Imani has had several mother figures in her life. Her older sister adopted her when she was twelve, but before that, she found mothers in friendships. As a child she spent long stretches of time living at different friends' homes. "To this day my best friend's mom is still like my mom. She'll do anything for me. If my daughter needs anything, she's there for me. She loves my daughter, she loves me. I'm always welcome."
Growing up Imani always felt that she had a different relationship with her mom. "I felt like I was the only one who saw her for who she was. Everybody else thought she was a great mom, but I didn't feel that connection with her." Her conflicts with her mom brought conflicts in her relationships with her siblings, but when her mother left four young children after a nervous breakdown, Imani felt that her siblings "finally saw the truth.
"Once it all came out about my mom, my sister and I rekindled our relationship. I looked at her as my mother. She was there for me. It wasn't always like that. If my mom and I argued, Shanie always looked at me like I was wrong. I didn't understand why I couldn't have the relationship that they had. She treated me different from my sister. After mom left, Shanie said, 'this is what you've been going through. This is what you meant when you said you didn't want to live with us.' That really gave us that bond - we finally talked to each other, I really got to know who my sister was, and she really got to find out who I was. I love my sister now, I couldn't live without her. I just love her."
Imani has since forgiven her mother. "We were in the car one day. I was explaining to her how I just got really frustrated with life. I broke down and started crying. I expressed everything I was feeling inside. I was overwhelmed with applying to college, and tuition, and working, and it was so much going on, and I couldn't take it any more and I wished that I had the support that I needed. I said, 'Why cant you be there for me, why can't you help? You have four kids, and we need you, and you just act like the world owes you everything.' She just looked at me and she said to me, 'I am so sorry, I didn't know you felt like that. I didn't mean for it to be like this for you guys.' For me to be 17, and trying to do all these things, I felt crazy, I thought I was going crazy. But she apologized for everything that she had done, and it was a really sincere apology, so I just forgave her."
A year after that reconciliation, Imani was accompanying her mom to a job interview at Judiciary Square. She realized that the pain that she had been having for the past two days meant that she was in labor, and they rushed to the hospital. "I almost had my baby in Judiciary Square! My water broke in the morning, but I just thought that I had peed cause the baby was just sitting on my bladder. We called for an ambulance, but after an hour, we just got on the train and went ourselves." Her sister Shanie was eight months pregnant at the time, but she met them at the hospital and held her legs while the baby was born. "The labor was 36 hours. I had my daughter the next day after we were admitted."
Talking about her labor she looked away for a moment then back at me with a smile. "It was a great experience, but very painful. I guess thats just what being a mom is all about."
