Dubbed as a failure

I remember almost as if it were yesterday. Hearing her voice on the phone questioning me about this third pregnancy. 'How can you do this to the family?' Not to mention you're the only girl and you shame us not once, not twice, but now a third time." Her words stung like a poison that made it's way through my arteries and rested just beneath my aorta, and as the tears formed in the back of my head, I just held the phone away from my ears as she belittled me for this latest indescretion. Two children out of wedlock, two different fathers, one who almost killed me, one who walked out after our son was born, and here I am once again pregnant, this time with no idea who the father is, yet she doesn't know that. She only knows what she sees, and what she sees is her only granddaughter has turned into a whore, a babymaking machine, a statistic who will never amount to anything. I can hear her exhasperated sighs of disgust as she tells me how things were supposed to be in my life, and how she had such hopes that I would be a doctor, a lawyer or a engineer. Tells me I could have been anything at all, but I chose a path that was destined for nothingness, all because I wanted to be loved. As she continues to speak, my mind is carried back to the beginnings of each of those relationships and how each one was supposed to be...'the one.' I wasn't supposed to have to do it over again, with another man, cause well....they each told me they loved me and that I was their whole world. I guess I was for a minute, but after reality set in, it was as though I somehow became less of a treasure and more of a pain, an annoyance, a woman still carrying much of her little girl inside and all the baggage that came with it, so each man left me with something unforgettable. A child. A life to carry on his legacy, but never the love and dedication that should come with that gift. She asks me a question and I gulp back my pain to tell her, that I don't need anything, That I can take care of this baby, just as I have been taking care of the other two. I was blessed to have a good job, a nice home, a new car, but in her eyes and the eyes of so many, I was still dubbed as a failure. The baby began fluttering inside me, letting me know that it was time to stop her from hurting me with her words because she was upsetting my little one. I opened my mouth to speak and my heart seemed to break as I told her, 'Im sorry Ma, I can't listen to this anymore, no disrepect, but I have to hang up now.' As I slowly put the phone in the cradle I could still hear her shouts bellowing through the phone line....'see you aint nothing, got all them damn kids and now you done lost respect for your elders, no wonder none of them niggas wanna be with you. Breathing deeply I hang up the phone and sat motionless in the chair for what seemed like hours, unable to think, unable to breathe, unable to speak. Just sat, accepting the fact that I'd been dubbed, labeled by my closest relative as nothing, simply because I wanted love.
I surpassed my stages of failures with successes, and I embrace those who continue to label me simply because I had such a determination to have a specific kind of life, I never found that life, but what I did obtain, was three beautiful children who love me more than life itself. They are now my life, and everytime I look at them, I realize that that word failure shouldn't even be a part of my vocabulary....yet I remain dubbed.

Icy