Today, October 8, is my late grandmother’s birthday, who was affectionately called Mommy Eva by all of her grandchildren. She would have turned 83 today if she was still alive. as thoughts of her filled my mind, I’m grateful that I have good memories of her.
She was tough and didn’t tolerate nonsense from ANYBODY!!! She spent a big part of her life residing in New York raising my mom and her siblings in Brooklyn, NY and women from Brooklyn are just “built differently”. Eventually, she relocated back to her home state of NC where she’d spend a big portion of the remaining years of her life. It is in NC where I developed a relationship with her.
She had house rules that seemed so outrageous at the time. One rule she had was that “our little friends” could not come in her house. You could only enter in if she liked you. If she didn’t like you…you were not going any further than the porch and she didn’t care what season it was (I promise you, dear reader, that I’m laughing as I pen this and so will any of my family members who will read this). Mommy Eva DID NOT hold her tongue for anyone. If she did not like you she would either tell you direct or would not deal with you at all. If you ever felt like you didn’t want to follow her rules, you better believe she’d kick you out of her place and think nothing of it. I remember getting kicked out twice in my life by her. My brother, cousins, and myself always thought she was just mean (lol). As I’ve gotten older, and have become a parent myself, I have come to understand her more and more.
Years before she passed away, she became an active church goer which resulted in the Lord softening her up. We would sit for hours just talking about the goodness of Jesus. Many times she would share her regrets with me and where she felt she went wrong as a parent. There were times that I would share my perspective on something and she’d rock her head a bit as she pondered what I had said and then say…”You know what Melly, it could be.” Sometimes she’d ask me to cook her a pot of rice because she loved how I cooked it.
At the current age of 43, what I miss most regarding her absence are those bonding conversations that I just mentioned. It allowed me to get see the softer side of her that I had not seen growing up and allowed me to just bond with her in a way I had not while growing up. We grew closer than ever before her health severely declined.
Mother’s Day is so hard for me because not only is my mother deceased, but she is too. The closeness I was able to finally attain with her is needed so much. There’s a pain that her absence leaves me to deal with because now I am a mom and my kids will never get to meet her. Above all though, the pain is so much easier to bear because by faith, I believe that she’s truly in a betterplace where there’s no more suffering for her. That gives me joy and peace. For that..IM TRULY GRATEFUL!!!
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