- she wrote poetry for the church where her father preached
- she lived to be 102 (born in the 1800s) and she would lean in and tell me that god forgot she was here
- she picked at her fingers like I do (we have the same skinny old lady hands)
- she never wore a pair of pants
- she made me peanut butter cookies a lot
- she was raised in the south as a sharecropper
- she never tasted alcohol in her entire life
- she told me she had shrunk three inches from getting old
- during difficult times, my grandmother would place her old hands on my head and I thought it felt like the hand of an angel when I was little, so light
- she was my first true example of complete kindness
- she never drove a car, not once
- she had a southern accent, and said things like "I do declare"
- she never wore a lick of make up or had her hair done
- she was proud of me unconditionally...never asking how I did in school...just proud because she knew me
- her kindness and personality definitely showed up in my father
- she loved flowers
- she always wore old lady dresses with a zipper down the front
- she did not own one "nice" dress or piece of jewelry
- when it rained on tv she thought it was raining outside
- she always smiled and held the hand of my korean relatives who could not speak english
- often times she would just sit quietly on the sofa and smile, not needing entertainment
- she would tell me stories of what it was like to pick cotton using all her five senses in the details
- she watched her sons enter into WWI, WWII, Korean War and the Vietnam War
- she raised seven children: clifton, larry, dad, armeda, neoma, bea and ricky
- she was the daughter of a baptist preacher who was indirectly killed because he allowed black folks into his church
- she liked to tell old gossip stories from her days in the south
- she liked afternoon soap operas but never watched movies
- she took care of my mom when she arrived from korea and even though she could not speak korean, my mother still says she was the kindest and gentlest women she had ever met
- she loved to eat anything, even spicey kimchi mixed in with her thanksgiving meal and she would always eat dessert
- though she used old un-p.c. terms to refer to african americans, like colored, she was the first to teach me to love everyone because she grew up poor and worked side by side with black folks and japanese folks in the south.
- she was married to one man her entire life: moncey. I never met him. he died before i was born.
- she thought all new technology was crazy science fiction
- i watched her lose her memory and then lose her ability to recall who we were. it was painful.
- my grandmother was already an old lady when I came into the world
- in the end she only had a few things: death certificates of her husband, son, and niece, and a few random things that all fit into a small shoe box
- i was 26 when she passed. she is buried in forest lawn next to her husband and son.
- i pray she is with me and that she forgives me for when I have taken things for granted
sep 1 2007 ∞
may 9 2021 +