Mom & Me & Mom
Written and Narrated By: Maya Angelou
Length: 4 hrs
A petite yet oh so feisty woman you just can’t help but love
Raise your hands: Who here knows the whole story of Maya Angelou’s early childhood?
Like, gee, EVERYbody, DUH!
But who knows where Angelou got her incredible resilience and spunk? Turns out, it was from her mother, Vivian Baxter, the woman who basically abandoned her and her brother. That basic abandonment was something Ms. Maya had a hard time getting over, choosing to call her mother “Lady” rather than any form of the word Mom.
Lady broke down barriers of race, barriers of gender. She was an explorer, an entrepreneur, a woman of great charity who could swing pretty much the impossible.
And she loved her children dearly. She was there for Maya through all the little bumps and all the huge trials. When Maya was abducted and nearly murdered, it was Lady who hunted her abductor down, who broke down the door, who procured a gun to kill the man, get even in a way she understood. When Maya couldn’t shoot the man, Lady says she’s the better woman of the two of them.
Mom & Me & Mom is a truly wonderful homage to a truly strong and incredible woman. It is a love song without being sappy; it’s quite raw and gritty at times, as a matter of fact. Maya goes from being a teen-aged mom all the way to where we all know her today. And that’s because her own mother believed in her, even “invested” in Angelou’s future with a loan (and she even added interest to make it more palatable!).
Don’t expect much in the way of the chronological achievements of Maya Angelou; this is more about the way their relationship developed and deepened over time. It’s sometimes sad, sometimes funny, but it’s always a moving portrait of what Angelou’s mother came to mean to her and of how she was able to say, deeply, Thank You and I Love You to her mother.
May we all be so eloquent in our own thanks…
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