My mother threw me out at eight months pregnant and now she’s dying and wants to meet my son

She slept in a Honda Civic for three weeks. She gave birth alone. Six years later, the phone rang.

“Get your things and get out of my house. You are a disgrace to this family and to God.”

That was my mother. July 2019. Standing in her kitchen in Whitehaven, Memphis, Tennessee, with her arms crossed and her church shoes still on from Wednesday night Bible study. She had come home, put her Bible on the counter, and told me to leave.

I was eight months pregnant.

My name is Danielle. I’m thirty-one. I live in a two-bedroom apartment in Cordova with my son Jaylen, who is six and who can read chapter books and who draws dinosaurs that are, honestly, better than most adults I know. I am telling you this because my aunt called me two months ago and told me my mother is dying and I made a decision that some of you are not going to agree with.

I got pregnant at twenty-four. The father was Marcus. He was twenty-six and worked at a body shop on Lamar Avenue and he was the kind of man who was fun to be around until something required actual responsibility, at which point he became a ghost. He left the state when I was three months along. I got a text that said “I can’t do this” and then nothing. His phone was disconnected by the weekend.

I was living with my mother. Patricia. She’s the kind of Christian who wears her faith like a weapon. She can quote Proverbs at you while making you feel two inches tall.

She ran the women’s ministry at Greater Hope Baptist. She organized the bake sale. She collected canned goods for the food pantry. Everyone at church thought she was wonderful.