I had three children in four years. When they were little, I used to think that I would be buried with my diaper bag. I could not imagine leaving my house with a small purse –especially since one of my kids had a super hard time potty training.
I always had to have extra clothes with me. I would look at women then, who are my age now, sitting with their teenage children and think, “That is so nice, but it will never happen to me.” It felt to me like my diaper bag would be eternal and that my children would be small forever.
Here I am, a decade and a half later, watching my children graduate, grow, change, and become. As I reach for my car keys and phone, I am suddenly aware of the long-ago death of my diaper bag. I am not sure where the time went. As I watch my oldest get ready to leave the house, I find myself thinking back to that diaper bag, a bag that held snacks, clothes, and so many other surprises. I smile to myself and think I did okay. Not all days are like that. There are so many days that I feel like I am far from okay. Then, there are other days that are not okay at all. I wish I had a diaper bag, a bag that held the solutions to what I desperately do not know.
“The last time she lived with me she was in diapers,” she shared.
“I lost custody of her when I got locked up. I am clean. I am sober. I got me a job now. I want her back.”
“Hey, hey, Girl, you’re gonna need a shit ton more than diapers now. Them kids are expensive. They want all sorts of fucking shit, ya know?” someone yelled out.
“Yup, I do, I missed a lot of years when I wasn’t there,” she answers. “I lost a lot of time from when I did time,” she said.
I can’t imagine what I think to myself.
“You know, Ms.,” she added. “I’d collect diapers wherever they were giving them. I’d always have me a plastic bag with diapers. Even when they took her away, I’d keep collecting them diapers. Even when I was piss ass drunk, I’d collect those fucking diapers. There are so many places you can find them. You just gotta go and collect them. Did you know that, Ms.?”
“Actually, I do,” I said. “You’re a good mom,” I add.
“You’re crazy, Ms.” She held back her tears. “I haven’t been a mom for a long time. I was high and drunk and then locked up. Now I want to be a mom, Ms. I really want to be one.”
I think of my own kids, my kids who I don’t always have the right words for. The kids who I yell at because I am at my wits’ end. My kids who don’t always have the best of me because I am tired, overworked, and stretched oh so thin. My kids who have grown so fast that I can hardly catch my breath. My kids who I have had the privilege to watch grow, and hold and touch, even though, now sadly, they really don’t want me to touch them very much. My children who live with me in my house and, for better and for worse, we are together. And this year, we have really been together.
“You never stopped being a mom,” I tell her quietly. “You just were not with your kids.”
“Ms., seriously I stopped being a mom. Now I want to start again.”
“No,” I say again. “You were always their mom; you just were not with them or maybe not taking care of them.”
“Jesus, Ms. I don’t think you hear me. I was locked up and couldn’t be with them. I wasn’t their mom then.” She is annoyed with me.
“Here is the deal. My oldest daughter is graduating high school. Next year she is going to Israel for the year. Do I stop being her mom cause she is gone?”
“What you gonna do when she is gone, Ms.?” she asked.
“Cry?” I laughed and said, “I am going to be happy for her. That is what I am going to be. I…” and she cut me off and said, “I was happy for my girl that she was taken care of. I was sad for me that I wasn’t the one doing it. My sister took care of her real good.”
“Well, you have a good sister,” I say, and I think of my own sisters who live in Israel and next year will be looking out for my kid. I look at this young woman who could probably be my kid too. I think of the nights she must have laid awake in jail dreaming of her little girl, of how she went from place to place to pick up diapers and how, although I hated that diaper bag that I used to schlep around, I know I was lucky to have had it. Lucky to have the days, the hours, the time. So lucky for the time. Lucky to be present, lucky to be able to kill the diaper bag only to move on to be the driver or the ATM machine. Lucky to be the mom.
One person said “Girl, is your kid alive?” “Yes,” she said.
“That’s big, Girlfriend. You are a good Mom. Your kid didn’t die.” We all laugh.
“You kept your kid alive. In the hood, that’s a blessing,” another adds.
“I think keeping your kids alive is a blessing not only in the hood” I add.
My kid peeks her head into my room. I am not sure what she wants because my eyes are a little glassy. I nod and say yes, happy to see her smile. Still in shock that she is this age, still in shock that they are all my kids, and they are the size they are. I sigh and look at my computer screen and am grateful for my beautiful students’ wisdom. I kept my kids alive. I guess I didn’t do so bad after all.
