The Woman I Never Knew

“All will become clear in the fullness of time.” (Alice Through The Looking Glass)

My mother, Mavis A. Carter (born McRae) is the oldest girl of 12 siblings. She was born in the 1940’s just a few years removed from slavery. The sound of that truth still haunts me; yet allows me immense understanding of who my mother was destined to be.  I am a firm believer that every child should fully understand the weight of who your parents are. Alcarez, as she is affectionately called is absolutely forthright, exceptionally amusing, tremendously magnanimous, and relatively convoluted. However, I was blessed with the privilege of having her as a mother. I don’t think I always believed that it was a privilege, but wisdom grows as your experience of the world is elevated. 

The amazing thing about my mother is that she is a survivor. Alcarez is a liberated black girl from the south, who wouldn’t allow the vicissitudes of life to inhibit her from thriving. She taught me how to be a mother by always being present. She showed me how to persist, by obtaining her education at the age of 45. She demonstrated resilience after she divorced my father. She equipped me with good judgment by extending her faith. For so many things and more I am forever grateful, but most importantly I am thankful that God graced me to fulfill the purpose my parents couldn’t.

I now realize the truth about my mother, a mere reflection of who I am, and the possibility of who my mom desired to be. My mother in all her pulchritudinous splendor didn’t realize I was living her life and desperately wanting to heal those broken parts of myself; while extending her the compassion that children never really give their parents. She struggled to share her story with me yet; she wanted a place she would not be judged because she had judged herself all her life. She needed a place to bury the past knowing I would protect her story and re-tell it again in a way that gave me closure and her pride in knowing that every scar had a story, a reason, and in the end brought us closer. My mom and I are both on our own individual journeys, healing from our past. We are slowly realizing with every hurdle, we are both the women we never knew and were dying to love.

Here I am…several decades’ later standing on the shoulders of a woman I still admire today. No one knows Alcarez the way I do, and truthfully no one ever will (she wouldn’t have it any other way). I recognize that women like Thelma Elizabeth Gillis McRae (my grandmother), Mavis Alcarez McRae Carter (my mother) and me are too complex to comprehend.  We are impossible illustrations, always too intense for most and never quite too tame for others. We are the women that are doused in quiet, resolved strength determined to chart our own path. Before long there will be a long legacy of women who no longer carry the scars of our past but the antidote for our future.