Chicken Soup for the African American Woman's Soul (13 page)

“Oh, not at all. He's a nice boy. I did enjoy his company.”

“Thank you, ma'am,” I said. “Well child, you can just call me Granny,” she said with a broad smile. “Okay, Granny!”

Several weeks passed. A November chill was in the air.

Granny was sweeping up some leaves on her sidewalk as I was coming home from school one gray afternoon.

“Remember me?” I asked. “I sure do. Say how's the scrape on your knee?” I was impressed that Granny would remember. “It was healed the next day! How about lettin' me clean up those leaves for you?” I asked.

“Well child, how much would you charge me?”

“One gingerbread cookie,” I replied as we both began to laugh. “But first I gotta let my mom know,” as I started to run down the street. In a few minutes, I was back and in no time the leaves were swept and bagged. “Joey, you can have as many cookies as you want, but don't fill up too much before your supper.”

“No, ma'am,” I replied.

Sitting there in her kitchen, it was the first time I really took a good look at Granny. She was up in years, but got around very well. She had beautiful dark eyes and a warm-hearted smile. She had a great sense of humor as I would come to know and a hearty laugh that was very contagious. We talked for a long time, getting to know one another. Granny had become a treasured friend. She possessed a great deal of wisdom. One day while talking she asked me what I thought about school. The truth is I did like school and did very well.

“That's so good to hear, child. You know I hardly went to school, but books have knowledge. And knowledge is the key that will unlock many doors in your life as you grow up.” I remember asking her how long it took her to get old.

“A long time,” was her reply. “But it all happened in the blink of an eye,” she said with a hint of sadness in her voice.

I found out that Granny had lived in New Orleans when she was my age. She had twelve brothers and sisters, but she was the only one left. Granny had four daughters, but they all lived down South. Her husband, Jefferson, had died many, many years ago. I asked her about her grandchildren. She told me there were eight of them, and many times she wished she could see them but was “not up to travelin'.”

As Christmas approached, Granny received a letter stating that one of her daughters was coming for a visit with her two children for the holidays. What a beautiful sparkle in her eyes as each day went by. On Christmas Eve I stopped by her apartment with a small gift. I had my sister make Granny two red, green and white pot holders. What a fuss she made over them. You'd think I had given her a thousand dollars.

Granny also had two wonderful presents for me, a whole tin of gingerbread men cookies and a red, hand-knit scarf. Her daughter was to arrive that evening. My dear friend was so excited. Suddenly she called out to me. “Joey, come quick!” I ran over to the window.

“See there,” she said, pointing to her large holly bush. “The red birds. Some folks call them cardinals, but in truth they are Christmas sparrows.

“You see, when the baby Jesus was born, the Christmas sparrows flew 'round and 'round the manger. The light of the moon and stars reflected off of them, giving a beautiful, warm glow over the Christ child. It's a sign that you will have much joy and peace in the coming year.”

With the passing of the holidays, it was decided that Granny would be moving away to stay with her daughter as she began to need help getting around. She gave me her address, and for several years we would send each other a short note or card. Then one day, her daughter wrote that my sweet Granny passed on in peace.

Fifty years later I still cherish her memory, the gingerbread men cookies, the warm insights into life and the wonderful story of the Christmas sparrows. Granny was a very simple lady with the biggest heart of gold that a person could possess. As we journey through life, we are all gifted in having been touched in heart and soul by the angels that walk among us.

Joe Gurneak

Soul Food Rite of Passage

“Mmm . . . Mommy, this is
all
so yummy!” my five-year-old daughter repeated at least three times while eating.

“Thank you, sweetheart. I was just trying to make it like Bigmamma's.”

“You did a good job!” She then walked over to me. And with her sweet, soft voice she said, “Bigmamma would be proud,” and she clasped her little arms around my waist.

I had done it. I had finally mastered that delectable pot roast like the one Bigmamma makes. You know, the kind that melts in your mouth and makes you want to sing while you eat. It had taken numerous attempts, but this time I had done it. Seasoned white potatoes, carrots and caramelized sweet onion accompanied the roast—along with golden brown, bubbling-over macaroni and cheese, candied yams and tender collard greens. I had spent most of the afternoon in a hot kitchen preparing this “perfect” soul food dinner, and I was now ready to clear away the dishes so that I could kick back and relax. But wait, something was missing.

“Mommy,” my three-year-old said as he gazed up at me from his empty plate with those dark brown puppy-dog eyes.

“Yes, honey?”

“I wanted bread with it.”

“Bread?” It took me a few seconds to figure out what he meant.

“Oh . . . you mean cornbread?” I asked.

“Yes,” he said.

“I'm sorry, baby. Mommy didn't make any cornbread. I would have to cook some,” I said.

“Okay,” he said, and he got up and went to play. I thought that because he had already eaten his entire dinner he would soon forget about the cornbread. I continued to clean the kitchen when a few minutes later my son returned.

“Mommy, I said I wanted cornbread!” He was serious.

As I dragged my tired feet to the counter to get back into the cooking mode that I thought I had concluded, I couldn't help but fast-forward into the future sixteen years.
This is what mammas do,
I thought.
They gladly make
their children's favorite foods for them.

