Naleighna Kai's Literary Cafe Magazine May - Mother's Day Issue | Page 22

Two Mothers
(and I finally love them both the same) . . .
I was raised by two women who were together for over
thirty years. In the editor’s note I gave a brief history
surrounding my birth. My “new” mother raised me for
eighteen months, then made an unfortunate mistake that
earned her a trip to prison. What a family, right? Then
my bio mom had to adopt me when my “new” mother
was away.
But here is where things became interesting. She had
taken on a female lover at the time. When I first came to
the apartment in the Robert Taylor Homes, a project on
the South Side of Chicago, I was told that I went directly
to my mother’s lover, crawled into her lap and went to
sleep. That woman became my “true mother”.
My biological mother had been through a great deal,
and the way I was conceived added insult to life’s already
plentiful set of injuries. She was bitter, angered at having
to raise the very child she wanted nothing to do with.
At one time, in writing a novel, titled She Touched My
Soul, and giving the character a little of my background
and her experience with her mother, I told God that if
written by
Naleighna Kai