I miss my grandmother – everyday. She passed away in 2013, after suffering a heart attack in November of 2011. She was in a vegetative state until one day she went to sleep and didn’t wake up. I remember the call from my mother, it was just after 10pm on Saturday night. I had put the family in a hotel because our A/C went out and headed back home – someone had to look after the animals and be on the lookout for the repair man. I heard my mom’s voice, and I knew it immediately; death, especially when it occurs to someone close to you has a peculiar sound. I can’t put it into words, but I heard it. I heard it the day my uncle told me that my aunt had passed, heard it when my mom told me that my uncle was gone. And now again it presented itself. She was driving to the hospital – I told her to slow down, she’s gone, there is nothing you can do. It probably came across as cold in the moment, but I know my mom – she was frantic, and I needed her to be in control navigating the LA freeway system from the San Fernando Valley to the South Bay.
A large part of us – of me was gone. Suddenly.
She called me dolly-dolly – something about the way I looked as a baby, could have been jaundice. I lived the better part of my childhood with my grandmother, my aunt and my uncle. My mom was there but grandmother was also, ‘mama’. And my mother didn’t seem to mind – I still called her mom. In a way I think she welcomed it – she was twenty-two when she had me, just out of college, single and still trying to figure out what she wanted to do with her life. Eventually she would go on to be Macon’s first policewoman but every event in my life leading up to that point involved her side of the family.
Fast fact: I didn’t know what my father looked like until I was fifty-years old. We didn’t have a reunion – he sent me a picture. Not sure if sent him one of me or my family. That man didn’t diaper my behind one time. But I digress.
My grandmother was a giant. She was self-made having lost her parents at the age of nine-years old. She had an older brother, some cousins but she had to tackle life by herself. Her brother joined the military at a young age. I never met him, as far as know they wrote each other from time to time but they rarely talked on the phone. She didn’t mention him lot – not sure how she felt about him leaving her. In fact, I forgot him altogether until he passed away in September 2001. My grandmother and my aunt flew to Washington, DC to bury him. They were actually supposed to fly back to Los Angeles on the eleventh, but they were able to leave a day early. I know what you’re thinking, thought the same thing – who knows.
Four kids, two grandkids, one great grandson and one great granddaughter. A degree from the University of North Carolina. A church leader, mentor and teacher at the Georgia School of the Blind. That’s a long way from being cold, hungry, not knowing what to expect the next day.
Scripture says ‘We walk by Faith, not by sight”. My grandmother epitomized this, she lived it every day. She didn’t just survive her childhood – she thrived. She took jobs cleaning houses, sewing, sometime she was charged with taking care of kids not much older than her. She instilled that same drive, that same sense of responsibility to her kids and to me. I will be forever grateful. Did I tell you that I miss her?
A good friend told me this story about a former employee of his. This kid smoked a lot marijuana – partied a lot, never showed interest in expanding her role or took responsibility for her short-comings as an employee. Finally he had to let her go. Sometime later, maybe five years she called him because she needed help. She had enough of life on the street, tying to live in the fast-lane. Tired of taking her life for granted and she wanted to go home. Her parents would not take her calls and definitely would not send her any money. My friend helped her – no strings attached, no lecture, no expectation of being repaid. He said that he told her hoped that she used the opportunity to do exactly what she said she would do because sometime you don’t get a second chance – sometime you can’t find someone to believe in you. And then he told me this and it always stayed with me. He said, he helped her because somewhere along the course of her life, her family gave up on her –probably before her breakthrough. You can never give up on family. And you know what – she paid him back. Every penny.
Fast-Fact: I’m singing to the choir here; life is one and done. Live yours, not someone else, don’t try to emulate what you see on social media. Be true to all people, especially the people that love you unconditionally and be true to yourself. Enjoy the journey, avoid the race and by all means, be grateful for and happy in who you are. In this you will find your strength and your calling.
At 12pm, she prayed. At 3pm, she prayed. At 6pm, she prayed. At 9pm, she prayed and if she happened to be awake close to midnight, she prayed. That was Kathryn. Her friends, especially Ms. Jones called her kitty for her high-pitched voice. My goodness those ladies could talk on the phone. They were good friends, prayer partners, gossip partners and sometimes competitors at the church cookouts. My grandmother had a real talent for cooking having learned during the time as a child. Some recipes she learned from her mother, others she created. I learned the same way from her, from my mom. She taught me to pray too. I miss her.
Fast-Fact: I once baked and threw away eight ginger breads before I got the recipe correct.
We lived in the projects when I kid, it was called Bird City because all of the streets were name after birds. Our address was 1948 Heron Street. It still there. Experienced snow for the first time there during the Holidays. We used to have this 18-inch plastic Santa that you put a light-bulb in so it glowed. There nuts and all kinds of hard candy in a dish and oh the sweets. Sweet potato pie, ginger bread, bread pudding, chocolate, coconut, lemon cheese, pound and bunt cakes. Our tree was made of aluminum, and lit by a rotating light wheel of green, gold and blue. Sometimes we strung popcorn on the tree – my uncle and I would eat it and then we would pop some more. I theorize my grandmother didn’t have the same Thanksgiving and Christmas that she was able to give us. I’m sure of it. Even today, I’ve never met anyone who took so much joy in doing for others.
In the projects – everybody knew their neighbors business. One thing everyone knew was how strict my mom and my grandmother were. Other kids knew it and used it to their advantage. If I got into a fight at school, a whipping at home usually followed. Why did everyone know it? Well in the Seventies South, parents didn’t use belts, they used switches. If you saw a grown up go outside and get a switch you knew somebody was in trouble. I didn’t lose many if I had to fight – even in third grade I knew better than get my butt kicked twice in one day.
On one particular occasion this kid ripped a shirt that my grandmother had just purchased for me. I had seen her angry but this time she was pissed – not because he ripped the shirt but because I didn’t do anything about it. She marched me right to his house knocked on the door and told this kid – talking past his mother, mind you, to get his so and so butt outside. And she told me to make him pay for it. I lost that fight but after that nobody bothered me anymore. Afterwards I began to see my grandmother in a different light – something clicked. She was tough. Found out later she carried a derringer.
My grandmother was twice divorced, spent a short-time on welfare, shopped with food stamps. Nevertheless her kids were always clean, clothed, always had a roof over their heads. She worked hard to make sure they had what they needed, equally and sometimes she was able to get them and me, what we wanted.
Years later – Oh Snap! I’m a dad. I find myself longing for her words of wisdom – thinking back about what I observed in the way that she raised my mom and her siblings. I wonder how she would approach these days and times, with all the technology and vices that are constantly bombarding our children to make bad decisions, sacrifice their future for short-lived gains or satisfaction.
My grandmother, Kathryn was quite a lady, a mother, a grandmother, mentor and friend. I really miss her.
To be continued.
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