I’ve been standin’ in the rain just tryna to stay dry. ~ Jelly Roll
It started with my daughter sending me a link to a Spotify song “Winning Streak” by Jelly Roll.
“Hello, my name is Jason…”
Nobody walks through these doors on a winnin’ streak
Well, Jelly Roll had me at “Hello, my name is Jason.”
'Hello, my name is Jennifer.' I knew my daughter’s name when she was still in my womb. She was born on October 27 at 10:27 a.m. in 1973, the second child of a nineteen year old mama. Her daddy was a violent man who beat me up the night before she was born. My water broke and she came early, came in fast and wailing. Three hours labor and they plopped her on my stomach, bloody, blue, and moving. I instantly recognized her. She had a heart-shaped face and her eyes green water. And she was fierce.
Neither of us came in on a winning streak.
I was born and raised in a cult. My parents meant well. Religion was their solution. When you are young and lost you grab onto what gives you certainty or comfort. You fall into formula and recipes. You don’t know yourself, you see. And so, you find what you can. That’s how generational curses get passed down.
Four months after Jennifer was born, I walked into a doctor’s office and almost never walked out again. I was given a shot of penicillin and went into anaphylactic shock; I had what I later learned was a near-death experience (NDE). I was nineteen. Jennifer, four months old, and her two-year-old sister were in daycare. My first thoughts near death were but I want to see them grow up. My babies. And I’m only nineteen, God.
It was when I called out to God that the light came. Like the sun, only I did not see it with my eyes. I saw it with my heart. It was only when I struggled to accept that Love that I glimpsed what I thought was hell. And was shown that hell is a state of mind, only possible from an ignorance of Love. It’s not knowing Love that puts us there. And any belief that Love is earned or deserved or conditional in any way is false. Love is. And it will always be. Our birthright. It can’t be changed or lost. I could reject it. But that would not change it. Love never withdraws. Only we can turn away — and even then, it waits.
I accepted it and was transported. Rapture. Peace beyond understanding. Mercy. Compassion. Absolute acceptance. Love. There was nothing I could do that would ever change that I am loved. Nothing. I understood this was true for all. One might murder, end up in a gutter drunk, thieving, all the sins we might think of and that Love would still hold us and know us and be there. Even at our worst. Especially then.
It’s knowing Love that takes away the lie of unworthiness and self-loathing. It’s knowing Love that makes us see the value and worth of others. And then I was sent back.
I did not want to leave. I was told I still had something to learn of Love from this life. Love had nothing to do with religion or church, and nothing was or ever would be required of me to deserve it. It IS. We need only see it.
I couldn’t have imagined that my baby daughter, born four months earlier, was Love’s emissary, that it would be her who would teach me what I was sent back to learn.
I didn't know yet what that would cost. But the cost of learning Love was worth it. It's why I didn't die.
I got sober when she was eleven. I had barely begun my ascent out of addiction into recovery when she began her descent into it. By the age of fourteen, she landed on the streets when she refused all direction or care —chasing whatever it was out there that kept her running— from limits, from guidance and direction, from consequences, from care, from every attempt to help her — running from me.
Imagine this. You give your girl an amethyst rock one afternoon you spend together. An afternoon long into the struggle, long past nights on your knees in agony, long past many many attempts to control, to stop, to fix, to change her. At this point, you are surrendered and it is that exact afternoon you know this truth: you can't beat this. All you can do is love her. She spots the amethyst in a mineral rock shop and shows it to you. She loves this rock. You know that amethyst heals addiction though she doesn't. You buy it, tell her, "Keep this with you always and you'll know I'm with you."
What if the night sky was missing the moon? ~ Jelly Roll
Months later. Chihuahua Mexico rural area. She takes her boyfriend Cholo’s jeep in the dead of night to find some alcohol. A coyote runs across the road. She swerves and loses control of the jeep. Rolls it. The amythest rock I gave her is in her purse. She’s hurt, wraps herself in the seat cover and holds the rock all night until morning when a bus comes along and takes her into Chihuahua city to a hospital.
One more time I don’t rescue her when they call. The rock is all I have left to give her.
She will carry that rock through many more nights until, twenty-eight, she finally stops. She finds sobriety in Islam. Peace. Children, after years of loss. Hope. She goes back to school and gets her G.E.D., then her LPN, then RN, then BSN. All while working and raising babies. And she shares every step of the journey with me. She still has the amethyst rock I gave her.
She's twenty-four years free of substances now. Last winter she called me with the news that Jelly Roll would be playing at the Boots in the Park Music Festival in Albuquerque in May. We have to go, she said. Last year I took her and her daughter Hannah to see Gracie Abrams at Red Rocks. This concert would be just us, me and Jen. I would drive from Denver. She would fly from Texas. We'd meet in the middle.
Jelly Roll starts his set two hours early and we are gobsmacked we made it in time to see him. I turn to look at her, to snap a picture.
Her face is radiant and her eyes filled with tears, shining. She is singing with him. Every word. He is telling her story. All of her stories. Every song lives in her body and is written on her heart. It is somewhere in this night, watching my beautiful girl, no longer a child, but always my girl, that I recognize it is a full circle moment. I hear the words, “You have something to learn of Love,” and I know now. She is the one who taught me Love. The one I came back for.
Oh Darling Girl.
A few years back she sent me this:
On Repeat
What if the night sky was missing the moon?
If you’d like to support work like this, subscriptions help sustain this publication.
Monthly zoom gatherings for women
free to all subscribers
Last Tuesdays of the month
Deeply powerful Kelly. I relate so strongly through my experiences mothering in particular. At “rock bottom” there is the gift to see, even if they die, we can but love them.
That she kept that rock close for decades is such a powerful metaphor.
My God, I needed this today. All I have left to give is the rock. 💜