Sweety Darlin – Arkansas Women Bloggers

Categorizing Grey Hair {Women’s History}
Written by Sweety Darlin’.

When Julie sent out the call for March guest posts I tried to think of all the women that I felt had influenced my life and who I admired. I had a long list… Catherine the Great of Russia, Queen Elizabeth I, Eleanor Roosevelt, Madonna, there were more it was a strange list. Then I realized while I admire all of these women they didn’t really shape me into the person I became.

My post last month was a letter to my mom, and while I don’t want to seem like I do nothing but sit around pining for my mom it was just the luck of the draw that the next month was about women’s history. My mother is a critical part of my personal history, and she had a theory of her own history by categorizing her grey hair. She would either hold small bits of hair or lay her hand on large patches and explain some of the following….

This area is for when I married Steve Brady. This is for when my first child died at the tender age of eight days old. This is when I had a healthy daughter. This is when I left Steve Brady due to his alcoholism. This is when I was raped. This is the abortion I had to have from that rape. This is the cancer diagnoses (that one got a big patch). This is for all the trials of motherhood (big patch again). This is for the next three rounds of cancer. This is for running my own company. This is for marital trials and tribulations.

Then she would explain that the non-grey hairs were for all the happy times. Watching my daughter grow up. Finding a man that truly loved me. Having success in my career. Seeing my daughter marry a man that loves her. Seeing my first grand child born, named for my deceased daughter.

When we think of the history of women, we should really think about the history of mothers. Our mother’s love(d) us beyond understanding, punish us when we deserve it, weep for us in prayer, put bandaids on boo boos, and then after all that effort have to let go of us and pray that they did the best they knew how.

Now that I am a mother I realize that even though I did not agree with my mother’s behavior and all the crazy things she did, she was only doing what she thought was the best for me at the time with the information she had. Did she regret some things, I have no doubt that she did. Hindsight is 20/20. However she loved me madly and only wanted me to become the best possible.

So this month as we read all the various posts regarding the History of Women, remember that those people all had mothers that made them exactly what they are, so I deem this the Month of the History of Motherhood.

You can call me Sweety Darlin’. I am a 29 year old mother of two teenagers, don’t argue! I love to sew and design and make things. If it goes through a sewing machine I am game! My kids are amazing when they are sleeping, and pretty decent the rest of the time.

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Dear Mom {Love Story}
Written by Sweety Darlin’.

Dear Mom,
I wanted to write you a letter to fill you in on all the things that have happened since January of 1996. First your granddaughter, Alia, has grown into a beautiful and intelligent young woman, but of course you knew she would be. I know the mother’s curse works because she is giving me fits about her grades. She just decided not to do homework the first 9 weeks of her freshman year, so we are dealing with that. You would love the punishment I gave her. I took away all her clothes, shoes and makeup, made her wear grey sweatpants and grey t-shirt for 9 weeks. The little snot is so beautiful she still had boys sniffing at her butt like dogs in a dog park.

You have another granddaughter, Browyn. She is 13 now, about to be 14. You would love her. She is my emotional and caring side, you know the one that cried everyday after school in the 5th grade. She is so affectionate and just wants everyone to get along and be happy. She went through this phase when she was in the first grade that she would ask people all the time, “when you die can I have (insert random object)” She wishes she had known you. I tell her all sorts of things about you, and I promise they are not all bad.

I tell the girls how you used to tell me if you kissed me on my elbow I would turn into a boy, and that to this day I can’t stand for people to get near my elbows. Alia blames you and I for the fact that she can’t stand people to touch her feet, because we both love baby feet.

I am sewing again, and trying to make a business of it, oh and I am calling it Sweety Darlin’. Dad thought it was a perfect name. I wish you were here to help me, you would have so much fun with how the Internet has created a unique venue for the random business person.

Remember when I was about 10 and you told me not to go into computers since they weren’t going anywhere and I needed to become an engineer. God I love telling that story to every A&M grad engineer I know, they die laughing. Hey I met Dr. Blacklock! He taught me too! It was so strange on the first day of his statics class he calls me up to the front and asks me if I was any relation to Darcia Norwood. I think my face went white when I said yes. I am thinking of getting my graduate degree and teaching college.

I promised I would get my bachelors and I did, not in engineering and not from A&M, but in construction from UALR. Close I swear LOL! Oh you may not know what LOL means! See there is this new way to use cellular phones that allows you to send brief written comments and it has created a whole new genre of English called text speak, and LOL means laugh out loud. That way lazy people don’t have to actually use the language they have been taught.

I fussed at the girls the other day about their penmanship, after reading an article that college professors are appalled at the poor penmanship and writing skills of high school students directly related to texting and using computers. So our technology is making us dumber! I try really hard to teach the girls all the useless things you taught me, and I think some of it is getting through, but I won’t know till they are older.

I miss you mommy. I want you to see all the things your granddaughters do and what they are becoming. I want to share it with you. I am sorry for all the horrible things I said as a teenager, all the things I didn’t know were so horrible. I am sorry that I thought you would live forever. You are my mommy and I love you even though you are gone. I spent hundreds every year giving for breast cancer research and have been genetically tested for the gene and I don’t have it, but I still get my boob smooshin on your birthday every year.

Love your only daughter, I promise to write more.
Felicia

Links to me
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www.sweetydarlin.blogspot.com
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