Mama's Visit: Day One: MAMA'S KARMA

Mama came for a visit this weekend, from Friday to Monday.

Day One, Friday:

I took mama to my office so she could meet some co-workers and check things out. Everyone loved cutie-tums mama: a 70 year-old with the energy of a 5 year-old wearing more makeup than a 15 year-old. And everyone also loved how much I look like mama. If my skin were wrinkled and brown and my hair a frizzy mop and height about a foot less and if I were in drag, there’d be no difference between us.

After the office tour we had to get back to my apartment to retrieve mama’s pills before the evening’s affairs. She managed to land a corner seat on the Queen’s-bound F train. Near her, standing, was a man and his toddler daughter—the cutest sleepy-eyed thing ever, with two lavender berets in her hair. With the back and forth jostling of the train, the little girl could hardly keep her footing and she kept spilling the chips she was trying to devour.

Her mouth agape a tiny handful of chips jerking around in front of her face like stubborn summer flies until plop, down went the chips with the sudden break of the train.

Mama, always trying to do her best by Jesus, grabbed the little girl from her father—a bold move for a stranger to make on another parent’s child—and she lifted the little nugget into the tiny space next to her so she wouldn’t have to suffer standing the whole time.

The father was extremely grateful at the gesture and the little girl was stunned into silence.

“Say thank you, Karma,” the father demanded. Little Karma, in a whispered mumble, “Thank you.”

So there was Karma eating her chips next to mama, who had now put her arm around the little girl to hold her steady. Karma ate some chips. Then she ate some more. None fell to the ground thanks to her haven.

The chips made Karma’s blood sugar level drop slightly enough to blur her inhibitions, so she leaned closer into mama, her lids halfway down her eyes. Mama noticed Karma’s sleepiness and put her palm out so that Karma could rest her head comfortably on it. It must’ve been awkward for Mama, holding a sleepy child’s head like that on a rocking train car, but she persisted, and Karma slept soundly, barely clutching the mostly-empty bag of greasy potato chips in her oil-shiny finger tips. Mama is a trooper. Willing to go the extra mile for any child, anywhere. Once for a period of two years mama sponsored a little Mayan girl in Mexico whom she called “my baby.”

When it came time for us to get off the train, mama traded places with Karma’s father, who thanked mama several more times. Mama exited the train smiling, satisfied—a job well done, and a little soul comforted by her aging hands.

As we climbed up out of the station, mama mused, “You know, many Black people raise their children to have manners and be well behaved. They’re not all delinquents.” Mama was relieved to have encountered someone like Karma who had a grateful and polite father to keep her from going astray, like so many others do.