My daughter turned 18 last month,
and weeks after her birthday, we were in my room, watching Gilmore Girls, and chatting about how much we had gone through over
the years. I’m in my mid-thirties, and I sort of grew up with my daughter. I was just 18 when I became pregnant with
her. Right now, I know it was the grace of God that helped me to give birth to
and begin raising such a spirited child. I had so many unresolved issues
myself. I had relationship issues with her father, and I was so young and naive.
I was new to the world, yet I was bringing a little mini me in the world with
me to learn as I went along. When I think of how childlike my daughter is at
18, I begin to gain a whole new respect for women who at such a young age bore children. Even at 18, you’re still a baby to society, trying to live
life with limited resources and hardly any knowledge of the world around you.
I’m grateful that my daughter had and still
has her innocence and silliness. She can brighten some of the darkest
situations. The hope she exudes helps me to see the light at the end of the
tunnel in every situation. For example, through my volatile marriage and
divorce, single parenthood, bad roommates, broke days, and the pain of having
to ask people for help—her smile, her growing faith in God (along with mine),
gave me such strength.
The other day she laughed and
made a joke about how I was once stranded on the side of the road. My old Kia
had clunked out in the middle of I-75 headed into the city of Atlanta—in
the middle of the summer! My daughter was spending some time with my aunt in
Decatur, and they came to give me a ride. She said my natural hair had drawn up
into a sweated-out Afro. I looked like Michael Jackson when he did that Off the Wall video! But I wasn’t
dancing. I was sweating and looking a hot mess! I couldn’t help but laugh just
thinking of how I looked! It wasn’t funny
then though, but it’s hilariously funny now. I eventually got a new car, but
just the experience itself is so funny, words really can’t fully express it.
I believe that when we embrace
those types of memories with the right attitude, we will see them as learning
experiences and not memories of regret. Those memories should be cherished
because they got us from one point to another, and within many of those chaotic
experiences, we realized that by the grace of God we grew and developed. During
those seemingly impossible situations, we gained strength. We learned not to do this or that. We found another
way. We prayed. We believed. We read our Bibles. We went to church. We listened
to people with similar situations. In other words, we grew up. If you are a mom
facing an impossible situation today, I want to encourage you to keep your head
up, there is light at the end of the darkest tunnel. Just count it as another growing experience.
Tee