“Mom, I'm coming home from school this weekend. Can you make me a roast, macaroni and cheese, candied yams, greens and cornbread?” Yeah . . . I could envision that conversation between me and my nineteen-year-old son. I just didn't think this sort of thing would begin at age three.

And I was tired and wanted to sit down. But there was this voice in my head.

Child, make that boy some cornbread!
It was the voice of Bigmamma. Besides, what's a soul-food dinner without cornbread? Bigmamma always has bread. Oven-baked cornbread, hot-water cornbread, homemade rolls, it doesn't matter, but there is always bread.

As I began to stir the egg and pour in the milk, a smile formed on my face. I realized that for hundreds of years African American mammas have taken great pleasure in preparing treasured meals for their children, and now it was my turn—a rite of passage of sorts. I was now the “mamma” whose cooking
her
children would brag about and crave for decades to come.

Truth be told, I'm a grown woman and I
still
like to make food requests of Bigmamma—or at least I did, up until she died months ago. “What you want, baby?” she would ask. And although she was in her seventies, she would spend hours in the kitchen preparing a fantastic made-to-order, home-cooked, soul food extravaganza and drive twenty miles to bring it to us.

Now it's my turn. Bigmamma has passed on. And the next time I get a special food request—even if my feet
are
aching, I will count it a blessing.

The sweet aroma of hot cornbread baking in the oven lured my three-year-old son right back to the table. It wasn't even out of the oven before he was in his seat, ready to eat. The smile on his face made it all worthwhile. “Mmmm . . .” was the only syllable he uttered as he inhaled the bread and filled that tiny tummy of his.

My daughter was right. Bigmamma
would
be proud. She wasn't here to see it, but I had finally had my soul food rite of passage.

Anita S. Lane

Lesson for a New Life

From the moment I found out that I was pregnant at the age of twenty, I placed myself on a self-imposed punishment. I kicked myself over and over for being so stupid and so careless. And to right the wrong, I made a valiant attempt to transform myself into a responsible adult in a matter of months.

It ripped my young, foolish heart in half to learn that my boyfriend, who had just proposed to me weeks before learning we would be parents, decided not to join me in my blind leap into true adulthood. He was not interested in becoming a father again for the second time in two years. I gave him the opportunity to waive his parental rights, but guilt made him stay around for the baby's sake, and he made me miserable. I ended up wishing he had taken the free pass I tried to offer him.

After his swift departure, I immediately took up the cross of being a young, unwed mother and carried it around like a martyr, accepting my impending doom in silence. Though her father and I both shared in the blame of doing what we did to bring the child into the world, I bore the burden for both of us. Because he was no longer around, there was no one else to blame but me. I felt like

Hester Prynne in
The Scarlet Letter
, except instead of a bold red letter emblazoned across my chest, my mark of shame was my huge belly that was increasingly hard to ignore with each passing day.

Ironically, everyone else had already forgiven me. I just could never manage to forgive myself. I asked the Lord for forgiveness as sincerely as I could muster. Even my mother, who was so disappointed that she didn't speak to me for four months, finally came around, flying all the way to California from North Carolina to support me while I brought my baby into the world. But I still felt the need to inflict myself with pain as punishment, almost as if to attempt to purge my sins for the evil I had committed. I wouldn't socialize with my friends or engage in any activities that remotely resembled having a good time.
All of
your good times will be spent worrying about somebody else now
, I thought. I wouldn't even afford myself the luxury of screaming out to express my pain during childbirth.

When she finally came into the world six hours and one minute later, my temporary feeling of relief was invaded by more permanent feelings of anxiety and fear. I lacked a significant amount of maternal instincts. And I had no clue what to do with a baby, anyway, especially a girl baby.

Heck, I didn't even know how to cornrow. For that matter, I couldn't even do my own hair. I went to the hairdresser every two weeks. Oh well, I guess that forty bucks would be going to something else now.

I was genuinely disappointed that she had not been a boy.
There goes my easy ride,
I thought. Now, on top of everything else, I've got to worry about her doing the same thing I did.

I felt guilty because I couldn't pick up my cross and bear it happily like other mothers, single and married alike. So I begrudgingly began my new life as a young mom with no prospects of being married and no hopes of ever having any fun. With my spirit officially broken I reluctantly settled into single motherhood. My heart was not in it, and I felt like a monster for secretly viewing my child as a burden.

My daughter was always a good baby. She had a serious demeanor and didn't cry much. She became more jovial as she got older and cried even less. She didn't teethe like most babies who run a fever and are cranky when they start to cut teeth. I just happened to notice six little pegs in her mouth one day as I tickled her belly and she threw her head back to laugh. She settled into daycare without so much as a whimper. And she was a breeze to potty train. It was almost like she did everything with minimal supervision because, even as a baby, she was somehow able to sense that my heart really wasn't into raising her, and was afraid that I would leave her, too, if she gave me any trouble. And I felt guilty about that, too.

Oddly enough, with all the guilt, resentment and anxiety I held in my heart, along with the inadequacies I felt about myself as a mom, my daughter either didn't appear to notice all my shortcomings or she didn't care. She actually seemed to like the mom that had been handpicked especially for her. From a baby, she greeted me every morning with a smile when I woke her. And she was always excited to see me when I picked her up from daycare. It seemed that she preferred my company to everyone else's.