An excerpt from USA Today -
She was the chauffeur, the encourager and worked for the NSA. But mostly, she was my mom
By Mike Freeman
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| Mike Freeman and his mom in the 1970s. Provided by Mike Freeman |
I remember the exact day I first saw my mother’s strength. I mean, really saw it. My father had left us. Not long after, my mom sat next to me on the stairs of the house, put her arm around me, and kissed me on the cheek. She told me we were going to be OK, and there was no doubt in my mind she was right. Because she was Mom. She always made everything right. Even moments like that one.
She’s called me Mickey or Mickey Joe forever. We’ll be all right, Mickey. I promise. And her promises meant something. They meant everything.
She was the chauffeur who took me to soccer practice, the cook, the child psychologist, the encourager, the disciplinarian and the empath. She did all of that while working at the National Security Agency, where she was a senior executive, and one of the highest-ranking Black women at the agency. She’d also get her law degree by going to classes at night.
We sometimes think of power as physical strength or wealth, but true power is what my mom did for me growing up, and what so many other moms have done. She used her strength to create a protective forcefield over the ordinary and mundane, which are so important to kids: going to school; playing sports; hanging with friends; having food and clothes and support.
Her love has always had the power of a splitting atom. But another strength was just as buttressing. Mom’s almost unrelenting desire to educate me about the world and how things work, from making pancake batter, to handling myself if stopped by the police, to emphasizing the power of Black pride when much of the outside world constantly told Black people how awful we were.
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