Chicken Soup for the African American Woman's Soul by Jack Canfield Page A

doing?” Then I added, “Whatever it is, do it quickly, so I don’t think I’m going crazy.”
    The next evening, I found myself sitting in an adoption orientation class. Three months later, on a warm August evening as I rushed home, I got a phone call.
    â€œWe have a little one for you. He’s just above the requested age range. Only thing is that he has nothing except what he’s wearing.”
    â€œWhat do you mean he has nothing? Where is he?”
    â€œHe’s at our office in Miami Shores. The judge ordered him placed today. Your counselor called this morning and said she had a woman who had more love than any child could take, and your file was on my supervisor’s desk. Do you want him?”
    â€œI’m turning around now.”
    By the time I reached the building I was trembling. That butterfly was all over the place—my womb, my throat, my heart. When I walked into the office the social worker met me at the door extending her hand. She pointed to a little, thick man asleep behind me. The flapping began to subside. I touched his De La Soul hairdo, and he woke up. Concerned that I had startled him, much as he had startled me, I stepped back. But he reached for me, so I reached for him. He settled, rather peaceably, into my arms, resting his head on my shoulder.
    The first few nights I kept staring at him. He didn’t seem out of place at all. His first little kiss on my cheek, his bear hugs, his amazing appetite—none of it seemed out of place. Since then we’ve had our share of tantrums and extreme stubbornness. Did you know a five-year-old could say the word “Mommy” at least a hundred times in a five-minute span? I sure didn’t!
    I’ve been like mothers of old, crying and praying during two emergency room visits. We’ve had mommy-getting-called-to-school days; they discovered his stubbornness as well. We’ve had our first real report card. Every time I call a friend or my mom in a panic or just to share, I am tickled when I hear the words, “It’s called being a mother.” Along the way, we’ve even added a teenager to our divinely appointed family in the form of my nephew. So what do you know—I have two of those four boys I envisioned. Lately, despite losing the physical means to carry a child, my womb’s butterfly has been flapping again. While it takes a village to raise a child, I’ve learned that there are children waiting for the village to come get them; then we raise each other.
    E. Claudette Freeman

The Wisdom of Motherhood
    M y doctors told me I would never walk again.
My mother told me I would. I believed my mother.
    Wilma Rudolph
    We all know it. Whether we decide to articulate it or not—it is one of life’s basic truths: Motherhood is sometimes a dirty, rotten, kick-you-in-the-pants, don’t-even-think-about-a-reward, thankless job! Yet most of us do it to the best of our abilities (heck, it’s not like we can get out of it at this point anyway) and pray that we’ll survive the journey—and allow our child to survive it as well.
    As the mother of a seventeen-year-old daughter who occasionally thinks the sun rises and sets on her tail, there have been far too many times when I wanted to quote to her my own mother’s frequent words to me during my youth. Even though it’s been thirty or so years, the threat still reverberates in my head like it was yesterday—“Girl, I brought you into this world . . . and I’ll take you out!”
    Yep, that whole motherhood thing is sometimes overrated. But, thank God, children grow and mature. And one day, and I must admit it’s a really good, even better than chocolate, day, they see us differently. They get their great epiphany. A point comes when they no longer believe we are here to ensure their lives are in a constant state of misery. But they realize that maybe, just maybe, there is a possibility that