Tag: motherhood

My Grandson Is Me Reincarnated

Reflections of me in my grandson.

Sometimes, when I look at Cameron, I see flashes of myself. Not just in his smile or the way his eyes take in the world, but in the rhythm of his life – how times seem to have looped back, giving me another chance to see my younger self, only this time with more love surrounding the story. 

I was born in 1971. 

Cameron came along in 2011. 

At 14, I was in high school, it was 1985, a mix of nerves, dreams, and figuring out who I was. Now, in 2025, he’s 14 and in high school too – going to football games, showing up for homecoming, finding his circle of friends, and slowly carving his place in the world.

His teachers guide him. His mama holds him down with love and wisdom. And I’m right here too, cheering, listening, reminding him of his light on the days when the world feels a little too heavy. 

It breaks my heart sometimes knowing his father has been absent for nearly a decade. No child should have to wonder why someone doesn’t show up. But even in that space, Cameron shines. He has what I didn’t have: a village that sees him, believes in him, and shows up for him.

So, yes, Cameron is me reincarnated. 

A reflection of who I was and who I wish I could have been. I am so grateful he’s got a Mama and a Muff (me) to remind him he’s never walking this life alone.

2009/2025

Life has a way of circling back, handing us pieces of ourselves in new form – softer, wiser, more hopeful. Watching Cameron grow reminds me that healing often shows up through those who come after us. They carry our laughter, our lessons, and even the parts we never got to express. 

I see in him a chance for better days, brighter memories, and deeper love. That’s what legacy is, not the pain we endured, but the strength we pass forward. 

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Full Circle Moments

There’s a certain weight that comes with watching your child parent—especially when they reach the same age you were when you were trying to hold it all together.

My oldest daughter (33) is now the age I was when I had two toddlers, a teenager, and a husband with a terminal illness, pulling at me in every direction. I see her now, caring for her children, and I can’t help but remember my own chaos, my own lessons, my own growth.

She has one fussing toddler right now, but the exhaustion, the overwhelm, the trying-to-keep-it-all-together, those parts feel familiar. And while I know she’s doing her best, I also know how hard it is to show up fully when you’re carrying pain and just trying to survive.

With her first baby, she may have missed some things, not out of neglect, but because she was hurting. I saw it then. I see it now. And I don’t say it with judgment, only with understanding. Because I’ve been there.

But now, grown. She’s learned. And this baby, “Fuss,” she’s special. Just like my youngest, Syd. There’s something about the youngest, maybe it’s that they come into our lives when we’re wiser, more rooted, more ready to do better. They’re our quiet reminder that we can change. We can break cycles. We can show up differently.

Brooklyn and Sydney, our two youngest girls, hold a sacred place in our legacy. Even their names are stitched with meaning. They are maps. Markers. They speak to places these girls may one day stand in and make a difference.

My hope is simple: that there is no more struggle. That we’ve done the hard work so they don’t have to carry as much. That our pain has paved a smoother path. That love, not survival, guides their way.

This is the legacy I dream of: daughters who mother from a place of healing, not harm. And granddaughters who know their names mean something.

We’re still writing the story. But I’m proud of the women we are becoming.

Berries on the Vine

Things No One Said

I became a widow in the dark.

Weeks earlier, I had finally moved out of the FEMA trailer.

It wasn’t a fresh start. It was just another chapter in survival.

No one pulled me to the side and said,

“Are you okay?”

“You don’t have to figure this out alone.”

I made a new partner in the dark, in 2013.

Not with intention, but in response to the weight I was carrying.

One moment of unmatched intimacy, and the direction of my life shifted again.

But not once did someone say,

“Let’s talk.”

“I’ll walk with you through this.”

“I’ll help you see clearly when the world feels blurry.”

No one said,

“You’ve been through enough.”

“You don’t owe anyone your performance of being okay.”

I had a friend who got a luxury car.

She called her friends from the dealership, hype in her voice.

I showed up. In the dark.

I was already behind on what I drove to that lot.

And still, I traded it in.

Left with another debt—26% interest.

No one pulled me aside and asked,

“Why are you doing this?”

“What are you trying to fill?”

People looked at the survivor’s benefits I received for my children and assumed I had it good.

But they didn’t see what it was costing me to stay afloat.

What I was carrying.

What I was trying to unlearn.

It’s taken years for me to admit this:

I didn’t know how to not struggle.

Even when things got better, I’d wait for the ground to drop.

Because that’s what I’d been taught—by experience, not words.

