From Mama’s Hand

My mom’s handwriting, even after all this time, is still as recognizable to me as my own. Mama’s handwriting, I always felt, was indicative of who she was, well, when she was in a good way – pretty and neat and comforting.

I have little notes she left me, letters she included in college care packages tucked away. I get them out from time to time to remember the person she was at her core, trace my fingers over a still tangible part of her. I was not expecting to find a note last weekend.

I am sure that I’ve seen it before. I must have taken it out of her trailer the night that she died. But, I don’t remember reading it. Maybe I actually hadn’t read it, just grabbed it and threw it in with other pieces of her that I was frantically, angrily, bitterly tossing into a bag. Perhaps I did read it and just don’t remember it – grief is funny that way.

When I was organizing a storage closet I found a box of old pictures. Of course I was looking for a procrastination tactic and decided to sit down and look through the old pictures. There were some gems from college, a few from our wedding, and some older family photos that were the definition of bittersweet. I laughed some, teared up some and snapped a few pictures of the pictures that I sent to my college roommates. I even sent one to my daughter to make sure she knew that her generation did not come up with baggy jeans and oversized hoodies.

And, then I saw it, that perfect school teacher cursive, poking out from a stack of unorganized pictures. There was a rush of happiness that was then quickly followed by an equally powerful hit of sadness when I read the date March 8, 2008. Almost exactly eight months before she died.

She was watching a snowstorm from her worn chair in her beaten down trailer. Mama was alone. She said that she didn’t want to die with her family not trusting her to be around. Mama wasn’t feeling sorry for herself. She stated, “I am not trustworthy”.

My heart broke thinking about how desperately my mom wanted to make amends with all the people she damaged. She wondered if she could have even repaired the destruction that she had caused. She could have. She just ran out of time.

She went on to talkf about missing my gran, her mom. Those two, man. They were always these larger than life opposing forces. They both loved me ferociously in their own special ways and they both made me incredibly anxious – in their own special way. But, I was somewhat shocked to read about my mom’s love for her mom and how much she missed her.

However, it was when I flipped the paper over that truly gave me pause because my eyes immediately tracked to the words, “Sosha and Conley”. My mom died a couple of weeks after I found out that I was pregnant. She didn’t even know that I was pregnant.

My association and connection to my daughter is so much a part of me that it took me a few ticks to put together that my mom was obviously talking about my great-grandmother, Ida Conley, who I lovingly began calling simply Conley when I was very young.

Mom wrote, “Conley being a part of Sosha’s life has had a GREAT impact on the woman she is today.” I smiled through my tears and said, “Oh mama, you have no idea. Conley being part of my life is still having a GREAT impact on the woman I am today.”

Soshally Awkward

Sosha Lewis is a writer whose work has been featured in The Washington Post, Huffington Post, MUTHA Magazine and The Charlotte Observer. She writes about her sometimes wild, sometimes hilarious, sometimes heartbreaking past filled with free-lunches, a grimy sports bar, a six foot tall Albino woman who tried to save her teenage soul, felonious, drug addicted parents, an imaginary friend named Blueberry and growing up nestled in the coal-dusted mountains of West Virginia.