From The Sanctuary: “My Forever First Love:” A Mother’s Day Story

We’re starting a new segment here on the Reed, Write, & Create blog. Periodically we will be featuring the writing from members of the The Reed, Write, & Create Sanctuary. This first flash personal essay is by Karen Kimbro Johnson. With Mother’s Day coming up in the United States, we thought it was the perfect time to share this moving essay about a daughter’s enduring love for her mother.

‘My Forever First Love’ by Karen K. Johnson

My mother looked like Lena Horne ­– slim, five-feet and four-inches tall. Her long, wavy black hair fell below her shoulders. And she always wore Shalimar perfume, leaving the sweet scent of bergamot, jasmine, and rose trailing behind her in every room.

Although my younger sister and I never witnessed much verbal affection from our parents, they demonstrated their love by giving us experiences. We had piano lessons, ballet lessons, tap dance lessons, modern dance lessons, bowling lessons, tennis lessons, and swimming lessons. We’d get our hair done every two weeks and come back from Los Angeles’s Garment District laden with ten dollar dresses.

My sister and I were two of the few Black children in our community. I was the tallest girl in my elementary school, and the fattest. I had braces on my teeth. I couldn’t hit a softball, and was always chosen last to play on any team. If I knew the answer to a question the teacher asked, I wouldn’t raise my hand because I didn’t want to call attention to myself in class. I would have liked to be slim, shorter and not so shy.

But Mom loved me in spite of my lack of ability to fit in. I never told her my problems at school but she showed her love and support. I would always run to help her carry the groceries when she came home from work every day, and she greeted me with a big hug and a kiss. Mom and I were as close as the fried chicken and mashed potatoes in a Swanson’s frozen TV dinner.

When I turned sixteen, my mom gave me a pack of birth control pills even though I never asked for them. I was insulted she thought I was having sex.

“If you get pregnant before you’re married, it will kill your father,” was her explanation. 

I didn’t want my father to die, so I didn’t get pregnant.

When Martin Luther King was assassinated I was devastated and wanted to identify more with the Black Power movement, so I grew an Afro. I’d lost faith in the idea that integration would solve Black peoples’ problems.

“You’d be prettier if you got rid of that Afro.” Mom said.

I grew my Afro out until it was bigger than Kathleen Cleaver’s. But I still loved my mother.

I couldn’t imagine a life without my mother, so when I learned about reincarnation, I said, “Mom, if there is reincarnation, you can come back as the daughter and I’ll be your mother. I’ll take care of you.”  Mom agreed this sounded nice, even though she probably didn’t believe in reincarnation. But she knew I did, and she wanted me to be soothed by the thought that death wouldn’t separate us.

Years passed. As Mom’s friends started dying, she became less interested in living. She went into the hospital weak and ill. When I came for a visit, Mom’s Lena Horne looks had faded, replaced with a shadow of the woman I remembered. Mom couldn’t talk. She had to breathe through a clear, plastic oxygen mask. I moved closer to her as she gestured for the oxygen mask to be removed. 

My heart fluttered in fear. “Mom, we can’t take the mask off. You want to live don’t you?”   

Mom smiled, rolled her eyes, and shrugged her shoulders. She died the next day. She was 91 years old.

Later, I dreamt my mom was sitting with me at a table in a beautiful garden, enjoying our favorite meal – fried chicken and waffles.

“Mom, I thought you were dead,” I said, tears filling my eyes.

Mom finished chewing her waffle. “I’m not dead. You see me here, don’t you?”

The next night I dreamt we were walking up a steep hill together. At the end of Mom’s life, she’d used a walker, but now it was me who had trouble keeping up with her.

"Mom, you can walk really good now," I said, huffing and puffing. 

Mom took an Afro pick out of her pocket and fluffed her voluminous, Angela Davis Afro. “You think this is something?,” she said with a smile, “wait ‘til you see me fly!

The dream faded and I opened my eyes. Surrounded by a golden light, I inhaled the bergamot, jasmine, and rose scent of my forever first love.

About the Author

Karen K. Johsnon

Karen Kimbro Johnson, Ph.D. is the author of “Climbing the Crystal Stairs”, a novel she is currently submitting for publication. She studied writing with Al Watt to hone her writing skills and is active in The Sanctuary.

Johnson is also a visual artist who paints portraits and landscapes using innovative oil painting techniques. 

She lives with her husband in the country in San Diego where they grow lemons and mangos and try to prevent the lizards outside from entering their house.

She can be contacted through her website: www.karenkjohnson.com