Yes I can......(Happy Mothers Day)

A flower is a beautiful thing.

It is fragile; easily damaged. It must be watered and nurtured. It needs good soil. It requires the warmth of he sun.

But when all of these things work together, water, earth, sun and a kind and gentle hand, a simple seed can grow and bloom into something more; something extraordinary, something.......beautiful.

And so it goes with a life.

All life.

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I was a geeky, skinny little kid. My teeth were too big for my face, I wore coke bottle glasses, my hair was like steel wool, utterly impervious to combs, and unlike my brother, who was born cute, I was, well, pretty darn funny looking. I cannot count the number of times that girls in my grammar school class would say to me, "Your brother is fine. What happened to you?" Kids can be cruel in that way. It did not help that I was one of those really "smart" kids that could NOT be cool even when I tried (and I did try), I could not dance (that stereotype about all black folks having rhythm....nope, not true), and unlike my brother, who could bring it, I lacked a whit of athletic ability.

I wanted to be Michael Jackson.

Instead, I was Tito.

No worse.

I was Marlon.

But I loved to write. Writing was my escape, my refuge. Writing is what I did well.

And virtually everything I wrote, I shared with my mother. No matter how busy she was, no matter how exhausted from the physical and emotional demands of waking before the crack of dawn to teach school all day and then raise two rambunctious boys at night, she received everything I wrote with genuine enthusiasm. She carefully and conscientiously read whatever I presented, whether it was a comic book, a short story, a poem or a play, and after wading through the misspelled words and my barely legible cursive handwriting, she would look up, smile, and often say, "This is really good honey."

I knew some things were better than others. Everything I wrote couldn't be the next great American novel. But that's not how my mother made me feel. Everything was special. She made me feel special. Powerful. She made sure that I understood that what you do, what you think, what you take the time to create, means something. It's a gift. It matters.

You matter.

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I will never forget one particular incident. I wrote a poem for a homework assignment. I think I was in 4th or 5th grade. My mother loved the poem. I turned it in, got a B. I was a bit disappointed, I thought the poem was better than that, but what can you do? But my mother was having none of that. She was enraged. And you have to understand something about my mother. She doesn't do enraged. Annoyed? Yes. But not enraged. My mother is the ultimate moderate; even tempered, solid, steady.

But not this day. This day, she was not pleased. She thought I got jobbed.

So without telling me, she took my poem, sent it into a magazine and they published it along with my picture. At the next parent teacher meeting, my mother hard charged in, magazine with published poem in tow, and presented it to the teacher.

How's THAT for your B?

To this day, we laugh about that.

God bless mothers.

Mother, may God bless you.

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Everything I am, I do or become; all I create, all I impact, however small, I lay at your feet. There would be no blog, no JD, no me, without you. The words would not flow so freely if not for you.

If not for you, I would not have the courage to gaze into the great unknown, into the future, and think silently, but confidently...

Yes I can.

So thanks Mom.

Your lima beans, which you would make by the vat, were simply horrendous; beyond description. To this day, I will not eat a lima bean. Ever. I will not make my children eat lima beans. Ever.

But lima beans notwithstanding, you were my wind, my blessing.

You rock.

Happy Mothers Day to you and to mothers everywhere.