If I had the Chance to Do it all Over

If I had the chance to do it all over. If life had an eraser.  How sweet that would be for many. Most people would quickly change the things in life they think would make it better but many would soon realize they only made things worse. Ever tried to fix a problem and every time you did something you thought would make your life better you realize you either complicated things or made matters worse.

Taking audit of my life I see that I'm the only son for my mother and the oldest of seven sons of my father. In total my siblings are thirteen. That means there are fourteen children together and my mother only has four of the fourteen. (My mother had six children all together but two went home to be with the Lord).

My mother taught me through word and by example to try my best to take care of my children. My father was out of the picture as soon as I turned one year old. My mother usually tell us that he was forced to leave Kingston and return to the parish of his birth over 100 miles from Kingston because of political warfare in Kingston. I believe there was much more to the story but I was too young to remember, know or understand.

My reason for saying this is I have a brother born in Kingston to another woman and he is only a year younger than I am. Then a sister was born the following year to a woman in the parish of my father's birth and four more children followed from this woman in his parish.

Today I have seven children with four different women and my brother who is a year younger than I am and a very close friend, ( we got close when spending time with our father in the parish of our father's birth), has seven children with four different women too.

Back to my mother's teachings by word and by example. She told me from a young age to wash clothes cook and clean. She said if I end up alone (which she hope wouldn't happen but taught me just in case), or in between relationships, I would know how to take care of myself.  To elaborate, she taught me to keep myself clean at all times, how to know my way around the kitchen and to keep my dwelling clean or be a good homemaker. Then as a single parent I learned by watching my mother make sacrifices for us, her children.

On holidays my mother would take the same dress and shoes out year, after year, after year, and would take us to the store and buy new clothes and shoes for each of her children then give us pocket money and tell us to go wherever we like and be home by a certain hour. When we were leaving our mother would have undressed and be in her nightgown ready for bed. We would ask why is she not going out and she would tell us if she goes out we would have to stay home. I never got that statement until I was grown.

We had to wait for our mother to get home each evening before we would have a solid meal (The only solid meal of the day) before bedtime. One evening while waiting for our mother to come home we heard breaking news on the TV that a bus lost control and plowed into people waiting at the bus stop where our mother gets the bus downtown to come home every evening. It happened at the very moment our mother usually goes to the bus stop. We all started crying not knowing where our meals would now come from and especially losing the only person who was keeping this family together.

Our mother usually gets home by 10 o'clock p.m. this night in particular as we stayed up long after midnight watching the news as there was nothing else we could do as everyone was being told to stay away from downtown so clean up efforts may go smoothly and relatives would be informed as soon as possible of deaths and injuries of loved ones as soon as information was made available. Understand that this was the second largest passenger bus stop downtown. Only the terminus had larger numbers of commuters. 

We were up long after midnight into early morning with teary eyes and heavy heart which made us not feel the hunger in us since we got home from school early to mid afternoon earlier the previous day. Just before dawn we heard the gate open then the door and as it opened up wide enough we were able to see mama standing in the doorway. We all broke down in tears and ran to her each of us finding a place around her to hug her. These were tears of joy.

After all the commotion was over, my mother related the accident and the aftermath to us and revealed how she escaped the carnage. She said she was standing at the bus stop when she remembered a hoist (an item placed under a pot on the stove while cooking) she had bought earlier that day to take home with her. After checking her luggage and realizing it was not with her she walked back to her stall and it took several minutes for her to find it. As soon as the found the hoist she heard a loud noise like metal grinding. She was at a good distance away but saw a forty-seat passenger bus swerving back and forth, left to right and just running over people until it slammed into one of the bus stops out there pinning people under the bus and between the bus and the bus stop.

She said it was just horrible, people were screaming for help under the bus and in the bus stop and no one could help. Then there was blood everywhere. From where the bus starts hitting people all the way to the bus stop.  She wasn't able to get any bus as they stopped running there for the night. She got the first bus that left the terminus the next morning where she and others had to walk to and slept until morning.   

The experiences with our mother and the sacrifices she made for us to have a better life than the one she had made us love her, respect her as the greatest mom in the world and value her as the leader, breadwinner an matriarch among everything else a mother like ours deserve to be recognized for. God saw it fit not to take her away from us until we were grown and independent. She served her family as well a virtuous woman ought to. God bless her. She went home to be with the Lord at age 54 after battling diabetes and hypotension.

I had six children with three different women by 1990. In 1995, knowing the vicious cycle I was living in the neighborhood I grew up in where by fourteen years old a lot of females became mothers and the fathers of these children were not much older than the mothers and could not take care of these teenagers and their babies, I was determined that with God's help I would save my daughters from this cycle. As stated boys were not safe either. They were fathering these babies with these teenage girls and many were turning to crime as a means to an end.

In 1995 I was able to take my oldest daughter out before she fell victim to the cycle and not long after the rest of the children were out too(except one son). I was the only parent working for a long time while my children were growing up in this inner city neighborhood and when it was time to take my children away from this place their mother did not resist.

Looking back over my life and seeing where I was, where I am, and all the struggles and strife God brought me through to where I am today. Much of which has been excluded here because if I were to tell it all it would take a number of books to complete it. If I were to live my life over I would change nothing. Why? Because God had it covered and still does. Thank You Lord.