The Year of 59(7)

Life has a way of breaking a person down and it's truly doing  a job on me. I'm referring to loving someone that just don't care about me. I hate to admit this but when I was growing up it was so hard to love my mother. I have to admit that I even carried that on into adulthood. I was my mother's second daughter and she loved me dearly she was a very troubled woman carrying all her pains and trails from her life and she took a lot out on her children. I couldn't see that growing up and I didn't know how to return the love to her. As a child I told myself that my children are going to love me and my grandchildren are going to love me too.

I was wrong on one account. I don't think my granddaughter loves me. I think she loves me as the woman that happened to be her father's mother and that's it. That hurts very deeply. I'd dream that my grandchildren would send me birthday cards like I send them and Mother's day cards. They would call me and talk to me to see how's things going with me. They would invite me to their outings and I would see them in school performances. None of that has happened for me. NONE OF THAT. Most of that couldn't happen because of the distance between us. She lives in Georgia and I in Michigan so that couldn't really happen for us My heart hurts because she was such a bright little girl that I would have loved to see her receiving awards for all the good work she did in school. I would have loved to have heard the last night Kelsey being called on stage for doing well in school. That didn't happen to me nor did it happen for my son. 

I thought if I would keep in touch with her over the years remembering her birthday and Christmas and other holidays that she would love me for that. I would send letters and call her anything just to maintain a loving relationship with her. I treasures those days when she was young and would come and visit with us. I held onto every moment of cooking together or reading together everything because I knew I wouldn't see her again until the next year. I couldn't wait to see her when we would drive that long road to see her for the holidays my heart just longing to be with her and talk to her and laugh with her. She was always so happy to share her room with me and show me all her friends and just be together. My tears would run like water falls when we had to go back home.  In my mind we were planting the seed of internal love for each other, grandmother and granddaughter's love. We could hear each others heart beat for each others and never lose the beat no matter how far away we were. I remember her laying on my chest and reading stories together and she saying how she could hear my heart beat. Nothing could take that sound away.

As I write this my heart hurts and the heart beats are drowning. I have to let her go. Birthday, holidays special days I get nothing from her. I've mentioned to her on several occasion on how to respect others by returning the favorite if someone remember you it's respectful to give back to that person especially when it's a family members. As she grew and grew nothing in return. Now don't think she's this heartless young woman because she isn't. She's kind and loving. Very smart and pretty it's just that for some reason I don't know what we don't have that same love for each other. I know why I found it hard to return the love to my mother. I thought she didn't care and love me. She was so hard on me verbally abusive at times and so I would pull back and just found it difficult to extend my love to her. Yet, I would remember her every occasion because she was my mother. 

She's an adult now and I don't feel that from her anymore. I don't feel the excitement she once had for me when she talks to me. I cry when holidays come and I get nothing but a phone call. I can't beg anymore for her affection towards me. I can't make her feel something that isn't there for me. I saw a clip of a show the other day on Facebook and a woman was in the court and her daughter was suing her mother for harassment. Her mother was trying to contact her to let her know that she was dying. I should say that the daughter didn't want to have anything to do with her mother because she was too black and uneducated. My heart just hurt for that mother. I often wonder why my granddaughter don't care for me anymore. Is it the color of my skin? Did I say something or do something? I have a college degree. Is it because I'm not pretty or fashionable? I just don't know. Maybe it's none of those things it's just that we've grown apart.  

What hurts the most is that my son suffers too. He tried to do the best he could as a long distance dad. No, he wasn't the best and he made a whole lot of mistakes but I think he worked hard to do the best he could. There's nothing between the two of them as well. I know he could just kick himself in the butt I know he wanted to be a good father and have a loving relationship with his child because he didn't have one with his dad. NOTHING! 

My prayer for her is that she continue to grow into the loving, intelligent, beautiful and gifted young lady she's growing into. A pray that she loves others with all her heart and that she helps those that do not have. I pray that what ever her dreams are that she reaches them and make new ones as she grows old. I pray that she become strong in body and in The Word of God. I pray that she always have someone that she loves and trust and that she never have the ache of not being loved in return. A pray that she sees the world not only on television but experiences it for herself. A pray that she save money for golden years and that she do what brings her joy. 

I will always remember that her small heart bumping and the laughs we had together and those yesterdays that tucked inside my mind. I want her to know that my heart still beats and that the a couple of those beats, beat for her. 

