Baby Love by Rebecca Walker Page A

nutshell, she took offense to a section of my 2001 memoir, Black, White, and Jewish, that the interviewer reprinted, in which I wrote that my parents didn’t protect or look out for me, but fed, watered, and encouraged me to grow. In the statement, she called me a liar, a thief (because when I was eight years old I took quarters from her purse during my parents’ divorce), and a few other completely discrediting unmentionables. After posting back that unless she wanted out-and-out war, she should rethink her decision to send the letter, I went over to her house to find out what the hell was going on.
    Never have I been so frightened by my own mother. She sat me down and called me, in addition to a liar and a thief, “someone who thinks she is a good person but really isn’t.” She told me that because I wasn’t from the South and didn’t have the full memory of slavery (read: I am half white), that I don’t know what it feels like to be sold down the river, but that’s how she felt after reading my book.
    For the twenty-five-thousandth time, I apologized for telling my truth in a way that hurt her, and told her that I tried to protect her the best way I knew how. Then I asked whether she thought it was a little strange that I wrote about my struggle in an attempt to get her to take care of me, but here we were talking about how I should be taking care of her. Again.
    She grew quite vicious. I told her repeatedly that I didn’t think that what she was saying was very maternal. After two hours trying to convince her of the merits of my existence, I left the house shaking.
    Glen was extremely upset: This is how she treats you, even when you’re pregnant?
    Between him and my father, who wrote my mother a letter saying that as parents it is their job to be proud of my accomplishments rather than undermine my livelihood, I managed to keep it relatively together, but it hasn’t been easy.
    I keep asking myself, If she’s not able to put the needs of the baby first when he’s inside of me, how is she going to do that when he’s a walking, talking little boy?

June 30
    Went with Glen to see his teacher, a high lama from Tibet who escaped by crossing the Himalayas on foot after the Chinese occupiers murdered his father. I always love going to see Khenpo, but given the last few days, it was even more special, like entering another dimension, a surreal world beyond the realm of explanation. He fed us huge beef ribs, the biggest I have ever seen, that he ate with a gigantic knife, expertly paring the meat away from the bone. Then we drank bone soup, which is supposed to be good for physical strength and heating up the body, but which made me want to throw up.
    I can barely understand Khenpo when he talks, but Glen gets every word, and the two of them and another lama from Bhutan sat around telling jokes and laughing. I was so tired I had to go into another room to lie down, but I could hear them all the way upstairs and felt comforted, like I was in a pure land and the laughter of the dharma deities was my lullaby.
    When we left, I asked Khenpo to bless the baby in my belly. He tapped my stomach and laughed. Bless the baby yourself! At first I was put off, then I realized it was his way of telling me I am as much a deity as he is, and that I shouldn’t idealize him and deprecate myself. I have the power to bless my own baby.

July 5
    I am at Alta Bates hospital in Berkeley, trying not to freak out. Last night I ate steak and spinach and salad and mint chocolate chip ice cream, and then got an awful pain in my stomach, like someone had taken a knife and stuck it into my gut. When I couldn’t take it anymore, I called an ambulance and hobbled downstairs. By the time they got to the building, I was on the sidewalk on my hands and knees, doubled over with pain.
    I crawled in the back and told the EMTs my blood type, doctor’s name, and that I am four months into a normal pregnancy. The EMT, whom I expected to, I don’t know,