Happy 50th Birthday Mom... A Black Woman's Awakening

Hey stranger… 

You know what I just realized today… on your birthday… November 10, 2022… 

We never took enough pictures in the last decade together. I don’t think it was on purpose I just think you and I became so present when we were together and always forgot to document the many moments, spiritual awakenings & epiphanies we shared as our story came to a close on this 3D plane (other than you getting that tattoo in 2019 in NYC, what a time it was to be alive huh Mom!?). I woke up this morning and just like clockwork felt this wave of emotions flood my nervous system with grief, joy, laughter, pain, triumph, and sadness. The mental and emotional cocktail that always kicks off in November for the last two years… 

Two years… 

… 

It dawned on me as I physically went through the thousands of pictures we have documenting the 90s of “Joshua and Michel - The Wonder Years (First Generation Haitian Edition)” that we lived such a good damn life Mom. It was hard, we struggled, sure (single mom in her only 20s raising a young black boy in this foreign American country that you just moved to with your brothers and sisters) BUT we had a good life Mom & I just want to say thank you, thank you, thank you. 

Thank YOU for being a young black woman who saw my potential and nurtured this ability that I had greatness on my name, and with that anointing on my life, “our life!” That we both prayed for a destiny, we challenged our ancestors for a life that was written for the movies, and for that blessing Mom, you, and I should’ve known it was never meant to be easy… 

That’s the ironic thing that gets me every time Mom… it never was easy. 

Maculeuse Michel was a remarkable human being that wanted to live a simple life. She wanted to fall in love, have a big family, and live on a farm “with humongous trees like Oprah Winfrey’s compound” she’d say passionately through our many convos when we daydreamed about our destinies. Maculeuse Michel was a young black woman who NEVER caught a break and yet still NEVER gave up on destiny that would bring her love, challenges, and birth two young black men that are currently etching their own lives into the history books that is the legacy of this phenomenal woman. My mother was someone who never liked to rock the boat, she was someone who always wanted to keep the peace, she forgave others more than she argued and didn’t stop believing in this higher power that we have all come to know quite intimately in our adult lives that we call God. My mother dared to dream selfishly sometimes, she envisioned a life that was the complete opposite of the reality she would sometimes feel trapped in. One where she travels and speaks to the many women battling cancer, sharing her triumphant story of how she is a two-time cancer survivor with a journey that she was just starting to embark on. She would host private galas in raising money for the inhabitants of Haiti and have multiple crisis centers in the United States to help the undocumented Haitian immigrants of today get settled in this new country with their loved ones. My mother started to color outside the lines in her 40s because she realized that there could be an end to this existence… even if she wasn’t ready to go. 

You see, the thing about my Mom is you would never see her sweat. The multiple times my mother felt like her world was falling apart and she would STILL go to work, dinner, birthday party, graduation, a family reunion with a genuine smile on her face because she KNEW in this life, these moments are all we have…

Moments… these slices of experiences in which we share with people we have some tethered emotion with, good or bad, they crystallize in our lives and leave these expressions of what it feels like to be loved, hated, desired, missed & cherished. 

I will never forget talking to a very close friend of mine (family at this point) about our moment's Mom, Jessy would cry and say “Josh… your memories with your mom, even as a kid, you remember so vividly… it was you two against the world… I really can’t imagine how much fun you two had living this thing together all these years, I’ve seen it but to feel it this way Josh… y’all really grew up together…” 

I never realized Mom, I never realized how even on my worst days you’re still here. Your dreams, your energy, and your goodness are still in the atmosphere. You were my best friend, you were my protector, you were my dream keeper. The nights of crying together during chemo, embracing whatever was to come in this lifetime, the genuine fear you had leaving this earth and not marking the impression you now felt destined to administer to the people. 

The tears we shared Mommy… They come in ebbs and flows. 

I’m realizing that my mother, who was now my friend in our adult lives together, my sister in christ, needed someone to believe that she would make it out of this thing as much as she did. I prayed, I fasted, I yelled at God, I challenged God, I bargained with God to trade places with her to give her the other 50 years of life she deserved to live. And yet, here we are. 

My mother would have been 50 today, she would have finally divorced from her husband, moved to Marietta, GA, and embark on a whole new mission in her life where she poured her goodness, that soul of triumph and God’s mercy into others who didn’t have the strength to move forward. She would’ve adopted a young girl and carried out her last decades being a mother of 3… She would’ve been a traveler and embarked on Ayahuasca ceremonies in Mexico with her eccentric 30-year-old son who lived in LA and worked in the entertainment industry doing social media for some of the biggest brands in Hollywood. She’d climb the mountains of Bali to seek the inner peace that so many inherit after their trip to Indonesia. She’d venture to Jerusalem and have her spiritual brushes with God on this sacred piece of land where so many stories from the Bible kept her going during her battle with cancer. She’d spend more time barefoot in the grass, reading novels about destiny & choosing a colorful path in entrepreneurship. My mother would savor every moment given to her by God because she knew exactly what she was capable of and didn’t dare live within her means. After all, she had every right to live out loud. Unapologetically, Unbothered, and Unconquered by the many boxes and tropes society tries to put on so many of us. 

My mother, Maculeuse Michel would’ve been fearless. A work in progress, building on a life that she knew she deserved, not what was given to her…

And so I live for her… I live for her thoughts, her dreams, her desires, and her mistakes. I live for her expression she didn’t get to embark on because she transitioned beyond this world earlier than expected. 

My mom walks amongst angels in heaven, she no longer wakes up in anguish about the finances, heartbreak, and pain that riddled her body. She no longer has to think about where she is going to go and how she is going to get there. 

She’s free… 

My mom… is free… 

And not a day goes by where I wouldn’t give her the time and space to just laugh and soak up this LA sun with me… 

Just one day God… just one…

Happy Birthday, Maculeuse Michel… 

The love you have left me with is beyond words, I continue doing this thing called life because of you…

1. Even when I want to call it quits, I don’t, because you and I have a prophecy to fulfill, and I am patient enough and determined enough to see this to the very end for the both of usHappy 50th birthday to the ONLY person in my life who could make me feel so many highs and lows all at once. 

Love deeply, 

Josh