He Was With Me

A lot of the time I forget how far I’ve come which is probably a good thing so I don’t dwell in the past any more than I already do. When I do remember what I was born into and endured afterward humbles me.

I blocked out a few years of my life after my mom died because my mind shut down but thanks to a lovely camera I got for my birthday in 2008, I have that part of my life documented. That camera died many years ago but some of the pictures I managed to save by putting them on a cd.

Most of these photos on this disc were selfies of me in different rooms of my house haha. I knew I never wanted most of these pictures to be seen by anyone because they are so bad but wanted to keep them anyway. Saying that I looked at them for the first time in about ten years. To be honest, it was like I was looking at a different person.

People who know me know I smile all the time. I was looking at these pictures where I was smiling in a lot of them (like the one that I chose to put as the cover photo) and then so many without a smile. So many of them whether I was smiling or not I looked so sad and no smile could hide it. If I didn’t look sad, I just looked rough like I didn’t care at all what I looked like or in many cases was too low to have the energy to look put together on top of doing normal everyday things like going to school.

Not gonna lie to this day I wonder what life would be if I hadn’t lost my mom when I did. In the words of my cousin, I am in a way mourning the childhood I didn’t get to have. Thankfully, now as I am older and past that stage, I occasionally dwell in those thoughts instead of living in them.

From the day I was conceived everything my mom did was to prepare my life for a life without her because she was HIV positive so if she hadn’t died from Creutzfeldt Jakob Disease, her HIV was eventually going to progress.

She worked so hard to make my life look like it didn’t come from drugs and poverty. In ways, my heart hurts because I know my life is so far from what she worked for it to look like. I think that’s why I have tried so hard to not fall into the drugs and poverty because I know that’s the last thing she wanted for me.

I’ve started to learn that I have carried so much of my mom with me. I didn’t realize how much until I started to miss her. Which I think watching Aunt Debbie die triggered my memory and allowed me to remember more parts of mom and when I watched her die that I had blocked out.

Seeing those photos today after so many years of being past that low part of my life made me sad but also made me so thankful. Though I didn’t have a true relationship with God at that time, I am able to see His hands all over me. The fact that I have a God who loves me so much even when I don’t know Him at all is so amazing.

Looking back, I see so much of God’s grace and protection over me during that time that I really don’t know how I could have ever been unsure of Him because He was holding me the entire time.