The day my mother saved my life, she tried to kill me. You’re probably wondering how could that happen. Well it’s very simple. If she hadn’t tried to kill me, I probably would have lost my life in the streets.

You see I was getting tired of her rules. You know stupid stuff like, before I could go outside I had to finish my homework. On Saturdays, I had to do household chores! Worst of all, I had to be inside the house before the streetlights came on. You know how embarrassing it was for me to run home to beat the streetlights on! Man, it was unbearable! Why couldn’t she let me roam the streets like the other guys in the neighborhood?

So, one day I let her know that I had had enough of her foolishness and proceeded to set my mother straight concerning her rules! I gave her a piece of my mind and headed for the front door to leave. I reached for the doorknob and noticed it was locked. (Usually it was unlocked and the screen door was locked). I began to panic a little. As I turned to go to the back my mother grabbed me. She had a wild look about her. A look I had never seen before. Although, I had been bigger and taller then my mother since the third grade, she lifted me off the ground and as my feet dangled underneath me she walked me to my room and threw me on the floor. She closed the door, reached into the closet, and got a belt. For what seemed like an eternity she let me have it! She stated, "Before I let the streets have you, I’ll kill you first!" I thought that was what she was trying to do.

What I didn’t understand that night was that the streets were calling me. The streets seemed cool, fun and I was attracted to the illusion. I must confess I was becoming a good recruit for the streets. I was having a lot of fistfights with guys in the neighborhood and at school. But, my fights were becoming more and more violent. I started using sticks, poles, or knifes, anything that would inflict the most damage. It wouldn’t take long for me to graduate to a gun. I was fighting the battle of good vs. evil, right vs. wrong; the struggle many black boys experience. If I had lost this battle I could have ended up in jail or worse. She had noticed my struggle and the anger building up inside of me. If I had started hanging out in the streets I would have been fighting, stealing, dealing, killing, anything and everything the street had to offer. But, thank God my mother had other ideas. That’s why she locked the front door that night. Her mother’s intuition saw the confrontation coming.

I’m glad I have such a strong woman for a mother. I can still remember the short quick affirmations she would say. "Don’t do evil for evil; treat every young lady like you would want someone to treat your sisters; it doesn’t hurt to be nice; don’t curse, you sound ignorant!" I can still hear her words of wisdom, which are planted into my subconscious and grew into my behavior. I learned to control my temper and to walk away from trouble. Along with my father, they built a man who believes in right, fairness, hard work, responsibility, and God.

She and I often joke about the night she tried to kill me. Just like my parents, I now try to use my mother’s love sprinkled with a little dab of my father’s toughness to raise my daughters. With God’s help I hope to have the same success my parents had with my sisters and I.