PRIDE

PRIDE

When you are ready to back up your Mama, but she don’t need it.

Years ago, my second job was at a hospital. This job was special for a few reasons. 1. I was still thinking about going to medical school and becoming a doctor (clearly I came to my senses — obstetrician for those who are wondering…) and 2. it would become the only time I would work with my Mama.

My Mama had just retired from the Air Force where she was the Superintendent of Surgical Flight. I brag about my Mama cause she won’t. My Mama was a G in the Air Force. Tough but fair. Invited Airmen to our house for Thanksgiving when they were far from home. And hella respected. I never wore my parents' rank…hell, I never even said they were my parents. I look like, at first glance, my Dad — but it only takes folks a moment to see my Mama come through with vengeance. My Mama is a sneak karate chop.

When I was 16 and way way too young to be hanging out in the Airmen dorms, there was a dude who used to come into my job all the time who finally decided to holla (to kick it…it was 1999). I thought he was cute, but I knew this dude was too old for me. I left my friends to chat with him and his friends a few doors down. I introduced myself with my first name only — but remember, my Mama is a sneak attack. It didn’t take one of them too long to figure out he’d seen me before. So he asked me what my last name was. And I told him. “As in MSGT Nichols?” “Yes! That’s my Mom!”

He shook my hand, told me it was nice to meet me, and quickly left.

This is where I tell you how well respected my Mama was / is. That next Monday he worked up the nerve to go to talk to his boss and have a very uncomfortable conversation.

His boss was my Mom.

He walked into my Mom’s office and apologized if this was something he should not be doing…but he told my Mom he saw me in the dorms and knew the guy I had talked to (who I had already told on the phone I was definitely not going to go out with due to the huge age difference) and that he was not a nice guy to woman and girls and he wanted to warn me. My Mom thanked him and then knew she needed to talk to me. Uncomfortable is what I would say my Mom felt. However, PRIDE is what I felt.

Professional Moms who give it all they got at home who sometimes miss out on things, and still are Gs at work need to be celebrated, especially for the very reason Judge Jackson felt she needed to say out loud that she is sorry she wasn’t always there for her daughters…But we know, they are always there when it counts and matters. I was always protected with my Mom’s shadow even if I didn’t use it.

I tell you this story because I have given my Mom this look before. This look of “you are amazing, you are a fucking G, you are the best to ever have done it, and you are the tippy top of the game.” And I gave it to her then. That Airmen respected my Mom and thus he respected me — a girl he did not know at all.

But that look is also, “Oh you think you know my Mama, but you don’t and you’re about to look STUPID…” which brings me back to the only day I fully remember from my days at Kettering Medical Center. I was working in my section and then I hear the voice I associate with not making my bed, or bringing home a bad grade.

My Black Spidey senses were on full alert.

Did I forget to make my bed? Nah, impossible. I never make my bed. Did I forget to take the chicken out of the freezer? Haha Nah, I would never (I have). It wasn’t bad grades cause I was taking a break from school (gap years need to be mandatory) — so why is my Mama Mamaing at work?!

This old dude Joe thought he could disrespect my Mama. She asked him to do something for her, and he did the opposite cause he thought he could. But the thing is — for years my Mama had asked him to do this one thing for her and for years he didn’t. YEARS. That day, my Mama had had enough and went full Black Mom on his ass. The whole department stopped and here I come, Jalon “Not Mama You Don’t” Nichols around the corner — make eye contact with old dude Joe (yes, he was), gave him this very same look (which I think he correctly read as “SAY SOMETHING.”), and he turned red and went back to his desk. Didn’t apologize, didn’t talk back — just slinked away.

I don’t know where Joe is, or how he retold the story to his folks, but 22 years later, I sent this photo to my Mama and I said “Me when you yelled at Joe and pushed his tray on the ground.” And then we laughed.

Fuck that dude, and fuck Graham, Howley, and forever Cruz.

You may think you can disrespect Judge Jackson, but just like her daughter knows, she is better than you and way more respected.

And that look, this photograph, deserves to be in the Moma.