The Year of 59(6)

I haven't written on this blog in a few weeks because I really didn't have too much to say. Actually, I did I just didn't know how to say it. I just had this awesome experience with my friend, Laura. She's writing a book about her husband's grandfather and so she doing lots of research on his family. She's enjoying ever minute of it. " a puzzle" she says that all the time. I admire how hard she's working on the book. I know its going to be just great when she finishes with it. She's a great artist as well.

She decided to go on Ancestry and do a quick search for me. I know my father's side of our family I actually got a chance to see my grandfather. He was old and fragile when I was a child. My last memory of him is he sitting with this bag on him. That was very puzzling for me at the time and I didn't want to go to hug him. That's all I remember of him. I know his name and my grandmother's name on my father's side but not much about my mother's mother.

My mother's mother died at a very young age. I believe she was in her thirty's. I'm not sure how she died. I thought it was from Ovarian Cancer that's what my sister had told me. My mother always talked about her actually she would cry. "My mother left me when I was 12 years old." she would say when she was very upset about things letting us know that she didn't have a mother to care for her and do Motherly things with. " I had to fend for myself." She would often say. As the year progress I would learn little things about my mom having to go from family to family members because her dad wasn't able to care for her. I could feel her bitterness and angry around being an only child and having to have to live like that. That mean I didn't know her mom's name or anything about her.

My oldest brother was pretty convicted about information regarding our mother as well. When talking to him he'll give me one name of our grandmother then he would change it to another name because our mother would say it was one or the other. In my mind I'm thinking why is this so difficult I wasn't taking into account that my mom came up in a time when things happen and you just move on. She was just a child and as the years passed her mom was probably not even mentioned anymore. What memory she had of her probably just faded away with time. I can understand the confusion around who I mother was and even her name.

Back to Laura and her search. The two of I searched at first. That was so amazing as we looked up my mother's father's name first. I had forgotten that his name was John Henry. That's interesting because my dad's name is Henry. I also noticed that it was listed in the censors at times that he was mulatto and a couple of people that were living in the house whole were too. I always thought that he was too because of his light complexion as well as his sister complexion. When we looked at other censors years they were listed colored. That's interesting how they were called colored what color. Maybe that's were the Irish in our blood comes from which I'd  learned from doing the DNA, 7% actually.  Momma would say that she had a grandfather that was white. Although I've learned from the search that Laura did he wasn't.

She was able to find information regarding my mother's mother and her parents as well. That's so exciting from just a name I wasn't sure of to knowing my great grandparents names as well. Laura was able to find his death certificate which gave some vital information. I'm overjoyed with this new information. The search must continue I have to learn more about her side of the family for sure.

As an African American I've never really thought much about my heritage I didn't really have that sense of pride about my people not even my family. I just looked at myself as just a person on the planet it didn't really matter my family didn't really matter. Ever one matters it doesn't matter our skin color we all matter it's just that I didn't know how to place me in this world. At 59 I"m beginning to realize that how we are to each other in the world is what really matters. I know I'm going off the path here but I think about my great grandparents and their everyday life and how they may have interacted with each other. I know now that my mother did have a family probably a family she didn't know. Her mother's family, Mr. Richard Pearson, grandfather John Herbert and grandmother (I couldn't really get her first name spelling), Wilson.


 The search must continue there's so much more to learn about my family. People that were here on this earth that's part of my genetic makeup. We all matter.

The Year of 59(5)

This is a great big world and I'm here in Detroit. I often get depressed about my life that I'm not doing more with it. My friend showed me a video of her mentor yesterday and my jaws dropped as I watched this woman share her adventures over the years in her life. She got a motor cycle and traveled the country all by herself. That's freaking amazing! Why am I not doing anything with my life?

I don't have a whole lot to say because I'm so angry that I didn't work my life so that I could see the world. My dream is to see Africa and I don't know how I'm going to get the money to go to Ghana. I just want to see the land that my ancestors come from. The book Roots open so many African American realize that we had a land and it wasn't America. I have friends that talk about going to Italy or Greece their roots. The Mother Land people call it. I'm going home!

I would love to travel here in this country as well. There is so much to see here that I haven't seen and I want to see. I've done some traveling over the years but not enough to quiche my thrust for more. As a little girl my parents would take us south to visit their families in Jacksonville, Florida. I just loved that thinking we were pretty special because many of the kids in the neighborhood didn't have that opportunity. Maybe that's what got my travel bug stared.
I've been to so places that I like Washington D.C. Vegas, Chicago, Florida, California, Texas and Ohio. I want to see more I want to see more. This country is filled with beautiful places to see and its time for me to see that. Now I have to come up with a plan to get money in my pocket and go.