so eagerly waiting for us to call out another body part so that he could show us just how smart he was by pointing out that exact spot on his little frame. “Eye” his daddy said, and D’Lo gave us both a hard, two-eyed wink. “Teeth” I called out, and he began chomping like a baby alligator. “Where’s your back?’ I asked and he so desperately tried to wrap his super short arms behind him. Then, in the middle of all the laughter, my husband looked at me and said, “I love him so much, I can’t remember a time when he wasn’t with us.”

His statement was so deeply honest because, although we’ve only known him here for twenty months, it feels as though he’s been a part of us for all time. In just a very short period of time, we will be saying and feeling the same thing about our unborn son as well. It’s as though our souls have always known them all, and their births were actually reunions. Births as reunions…That makes sense, right? I mean, this couldn’t all just be random? We had to have been made just for them, and them for us, yes?

Well, I won’t even sit here and presume to figure out His plan…I’m just happy to be a part of it, this part of it, a wife to this one, and a mother to these. I am thankful and I am blessed.

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Star Bar…that’s what I call her…she left yesteday and I cried. I cried those deep, from the chest, face all scrunched up, painful lump in the throat, type of tears. She hasn’t called either. She said that she would, to at least let me know that she made it, but still no call. I already checked up on her, so I know she’s OK, but I really am feeling hurt. I know she’s happy to be with her mom, she missed her so much, but what about me? Isn’t that selfish?

She first came to us so long ago, she was just two. She came in a dirty pair of pajamas, her braids were so old they were nearly dreadlocks. She had a yeast infection. She was afraid and she had her right index finger in her mouth (a comfort mechanism I would come to recognize well in the future). In all the time that has passed between then and now, she has spent some time with her mom, but not nearly as much time as she has spent with us. The addictions her mom battles, or rather “illness” as I would explain to the kids, kept her from calling, kept her from sending a birthday card, kept her from visiting. They would also keep Star waiting, day in and day out, for the mailman to arrive with something special from this woman, something special that would, ultimately, never come at all.   Then I would be left with this child, making up excuses for a woman I (at that time) despised; not for the sake of the woman, but for the sake of the child.

Well, now Star gets what she’s always longed for; not just any mother…her mother. What I discovered, after fifteen years of raising another woman’s kids, after fifteen years of being “the other mother” is this: In my heart I know that I have provided many necessary essentials – food, clothing, help with homework, a smiling face in the crowd at their games, talks about right and wrong, hugs, birthday cakes, participation in parent/teacher conferences, doctor and dentist appointments, and so much more – but in the end, the one thing I could never ever be for them…is her.

I love you Star Bar. I’ll be keeping you in my prayers. I hope we have stacked enough into your brain and stored enough into your heart to keep your future decisions clear. Lord, keep her safe, happy, and knowing that she is loved.

She is now officially Mrs. Curran. She has a husband and she is a wife. That’s a big title to take on. It involves so much more than looking great in a white dress ( but, ooh, did she ever look beautiful). I feel that she’s mostly prepared and, although I do know the road she’s now on does involve a sharp learning curve, I am hopeful that she will give it everything she has.

She is so far away now from the eight year old version of herself that I first laid eyes upon, and still a stark contrast from the eleven year old that came to live with us. I hold so many memories in my heart of her time with us. The tears we all shed when she had to learn about the passing of her dear Madea. The urgency I felt, rushing home, after Tony called my cell and told me that he thought she had started her period but that she wouldn’t come out of the locked bathroom. The love my hands worked with as they styled her hair for prom. The pride I felt as she walked across a stage, wearing a purple cap and gown, to collect her high school diploma. All of these things leading her down a road toward herself. All of these things leading her down a path toward Devon.

 I am grateful to have been able to play a role in her journey to self discovery and I very much look forward to continuing on, as both participant and witness, as she presses on into her womanhood. I am more than proud of her. She is my sister, my child, and my friend, all wrapped up in a single, lovely, potentially amazing woman, wife, and mother. She is blessed and she is a blessing. She is Mrs. Curran…