When my mom was on her deathbed, I noticed a change in her that felt seismic. I can’t ever know exactly why she shifted the way she did in those final weeks — but I know this: in that stretch of time that felt like an eternity inside a blink, I was the most present I’ve ever been.
I sat at her bedside. I kept her company. I did the uncomfortable things — the messy, exhausting things — to make sure she was cared for. Seen. Heard. Held. Even when she screamed at me. Even when it felt like nothing I did was right.
I stayed.
One night, we were alone. I had reached my breaking point. Her ungratefulness cut deep, especially when paired with the all-nighters and the weight of being the one who shows up. And just like pressure building behind glass with no way out… I cracked.
I screamed, “Why are you so angry??”
“Because I know that I’m dying.”
She didn’t flinch. No hesitation. No tremble. Her response came out clean and sharp, like something she’d been holding onto for years.
We both went silent. Her — probably because she hadn’t expected to say it out loud. Me — because while we all knew it, none of us had faced it like that. And in that moment, her anger made sense. She wasn’t lashing out at me. She was angry at what was happening to her. At what she was losing. At everything she didn’t get to do.
One of the first changes I noticed in her, once it became clear her health wasn’t going to rebound, was when she started calling my dad a snake in the grass. We laughed at the time — it felt out of character for her.
But even now that she’s gone, that phrase has stuck with me.
Maybe because she never told anyone what she meant by it. Maybe because it’s a clever phrase people use when they feel threatened but can’t quite name the threat — so they call it a snake. Something primal. Something cold. Something quiet.
But even more haunting is the idea that the threat is hidden — somewhere in your backyard, as you tread through uncut grass, feeling the blades brush against your bare feet. Never knowing if the next step is the one that changes everything.
On November 30, 2018 — just two months after my mom passed — Eminem released a rap song called “Lucky You.” In it, he wrote a line that’s stayed with me ever since:
“Snakes in the grass tryna slither fast, I just bought a fuckin’ lawnmower.”
I remember the moment I heard it — the laugh that escaped when I realized what was being said. I couldn’t help but think of my mom. I wished she could’ve held on just two more months to hear that line. Just once. She would’ve laughed at the lyrical genius. Maybe even applied it to her own life. Her own clarity.
I’ve probably listened to that song more than a thousand times since. It creates a kind of momentum you can feel building just beneath your ribs — that tip-of-your-motivation kind of pressure. The confidence. The power. The art behind the words. What that song represents.
When I ran my 100-mile race, there was a short list of songs I absolutely had to have on my playlist — and this was at the top. Not just because it inspired me. But because it transformed me. It doesn’t just light a fire — it commands one.
“The snake wasn’t in the grass. The snake was the grass.”
It reminded me of everything I had to become because she left.
And every time I hear it, I uncover a new layer. A new understanding. Lately, I’ve been listening less to the anger in the lyrics and more to the intent behind them — the exhaustion, the fire, the fight. The kind that comes from being overlooked, underestimated, or betrayed. The triumph that’s born not from luck, but from legacy. From building something no one can take away.
That’s the difference between legacy and entitlement. Legacy is earned. Legacy is built in the dark, in the quiet, in the moments when no one is watching. Entitlement is loud. It’s performance. It’s camouflage.
And some people? They slither through tall grass, disguising themselves as safe or familiar. They confuse kindness for weakness. They treat connection like currency. Their charm disorients you. And their confusion — it’s not accidental. It’s by design. Because if you saw them clearly, you’d see through the act. You’d see what’s underneath.
That experience changed me. So did my mom’s death. So did that race.
But each of them left something behind. Not a wound. Not a scar. A fire.
Years ago I was in my backyard of where I lived at the time mowing the lawn. It was a small rental house, and I shared the space with others — not exactly a dream home, but it was mine for that season. I finished mowing and moved on to weed-whacking along the fence that separated our yard from the neighbor’s. The grass was overgrown, tangled, stubborn — like it had been waiting too long to be seen.
I remember the way the string trimmer kicked back. Something hard slapped my leg — fast and sharp. I flinched. Looked down.
And saw it: a snake.
The weed-whacker had caught it in the midsection. It hadn’t killed it — but it had handicapped it, just enough that it couldn’t slither away fast enough to hide its identity. Its existence.
And sure, I was scared — I hate snakes. But not like I used to be. This was a different kind of fear. The kind that doesn’t come from threat, but from truth — the kind of scared where you know you could go get your roommate, come back, and it’d still be there, in the same spot.
It no longer felt like a threat.
Snakes feel most threatening when you don’t know your own backyard. When the grass is too tall. When you haven’t walked the land in a while. But when you do — when you’ve put in the work to shape the ground beneath your feet — you start to recognize every dip, every pothole, every stone that’s been there too long. You know the soft spots. You take pride in the upkeep. You stop fearing what might be hidden, because you’ve already made the unseen visible.
Legacy is like that. It’s not just about the fire. It’s about the discipline. The maintenance. The choice to keep cutting the grass — even when it grows back. To keep showing up. To keep building.
So when the snakes show up, they don’t scare me the same way anymore. Because I know my ground now. I’ve earned it. And I’m still protecting it.
“You don’t outrun snakes. You outgrow them.”
You trim back what hides them. You name them. You claim your ground and tend to it daily.
Because the people who try to slither through your life unnoticed?
They survive in the silence. In the overgrowth. In the moments you forget that protecting your peace is part of the work. They feed on distraction. On exhaustion. On your unguarded ground.
But once you’ve cleared the grass, once you know every inch of your soil — they have nowhere left to hide.
© 2025 Kimberly Beth Thomas. All rights reserved.
Sometimes we don’t find the “snakes” in our lives because we’re looking for them. We find them because we start doing the work that makes them visible. This piece is about that moment — and the fire it left behind.