My mother used to love to tell the story about how when I was born I weighed just two pounds and two ounces.  I was about two months premature and she said that when I would cry that I sounded like a little kitten purring.  That is so funny to me because who would have thought that I would have been born so small (I’m big now … tee hee) with such a tiny voice (says the person with one of the loudest laughs you will ever hear).  I think that challenging but triumphant start set the stage for the adventures to come.  I always had a vivid imagination, I was a daydreamer and a creative … which was channeled through storytelling. 

My older brother and my aunt still say that my bedtime stories were always the longest (which they didn’t appreciate – they wanted to go to sleep).  As I was growing up in Houston, Texas and enjoying my summers in Morristown, Tennessee, I started to spend my spare time writing.  At some point, I wrote a series called The Adventures of Mollie B.  Mollie B. was a little bold, Black girl who got in all kinds of elementary school shenanigans.  I recall the series fondly because my mother loved it so much.  She would always ask, “What is Mollie B. up to now?”  Over time, I lost my spiral Mead notebook where I wrote my Mollie B. chronicles and I moved on to other things, like sports, the newspaper staff, student government, cheerleading, friendships, boys, shopping, drama (in school theater and in the “streets”) and everything else.  I wanted to write but I never seemed to have the time. Then I started college and then I started working and life happened. 

Once I graduated from Georgia State University, I took a job that was based in Atlanta but I worked in Houston (OMG – one of the best times in my life), then I moved back to Atlanta and then moved to Chicago and then back to Atlanta and then I took a job in New York City.  What I take from all of this is that I had a mother who encouraged me to risk it all.  She challenged me to think outside the box and the dream big. I am so happy that she supported my dreams (she loved Mollie B.) and even when she worried about me moving, she always cheered me on. That meant everything to me and she is the reason my life is as big as it is. I lost my mother (Brenda) in 2014 and nothing has been the same. But what I hold on to when I miss her the most is that I know she is proud of me and still cheering me on.  I follow her lead with my beloved Carson. Thank you Mom. I miss you so much.

And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.

Anais Nin