I Told My Mama To Stop Stressing

My mama Lilly B Wiggins is one of the strongest women I know. She raised me and my younger sister and brother with little money and education, but she always did have much strength. I cannot recall a time that I have ever seen her break down in tears. Hold up, maybe once or twice, from laughing or from a touching sermon while at church, but I never have seen her cry in a time of a storm.

My mother never wanted to look weak to her children. It bothered me because I always wanted to console her and tell her while we barely had food to eat that everything was going to be okay. I never had the chance to. She was always determined to make some type of way. I pictured her many days leaving on her bike during the morning hours after hearing my sister and brother cry and complain about being hungry to go off and cry.

I felt her sadness. I cried for her many days while praying to God to continue to bless, protect, and guide her. She loves us all in special ways unconditionally. I knew her heart was broken when the news broke throughout the small town of Napoleonville that my Lil' brother Louis had gotten locked up.

Of course, the news is still fresh to some people, and others are just waiting to add more tea to go along with it. My mama found out immediately after my 18-year-old brother was locked up by his best friend. His best friend also had texted my phone and told me too. I called him from my Lil' brother’s phone to find out what took place. When I did, I was disappointed. If it ain't one thing, it's another. 

It was around 9:30 a.m. Wednesday when he was arrested for warrants and other crazy shit that was stated at the gas station Popingo’s.  By the time 10:00 a.m. came around, everyone in the town knew my brother, and people gossiped about it. I know because I was told through the grapevine.

Yesterday, my mama called me because she finally got a cell phone and my sister Patricia's phone number. We talked for over an hour, and during our conversation, she told me that she couldn’t sleep after she was told what happened to Louis. She told me her nerves have been bad ever since Wednesday.

I knew she was upset after hearing about Louis getting locked up. I just didn’t think she was stressing so bad about him that she couldn’t sleep. She told me that she does not have the money to help bond him out of jail, either. I knew for sure I did not have the money to help him make bail either. I told my mama to stop stressing. Her reply was that she is only human.

I felt her reply deep within my spirit.

Sometimes your faith can be shaken. You can still pray to God with fear in your heart of the unknown. There will be times you can find yourself stressing about other people’s situations. As humans, we feel. We can lose touch with our emotions by simply putting up a wall. A wall so that no one could see us weak.

No one wants to seem variable or needy unless they allow themselves to. I realize that my own mother built an imaginary wall to protect herself from showing her true emotions and speaking her truth. I told her before we ended our phone call, “You’re right, you are human, and you’re a Christian that believes in prayer.”

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