Valerie Bridgeman. Prayer. Release.

In this moment I give thanks for my aunt and friend Valerie Bridgeman whom I called on to pray for me. To pray for my mind. For concerns swimming around. I give thanks for the love I felt oozing through the phone. Also for my friend, Dietra who also gives love and blessed words. We are black mothers and there is something to being a black mother. There is something to being a black parent. There just is. I give thanks for my son's father, whose name I keep separate from this blog (because he didn't ask for his business spread throughout Jahasworld, I did). But I give thanks for him nonetheless. For him and his wife, for everyone in his household who loves my son. Our son. I give thanks for my mother, sister, brother in law, friends, aunts, uncles, cousins, his teachers. I give thanks for the village who loves him.

My beloved is at an age where we worry. We just do. For nothing. For everything. We the village, we the family, we the parents. We just do. We worry and then we have to let it go. We, and by we I mean I, have to remember that my son is not my son. He is God's son. He is at an age where I cannot Mommy right next to him every moment of the day. My son is born of two African-American parents whose opinions of this very racial society informs our parenting. Praise God though, we are also parents who know that God is real. That God guides and loves and directs. That God provides peace and ease. I am also extremely thankful that my son, our son, God's son is not one who gives us what any would really call...trouble. He is kind and thoughtful. He is funny and handsome. He loves to read and watch movies. He is a good conversationalist. He gives every time he can to strangers on the streets. Although he has his teenage stuff, he is a wonderful human being. Still, as I said to Valerie, Dietra and Dad tonight, there are always parental concerns. I remember when I used to ask my mother if I could borrow the car for the night when I was a teenager and she would pause (knowing how great a driver I was ;)). She would say "It's not you I'm worried about, it's all those crazy people out there." Well, now that my son is sixteen, 6'2", marble black, locks past his shoulders and some falling into his lovely face, it's not him, it's all those crazy people out there.

My concerns I know are not irrational. Quite the contrary. I know I have to be careful about the stuff I let into my mind. More news than I can handle is my newest no no. Law and Order, Criminal Minds and First 48 marathons however entertaining, are a deadly combination with a creative and concerned and black mama mind as mine. So it's time to chill. And I have to remember that I'm not the first black mother to be concerned about her boy and I won't be the last. So more meditation and prayer. More believing that there is more good in the world than bad, because I can not believe sometimes. More leaving my concerns on the alter of God, whose loving hand holds my head. My son's head. The world.