I asked a village to pour into my babies because, if I'm being truthful, I felt like there were things they missed along the way.
There was the transition of me and their dad splitting up. There were changes in our family. And then there was them watching me go through the process of trying to heal.
Trying to stay whole while being broken at the same time.
Trying to be a mother while trying to find myself again.
Trying to balance everything.
And sometimes I won.
Sometimes I failed.
Sometimes my children got the benefit of the woman I was becoming, and sometimes they had to deal with the consequences while I was still figuring her out.
That is real life.
But when my oldest son was getting ready to turn 18, I knew I wanted to give him something different. Something that was specifically for him.
Not just a birthday gift.
Something he could carry.
Something he could return to when Mama wasn't standing right there with the answer.
So I reached out to a friend and asked a simple question:
What kind of advice would you have wanted at 18?
What did you tell your boys?
What would you tell a young man standing at the beginning of adulthood?
He gave me his response.
And something was seeded.
I started reaching out to other men—men of faith, men of character, men whose voices I believed could offer something valuable to my son. I asked them to pour into him too.
One response became another.
One letter became another.
And that seed started blossoming into something much bigger than the birthday gift I originally imagined.
That's how Becoming a Man: A Mother's Love began.
This Was Different for Me
Most of what I've created has centered around women.
Healing.
Becoming.
Surviving.
Finding yourself again.
Taking the things I've experienced and turning them into something another woman can use while she's walking through her own process.
But this project made me step outside of that box.
Because this wasn't just about my healing.
This was about what my healing meant for my children.
And somewhere along the way, it connected me back to being somebody's child too.
I was raised by a single mother. My mother passed away when I was very young, and there are so many things about her that I never got the opportunity to know.
There are conversations we never got to have.
Questions I never got to ask.
Things she probably would have taught me if life had given us more time.
And when I look at my children, that stays with me.
Because life is life.
Things happen that are completely outside of our control.
And I never want to leave something important unsaid simply because I thought I had more time to say it.
So maybe part of creating this book was me saying:
I don't want to forget anything.
I don't want to leave anything out.
I want my children to have access to wisdom, encouragement, instruction, love, and pieces of me they can carry long after a conversation ends.
And I wanted them surrounded by voices beyond mine.
Because Mama can pour.
Mama can teach.
Mama can pray.
Mama can correct.
Mama can encourage.
But there are things a young man may need to hear from another man who has already walked some of the road he's getting ready to travel.
And there is nothing wrong with saying, I want help pouring into my child.
That's what a village is supposed to do.
No Matter Who Showed Up
There is one thing I need both of my babies to know for the rest of their lives:
You were loved.
No matter who showed up.
No matter who didn't.
No matter what changed.
No matter what Mama got right.
No matter what Mama had to learn the hard way.
You were loved.
And I left you something.
I left you my words.
I left you what I learned.
I left you the lessons that came from my mistakes.
I left you the wisdom of people I trusted enough to ask to pour into you.
I left you a legacy.
What started as me trying to create something special for my son's 18th birthday became something bigger than I imagined.
It was seeded.
Then it blossomed.
And now I get to see what grows from it.
And what's coming next?
I need to get started on that.
Praise the Lord.
Thank you, Jesus.
Because apparently the seed wasn't finished growing.
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