I wonder sometimes—if people from my past ever think about the version of me they encountered.

The one trying to hold it all together.

The one doing what she thought she had to.

The one who needed guidance, not judgment.

Presence, not praise.

There’s so much I wish someone had said.

But now I’m learning how to say it to myself.

And maybe, someone reading this will remember the silence they left behind.

And do better next time—with their sister, their friend, their coworker,

Or the version of themselves they’re still trying to forgive.

Summer 2008, flew my girls to Disney World. Today, I still wear that Coach Fanny pack. Alex still keeps her hair in a bun, Eb keeps tshirts on, and Syd still carries a tote.

If this stirred something in you, let it move you into action.

Be the one who checks in.

The one who sits beside someone in the dark, even if you don’t have the answers.

The one who says, “Let’s talk.”

“I see you.”

“You don’t have to do this alone.”

You don’t need to fix anyone.

But you can choose to show up.

That alone can change a life.

Emotional Living, Not Factual Living

I’ve spent much of my life living by emotions, not facts.

Sometimes I think I’ve only understood the world through scenes from a movie. Real connection? I couldn’t tell you much about that, not from firsthand experience. I’ve never really bonded deeply, not in the way that feels grounding.

But in workspaces and parenting spaces, I became who I am. That’s where I found my rhythm, even when I didn’t know I was dancing. That’s where I found women, real women, who taught me what it meant to be a mother.

From 2008 on, Cindy, Trina, Karen, Dorothy, Sara, and Chris came into my life. We were single mothers raising daughters. That was our connection. We leaned on each other. We grew our children together while still growing ourselves.

Those women didn’t just show me motherhood, they walked it out in front of me, and I took notes with my life.

I tried different paths among them. I was always trying to find myself.

But I wasn’t really focused on me. I was focused on my daughters, making sure they made it further than I ever did.

From 2008 to 2012, I was “adulting” the best way I knew how.

I had community.

Mardi Gras balls. Museums. Zoos. Family moments. Parades. Church outings. Sleepovers.

I had a life.

Cyndi, now, feels like what Trina was to me for the past 40 plus years, familiar presence. A tether.

She has her circle of friends, and while I’m not always in that number, I’ve learned to be okay with that.

I’ve always struggled.

Could people could see something I couldn’t, that I wasn’t really pushing myself to grow. I never asked.

I figure that’s why it was easy for folks to throw me away. I carried so much, too much.

There were times that I was lost in the fog of it all.

And here I am, feeling stuck.

I’ve got to get out.

I whisper it every day:

Dear Lord, let me be not only awake… but aware.

Because for so long it was me and my girls.

Then me and Matthew.

Now… I just want it to be me.

It’s never really been just me.

But I want that now.

Dear Lord, guide me.

While I’m here, the truth is, I’m not really into books. Much of anything, really. I do things just to be doing something.

To seem relevant. To feel like I belong somewhere. I want to belong.

Sometimes I buy books just to say I have them. There’s one playing in my ear right now, something about reconstruction.

It’s like my little girl with her jumbo puzzle book for plane rides. Or my other little girl already prepared with her book before takeoff.

Is that what they got from me.

Hmph. I’m just now seeing that.

This is what emotional living looks like.

Not factual living.

But I’m learning.

I’m waking up.

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Just Us: A Letter to My Daughters

There’s something sacred about the bond formed in quiet houses—when it’s just a mother and her children learning how to survive, how to grow, how to be a family without a blueprint.

My youngest two daughters didn’t grow up with big family dinners or holidays filled with relatives from both sides. Their dad, Anthony, wasn’t a Triplett by birth, nor by adoption. And as for me, I have never known my paternal side. So, what we built together didn’t come from tradition. It came from strength. From grit. From love that didn’t need a last name to be real.

They came home to me.

That was the constant. That was the warmth. That was the echo in the hallway, the steady presence after school, the one who held the line even when everything else felt uncertain. I can’t give them stories about family reunions or elders passing down heirlooms. But I can say this:

They were raised in the presence of a strong woman, and they became strong women, too.

I believe they learned how to keep going when things fall apart. I believe they understand loyalty, even when it’s hard. I believe they carry grace and grit in equal measure, not because they were surrounded by it, but because they watched it show up in everyday ways. In me.

I hope when they think of home, they remember my hands, busy, tired, but always reaching for them. I hope they know I did my best, even when my best was barely enough. I hope they feel pride in what we built from nothing.

To my girls, especially my youngest two:

We were just us. And we were more than enough.

With love, always,

Mom