An Ode to the Woman who Raised Me

I sat in her recliner next to the hospital bed she was lying in. I held my breath between each one she took until she took no more. Those were the last moments I spent with my maternal grandmother on this earth. Before she even knew me she loved me because I was hers. I have heard the stories repeated many times about how when my mother and great aunt informed my grandmother and grandfather that my mother was pregnant with me, my grandfather quickly reacted to the news of his young unwed teenage daughter’s pregnancy with harsh words. My grandmother’s reaction was just as quick and harsh as his were. The only difference is that her harsh words were directed towards him for daring to admonish my mother about my pending appearance earthside. That was the first time my grandmother fought for my life but it certainly was not the last time.

In her lifetime she was often described as “ A good christian woman who was a mother figure to everyone.” To me she was simply Grandmom, hers was the first lap I remember sitting in. She was a southern woman who believed in God and goodness even when it felt like those principals were not serving her well, she held onto them. She was a woman who fell on her knees and prayed regularly. She believed that in prayer was the answer for every problem, hardship and affliction. She prayed even when it appeared that her prayers were not being heard or answered. She believed in taking good care of other people even when they did not take good care of her. Years of hardship and heartache wore down her softness into a quiet sternness. She suffered watching two of her sons die within eleven months of each other. She sat helpless when my sister died from Sickle Cell Anemia after twenty seven years of defying everything the doctors felt impossible and with my grandmother praying at her bedside every time she was hospitalized. The only man my grandmother ever loved and shared a bed with abandoned her after 30 years of marriage. The stress in her life often peeked out through a habit of filing her fingers down to the bone. I only imagined how these things affected her because she didn’t open her mouth to complain about them. She would sit in her recliner and just pray and file.

As a young girl, growing up in Alabama, she understood many things that she never wanted us to truly understand. She had to learn to live without her own mother because her mother died of tuberculosis when she was just fourteen years old. Being the middle child and the oldest of two girls, she took on the responsibility of being the backbone of her siblings. She took care of them from the moment her mother passed until she buried most of them. She didn’t sit around and mourn the death of her mother, who was her rock, because she didn’t have time for mourning. She lived with an aunt and uncle after her mother’s death. She was treated harshly and married my grandfather to get out of the situation. She bore him five children. She conceived ten. She hardly ever spoke about the heartbreak of miscarriage. The only time she did was when she wanted to share her experience to uplift or encourage someone else who was going through it. The migrations of the 1950’s is what brought my grandparents to the northeast where my grandfather could earn a good wage and my grandmother could raise her children without the shadow of the Jim Crow south that she grew up in. She carried deep in her spirit the hope for her children and grandchildren and their children to be the very best in this world. She took it as a personal obligation to ensure it.

She was always there for me even when I didn’t appreciate her presence and took it for granted. She was my comfort. When I was sick, or sad, or confused, or troubled in any type of way, I would find myself wanting to hear her reassuring and encouraging words. I knew I would feel better just hearing her voice saying that whatever it was I was facing was never to hard for God. Most of what I learned from my grandmother was what I saw. She was not a woman of many words. She was a woman who believed “I can show you better than I can tell you.” She showed me how to love because “love is what love does”, she would say. She showed me how to give with my whole heart. She showed me how to put the very best of myself into anything that I do. She showed me how to take pride in goodness. She showed me how to look for goodness in whatever situation I face. She showed me how to be loyal. She showed me modesty. She showed me the value in being consistent. She showed me the wisdom in saying no. She showed me how to never give up on myself and my children. She showed me the value in forgiving myself. She showed me how to trust what I knew was there even if my natural eyes could not see it.

After her last breath was taken. After the funeral. After the burial of her natural body. I took the time to understand that as I sat there next to her dying body, she was giving me something to carry on. She was giving me something to pass on. She was giving me her. I see her reflection in the joy I feel that brings a deep smile while loving on my grandchildren. I hear her voice as I sing while preparing my food or getting dressed. I feel her comfort when I fall on my knees to pray. She comes to visit in my dreams reassuring me that she is still there, loving and supporting me. May I always honor, appreciate, uplift and elevate her spirit. Ase.