I watched an episode of "Red Table Talk" where my favorite iCarly star, Jennette McCurdy revealed her struggles stemming from an abusive relationship with her mother...
Seen here...
And it got me to thinking about my OWN relationships with my daughters and my own mom...
No fam-lei...
My mother was NOT abusive whatsoever...
Quite the opposite.
But like many of my readers,
I, Happy Wife, have suffered abuse at the hands of a parent before. (A step-father)
Had it not been for my mother, I would not have graduated from that "School of Hard Knocks" with such flying colors...
She is my HERO in life and I want to pay her homage in this blog posting today.
So here's to you MOM...
Because it doesn't have to be MOTHER'S DAY to get your flowers...
To my kids, she is "Mama T"...
But to my husband and I, this is MAMA...
Since this is a blog about interracial marriages and relationships, I wanted to first point out that this woman was the pioneer in our family to prove that "love has no color"...
Born to a blonde hair/blue eyed mother in the sixties, this half-Portuguese curly brunette was always attracted to different sort of men.
In their California high school, my father was probably one of the ONLY island boys in the entire school (maybe even city).
They met, fell in love and couldn't keep themselves away from each other. Before they knew it, my mom got pregnant with me...
Yes, she was 16...
But unlike most rolling stones of the 60s, my papa was 😁 HAPPY 😊 that I was on the way...
There was just one thing...
They were young, and BOTH of their families had plans to leave the U.S.
My dad's family was originally from a tiny island called Rota, and my mother's mom was marrying a man in the military 🎖️ and moving away to Germany.
So what's a young couple to do?
Why, get married, of course 💕!!!
Love knows no color...
They had two kids, and things were 🤩 amazing for a while.
But my mom wasn't happy in Rota...
Here she was a teenage girl, hundreds of miles from home and any family in an unknown island with unknown people.
Sure, my dad's family was cool enough, but their culture was different and at some point my grandmother and grandfather made an attempt to take me from my mother and raise me. Apparently in island culture, it was customary that the first born of a couple goes to the elders to raise.
(I have yet to find out if this was really a culture thing or just a thing my grandparents told my mom so she wouldn't try to leave but either way... As you can see, THAT didn't fly...) 😆
To this day, I still think of her story and am amazed at her strength, courage, and resilience...
I also wonder if I've told this story enough to my own kids...
But I WILL BE SURE it's written here for the family history books and all to read...
And when I look at my grandchildren, I wonder if they will read this and think of the PATHS and ROUGH ROADS that were TRAILED for them to exist...
That their stories actually began HERE, when one woman dared to operate outside of societal norms, and traveled through miles of ocean for LOVE.
Will they see the miracle that is their own being???
Of course, this story does take a turn...
Because when my mother grew unhappy with my father's young man ways and his family's persistence in trying to keep me, she fled the island to a larger island nearby called, "Guam".
Here, she was a single struggling mom and we lived in a tin shack next to who would soon become my step father and his family.
This is where God TRULY tested her resilience.
He was a hero on a white horse in so many ways at first...
But the pressures of being a new family man in the islands was hard to keep up.
Soon after they move in together, he became abusive and developed a drug habit...
The abuse was so bad that my mom called her estranged mother and grandmother to fly her all the way to Texas where they were residing.
My mother, my little brother and myself... ALL suffered abuse at the hands of this man.
I would be forever changed...
But my mother's love was every reason why I am here today writing in eloquence, as opposed to drugged out on a corner in pestilence...
She told me I could do and be anything I wanted to be...
So I tried to be everything...
And because of the confidence she instilled in me,
I sing, paint, write, cook, craft, fix, etc.
And truly feel there isn't anything that I cannot do!
And because of her, I'm scared of NOTHING.
I watched my mama fight the boogey man every day and STILL get up and put on a hard hat and stilletos like THE BOSS that she is.
Then come home and take off her hard hat and muddy heels and put on a apron with a "W" on it, cause SHE, is truly wonder woman...
And we all need this kind of example...
As mentioned above, I was disheartened to hear that a star that brought so much joy and laughter could be going through so much at the hands of her mother...
When mine is a true saint...
I love you mama! This one's for you! 😉
To watch more of their love story video, click the video 👇 below.
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