THRIVING Melanin Family Magazine May 2017: A Mother's Love | Page 18

What Mom Gave Me
by LeaAnn Fuller
Every daughter should be able to say that they have the best mom in the world. I know that I was
lucky enough to.
My mom was the hardest working woman you would ever meet with the biggest heart. She always
put us kids and her family first, never thinking of herself. Yes, she worked hard and may have missed
“things” but it isn’t the things that she missed that we talk about now and cherish. It is the memories
that she gave us the opportunity to make and the values that she taught us that made us who we
are today.
I wouldn’t change any of it for the world and I am honored to pass what she taught me on to my girls.
was there. She yelled out his name clear as day
and slightly louder each time. It was as if she
was calling for him to not leave her as he was
drifting further away. I will never forget that and
the chills I felt that night knowing he was there
for her. Even in her final days, she taught me
that there is so much Love and once we find it
there is nothing that can replace it.
Love
She showed me how to love above all else. My
dad passed away in 1993 and my mom still
spent nearly the next 20 years loving him. She
never did move on, which I really questioned as
she spent so many years fighting a horrific battle
with cancer by herself. She had us kids, but
I never felt it was the same. But she had so
much love for my dad that it didn’t matter, he
was the love of her life.
As she fell really ill in 2012 and was passing away
at home it all made sense and I realized he was
with her the whole time. His presence was hard to
deny. He was there waiting to welcome her home.
The night before she passed, she hadn’t been
coherent or even spoke in a couple of days. I
woke up to her calling out his name, as if he
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She taught me that we love our children when
times are good and even more when they are
bad. We support them no matter what, even
when our children don’t make it easy. Which we
all know that they often don’t.
One of the scariest things I ever had to do was
to tell her I was pregnant at the age of sixteen.
I waited to tell her as she was walking out the
door to go to her night job, thinking she wouldn’t
have time to yell at me.
She didn’t even give it a second thought before
she called into work and told them she was
going to be a while. We talked and we cried,
but she never judged me, criticized me, or even
showed any shame in me. She just very calmly
and collectively asked me what I was going to
do and told me that regardless of my decision
she would be there to support me in any way
that she could be, and she was. She was there
for me through every bump in the road. I never
would have been able to graduate from high
school with honors without her love and support.
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