Over 20 years have passed, and I’m still loving my Momma out loud | Opinion

As I was meditating one morning earlier this week, I felt the need to just spend some time just thanking the Lord for specific blessings that He has brought into my life over the years.

One these blessings was my late mom, Ida Belle Johnson.

I thought about her personality — she wasn’t one to show her feelings.

And if by chance her feelings kind of sneaked out, she always seemed embarrassed. For example, she never really told me, nor my brother Adam, that she loved us — out loud. But we knew, without a doubt, that she did.

So, as I was musing over my life, I thought about how many times I wanted to hear those three words — “I love you” — from my mom’s lips.

I am different from Momma in that way. She was an “I’ll show you” kind of gal, while I am a “let me tell me you how I feel” person. I vowed to always let my own sons hear the three words from my lips.

Still, as I have grown old, I have long understood that love isn’t always spoken. Sometimes it slips into your life in small, almost unnoticed ways.

Like when my brother Adam and I were young and spent time together with Momma, singing from an old gospel songbook, seated around a used table in the living room of our new home in the Liberty Square Housing Project.

And hearing Momma saying proudly, “Listen to my baby…” when, to her surprise, I joined in singing alto to her lead and drowning out my brother Adam’s voice-changing baritone.

And remembering the smile on my face as I drifted off to sleep with the memory of the three us playing back and forth in my mind as the sounds of Momma’s voice rang in my ears.

As I meditated on the memory, I thought to myself, “Now, that’s love.”

Love sometimes came in other ways, like the sacrifices Momma made, cutting back on certain bills to get me that new white dress I needed for singing with the concert choir at Booker T. Washington (BTW) High School.

And buying the bus pass each week so that I could travel from Liberty City to Overtown to attend BTW, the school of my dreams. The bus passes were only 85 cents a week, back then. But to a single working mom of two, who often worked two jobs to make ends meet, it might as well have been $85 a week.

Unselfish actions

My meditation about Momma’s love took me all the way back to Williston, Florida, where I was born.

I remember Momma as a young, pretty woman, who seemed fearless to me. I often thank the Lord for her willingness to take me and my brother with her, when she decided that enough was enough, and fled the abusive home life that she had known since marrying our dad.

Looking back, I realize the great sacrifice she made, the unspoken love she showed just by taking us with her when she made her escape. Life for her would have been so much easier if she hadn’t had two small children back then.

Her move was an example of loving us out loud, without saying a word.

Momma loved in ways that I didn’t always understand. It took me a lot of years to understand why she wanted me to become a teacher or a nurse, or perhaps a social worker when I grew up. Back then, these were the professions that a young Black woman and/or a young Black man could count on.

Yes, there were Black doctors and lawyers in our neighborhoods back then. But they were few and far in between. And to her, there was only one Ida B. Wells.

So, for fear of giving me the wrong impression, Momma never complimented me on my drawings or my writing. And while she enjoyed my singing, she never allowed me to accept a scholarship in voice to Knoxville College (now university) in Tennessee.

I didn’t understand back then. But I grew to understand that my mom was acting out of love. She was only trying to keep me from being disappointed. Momma was so bogged down in Jim Crowism that her only vision for me was limited to two or three professions that were acceptable for Blacks in a nearly all-white world.

Yet, there was no prouder mom on the planet than Momma, when I was hired as the first Black woman reporter for The Miami Herald.

While I hid from her my major when I was attending Miami Dade Community College, Momma lived to see me live out my dream of becoming a professional writer for a major newspaper. And she took the credit. But I didn’t mind. After all, she was my babysitter on the nights that I had classes.

And with all the stops and starts in my life, I realize that I never would have made it this far without my faith in God, and my Momma’s help.

Later in life

As we grew old together life brought about many changes. Mama became bedridden due to a stroke she suffered on Easter Sunday in 1996. I became her caregiver.

As the time grew near for her to leave me for her eternal home, Momma and I renewed our bond.

And she learned how to say out loud, “I love you…”

I was cleaning her room one day and I noticed that she was following me around the room with her eyes. When I turned to look at her, she said, “I love you.” I looked at her, smiled and said, “I love you, too, Momma.”

And then I left the room and cried in the privacy of the kitchen. I don’t know how I managed to make it out of the room without first bursting into tears.

I believe I was blessed to care for Momma. I worked for 5½ of the nearly seven years that she was bedridden. She was so happy when I told her I had retired and would be able to spend more time with her.

She enjoyed it when I wheeled her out of her room, to the porch and placed the hose in her hands to water the plants. And she loved it when I got the house painted and let her help select the colors.

I sewed, and when I made a wedding dress and the bride-to-be came for a fitting, a rule was to let my mom see her in the dress. That way, Momma always felt involved.

I was 62 and Momma was 83 when she went home to be with the Lord. That was 21 and a half years ago.

And I am still loving my Momma out loud.

Bea L. Hines can be reached at bea.hines@gmail.com.