I remember the exact day I first saw my mother’s strength. I mean, really saw it. My father had left us. Not long after, my mom sat next to me on the stairs of the house, put her arm around me, and kissed me on the cheek. She told me we were going to be OK, and there was no doubt in my mind she was right. Because she was Mom. She always made everything right. Even moments like that one.

She’s called me Mickey or Mickey Joe forever. We’ll be all right, Mickey. I promise. And her promises meant something. They meant everything.

She was the chauffeur who took me to soccer practice, the cook, the child psychologist, the encourager, the disciplinarian and the empath. She did all of that while working at the National Security Agency, where she was a senior executive, and one of the highest-ranking Black women at the agency. She’d also get her law degree by going to classes at night.

We sometimes think of power as physical strength or wealth, but true power is what my mom did for me growing up, and what so many other moms have done. She used her strength to create a protective forcefield over the ordinary and mundane, which are so important to kids: going to school; playing sports; hanging with friends; having food and clothes and support.

Her love has always had the power of a splitting atom. But another strength was just as buttressing. Mom’s almost unrelenting desire to educate me about the world and how things work, from making pancake batter, to handling myself if stopped by the police, to emphasizing the power of Black pride when much of the outside world constantly told Black people how awful we were.

It was no accident that I grew up around remarkably strong Black people, especially Black women, and not just in my family. We moved to Columbia, Maryland, in the 1970s, one of the country’s first entries into planned open housing. Families of all colors lived there, and kids of all colors and backgrounds played together in grassy suburban backyards in this city midway between Baltimore and Washington. Columbia’s main architect coined the phrase “The Next America” to describe the city.

Soccer games, flashlight tag and the NSA

My mom, who didn't want her name used because of "all the kooks out there," discovered a place that in many ways was ideal for her son: a futuristic, progressive city that, like her, was far ahead of its time. As one of my best friends and next-door neighbor in Columbia once stated in a book proposal we've written about the city: Columbia insisted on integrated housing before it was the law of the land, mixing socioeconomic levels (many of the least expensive housing options were given prime real estate on lakes, or high on hills with good views), and open-space schools without small classrooms, were large nods to Columbia’s differences.

But even the small things were considered, like the cluster mailboxes designed to bring neighbors together when they got their mail. At the town’s inception, churches, synagogues and mosques were combined into “interfaith centers,” where the practical (shared parking lots on different holy days) conveniently synthesized with the spiritual (interfaith worship and prayer meetings). Most of the neighborhoods were designed like chambered nautiluses, with cul-de-sacs where kids rode countless circles on their new bikes and neighbors had block parties. 

To me, Columbia was the greatest place in the universe. When my parents got divorced, I was surrounded by extensions of my mom: strong women, who were also divorced and moms themselves. One of them was the first Black woman to receive a doctorate at the University of Kentucky. All of the divorced kids, and some of the divorced moms, forged lifelong friendships. My mom helped raise my friends, and their moms helped raise me.

In between the baseball and soccer games, and backyard football games, and the basketball in my friend’s driveway, there was always Mom. She’d tell us not to drink from the water hose and instead brought lemonade. She instructed me to check in with her, so she knew I was OK, but she let me hang late with my friends as we played flashlight tag.

This Mother's Day, share a heartfelt message with these 30 quotes about mothers

I grew up extremely independent, a typical latchkey kid from that generation. Mom, however, was always a phone call away. I had standing orders to phone her if needed when she was at the NSA. I got used to the ultra-secret ways of the organization, and how much my mom traveled while working for it: Japan, Korea, Germany, Australia (twice), England, Thailand, Austria, Italy and Spain.

But Mom, even while working in the belly of the most secretive entity on the planet, was still Mom, asking how my day went, if I did my homework, and making sure I knew what was in the fridge to eat or leaving money to order Pizza Hut (deep dish pepperoni).

Those were most weekdays. The weekends when mom was home? They belonged to her. She took me to my football games and track meets. Sundays were full of cooking. To this day, no one does collard greens like Mom. The radio was always tuned to Howard University’s WHUR where the gospel music was cranked up loud. The station birthed my love of the Isley Brothers and Parliament-Funkadelic.

Mom: Boldly go

Howard, one of the greatest of the HBCUs, was also my mom’s alma mater where she majored in Russian and minored in German.

Mom was laid back and kind, but when it came to issues of my safety, and my behavior, extremely uncompromising. My mom was a member of Delta Sigma Theta, a historically Black sorority, and she kept a red, wooden paddle that hung on her closet door. It was clear: misbehave, get the paddle. She never intended to use it, but I got the message.

Mom didn’t just foster my athleticism. She also embraced my nerdism, too. Growing up in the 1970s, television shows and the media were full of anti-Black images. We were serially portrayed as pimps and criminals who couldn’t form a proper sentence.

I 'survived' infertility. But not before it shaped my perspective on everything.

She made sure to strictly check what I watched and if one of those stereotypes slipped through her screening process, she’d warn me: "Mickey, we are not like that."

One of the programs that I was allowed to watch was “Star Trek.” It was because of the Black communications officer on the starship Enterprise named Lt. Nyota Uhura, played by the late Nichelle Nichols. Uhura was a linguist and mathematician, and was fluent in Swahili, an African language thousands of years old. My fandom would be locked in for the rest of my life after seeing Nichols play this groundbreaking role. My mom threw me Trek birthday parties that featured a cake in the shape of the Enterprise.

She bought me science fiction books and short stories. She’d come home from work, park that red Camaro in the garage and, despite likely being exhausted, would read one of my cornball sci-fi short stories, then congratulate me with a kiss on the cheek. When I was runner-up in a statewide poetry contest — I wrote about Paul Revere going grocery shopping — she made me a special dinner. In fifth grade, I beamed about being named a captain in the Safety Patrol. She beamed with me.

Mom made me believe that I could do anything.

She proofread the stories I wrote for the hometown newspaper, the Columbia Flier, which I started writing for in high school. Her encouragement sparked my journalism career.

When I’d come home bruised from being a 150-pound cornerback and safety in a high school football league where every team constantly pulled their guards on end-arounds, she was there with ice packs and sandwiches.

She taught me how to treat girls with respect. How to bake a cake. How to protect myself from STDs. Mom did all of this while serving her country at the NSA. Mom would use her analytical skills in the world of genealogy, tracing our family roots back centuries.

Friends came and went. So did jobs. Mom was there. There were moves around the country. Mom was there. Sometimes I wasn’t always the greatest son, not calling as much as I should. Mom was there.

There was never a time, not once, not now, or ever, where I didn’t feel intense dedication and care.

So, on this day, there’s only one thing left to say …

… I love you, mom.