Pandora's Planet

She is a great-great-grandmother with so many relatives even she has lost count. Needless to say, we are all devastated, but putting on our bravest faces. Mama weighs about 87 pounds now. Always a small woman in stature, she now seems as fragile as a fine porcelain doll. Her wavy curly hair thinning from the stress of the treatments, and being forced to constantly lie down, to rest they say. When the matriarch of a family goes slowly, creeping day-by-day towards death, how they do so can be the most important lesson they teach the generations they will leave behind. How to die with your head held high.

 Born on a farm to mother who was formerly a slave and a Native American father my great-grandmother is a woman of quiet strength. Her word is law in our family; there are no appeals once she has spoken. With good reason, she prefaces her words with wisdom and love that is as contagious as it is convincing. She does not speak lightly, especially when it comes to matters of the heart. And for Mama, everything is a matter of the heart. Over homemade slices of syrupy sweet pineapple upside down cake one is convinced to bear their soul. After tears and laughter, hugs and smiles you walk away feeling like a new person. All the wiser from your time spent around Mama’s kitchen table.

A divorce can be devastating; a divorce with a child involved is heartbreaking. There came a time in my divorce that I broke into what felt like tiny fragments of sharp glass, each piece making it painful to continue to move through life. As the word spread through our tight knit family that my marriage was over and my child’s fate hung in the air, Mama did not call me, not right away. She waited patiently while everyone else offered their advice and opinions. As I said, she does not speak lightly. When she did call me from her kitchen table hundreds of miles away she did not waste time. As it happened, Mama had called at the exact moment that I was crawling across my living room floor vexed with tears and heartbreaking pain. She had called to save me.

The words my great-grandmother spoke to me that day carry me through my life. She spoke of pride and sacrifice. She spoke of the power of women, the power of one woman, and the strength it takes to be a mother. Mama reminded me of our legacy, and as she sat at her kitchen table and me at mine, she reminded me that I am from women who have conquered the seemingly impossible. That tradition is not what the world makes it, but we make it and pass on. Mama reminded me that there are many ways to be a mother, many ways to love. Most of all she reminded me to keep my head held high. Because though I may feel like it, it was not my time to die, but to grow to the next part of my life. So live, because when it is my time to die, a woman should do so with her head held high.