It’s really dark at 5:00 a.m.  I  tie up my sneakers, stick my ear buds in my ears and head out anyway.  I need to get to the gym, work out and get back home by 6:00 a.m. to make sure my son gets up in time for school.

I used to go to exercise after he was dropped off, but things have changed.  My son  sat down next to me one night last week and told me he was in over his head in his school work, uncomfortable with the kids he’d started hanging out with and feeling like he wasn’t himself.  He was worried.  I was worried.  I guess my biggest worry is that I hadn’t realized how much he was floundering.  It was so easy to accept his one word answer to almost every query — “straight.”  But things aren’t straight.  And Sim at almost 16, realized he wasn’t able to get it straight by himself.

I like to think I know what’s going on.  But I didn’t. My daughter Sara always said I knew everything everyone was doing. It was like a had my own spy network.  But when Sara and Sabrina were in High School I was working from my home office and almost always around.  Lately I had so much going on with work and my extended family and my own pursuits that I wasn’t really paying attention.

But the reality is this — when some child gets in major trouble the media and community never ask, “Where was his teacher?”  “Where was his principal?”  “Where was his coach?”  No, the question almost always is “Where was his mother?  Why didn’t she know?”  And, on many levels, that’s the right question.  I’m not saying that everything our children do is our fault or that children make mistakes or struggle because we aren’t doing our job.  That’s not true.  Or even fair.  But I am saying that it is my job to do everything I can to be aware.  To do everything I can to help my child learn to make right choices and to learn how to accept the consequences of  and turn around poor choices.  It’s a parent’s job to advocate for their child.

So, I set my alarm for 4:45 a.m.  ‘Cause after all, I’ve got to take care of myself if I’m going to take care of anybody else, and I get back home in time to sit and eat breakfast with my son and take him to school before going to work.  My  earlier hours at work mean that I get home shortly after Sim does and we go over his work together.  It’s not easy.  Sim resists sometimes.  He’s going to be 16 in a few weeks, after all, and all this togetherness is starting to feel like a bit much.  Sometimes, as I struggle to remember geometry from 1977, or take a walk in the early morning dark, it feels like  a bit much for me too.  But I count my blessings and I thank God that, in a moment of clarity and vulnerability, my son came to me.  He’s going to be a good man.  And his father and I are going to do everything we can to help him get there.  After all, a mama’s gotta do what a mama’s gotta do.

My father doesn’t have words any more.  He seldom if ever speaks.  We can’t tell if he really knows we’re there.  Last Sunday Reggie and Sharon (my brother and sister-in-law) drove up from Florida and we went to the Nursing Home where my father has been living for the past 6 weeks.  Gloria, my step mother, came too and Ron and my son Simeon.  Daddy never said a word.  He didn’t look up from the sunlight he was trying to catch on his left pant leg.  We rolled him out onto the large front porch into the pre-spring air.  Simeon kept looking away.  His eyes were wet.

When Simeon was little he thought Papa was the biggest and strongest man in the whole world.  He even brought him to kindergarten for show and tell once.  It was like bringing his own superhero.  Papa was my superhero, too.  When I was a child I thought he was perfect.  Actually, I thought he was perfect up into my early  20’s.  Hero worship dies hard.  But even when he ceased to be perfect he still was my comfort and support.  The man who believed I could do or be anything.  The parent who took the time to listen.  He used to bake bread and german chocolate cakes and on Friday’s would introduce us to something new for dinner.  Even when we married and started our own homes, he would always find something to fix for us, from a running toilet to our taxes, when he came to visit.

But now he sits slumped in a chair, his eyes turned inward to something we can’t see.  We talked at him.  And finally we decided to sing.  My Daddy was very dedicated to the church.  My mother used to say he was there whenever the doors opened.  I don’t know about that, but we did spend a lot of time there.  And we sang alot.  As a matter of fact, I learned to sing harmony listening to my Daddy.  The first line I learned was the bass line.  So we started to sing old hymns and after a while his mouth began to move and, very faintly, he began to sing with us.  Encouraged we sang hymn after hymn.  We stopped for a moment to chat among ourselves.  And then we heard, from his chair, a clear soft baritone singing the chorus of  “Shall we gather at the river,” a song we’d sung a few minutes before.  My daddy singing.  We immediately joined in and sang another voice.  But soon he fell quiet and it was just us.  He didn’t make another sound for the rest of our visit.  It’s hard to sing when I want to cry.  The notes aren’t so clear.  Plus I was trying to be tough for my family.  Maybe they were too.

We took Daddy back to his room.  My brother and Gloria got him in to bed.   There was a man across the hall who kept calling for help.  We knew him back when he owned a store downtown.  Simeon was worried about him and went into his room to see if he could do anything.  He couldn’t really.  The man thought he was in his store and wanted something from a shelf that wasn’t there.  But Simeon stayed and talked to him for a minute and that seemed to help.

I am Simeon and Sara’s mom.  I’m Sabrina’s Momz (her term for me), and there are other children who call me by that name.  But this morning, as I sit thinking of my father, I am really just my Daddy’s little girl.

I’ve been at the beach.  It’s been wonderful!  Last week we had the heat on and this weekend Spring is here.  Spring ahead indeed!  I didn’t even mind the darkness when the alarm went off at 5:00 a.m.  Okay — I minded a little, but after waking Simeon up (it took 4 tries.  He is not a morning person) and dropping him off at school, I took a walk on the beach and everything was better.  It felt so good that I went back after work.  (Don’t hate me because I live on the coast…)

The breeze was great.  Kids were playing with dogs, folk were digging in the sand and looking for sharks teeth along the water’s edge.  I had my beach chair and a book.  Pretty cool — except for the guys  playing really loud music from their car radio.  Music that was so much NOT what I wanted to hear.  The parents of those cute kids with the wild little Benji dog  didn’t seem to want to hear it either.   There are names I do not want to be called and I don’t care who’s doing the calling.  And there are words I’d just as soon my children, or anybody elses’ for that matter, not identify themselves with.  (The only female dog in our household had 4 legs and fur.)  Okay — I’m starting to rant.  I’ll stop now.  So I came home.  Opened my windows and enjoyed the breeze.  I’ve got a scented candle burning and an unread magazine to flip through.  (It’s a couple of months old, but I get to them when I can!)  I’ll go back tomorrow morning.  The beach is way quieter before 8:00 a.m.

Speaking of music and ranting, a friend sent this GREAT video clip.  I LOVE this.