My earliest memories are lying in your lap and being rocked to sleep
Trying to suck my thumb and you telling me that that would make my teeth look like Bugs Bunny...vanity got me even then...smile...so I stopped

Sleeping with you in our bed in Grandmaw's house, with the big portrait of you that hung over the fire place in our room...looking at that portrait every day and thinking how beautiful you are and praying to look like you

The sweet smell that permeated our room

Of being left at your best friend's mother's house and how long the hours would seem before I saw you again...and how I would cry an cry and cry myself to sleep cause I could not stand or understand being separated from you, your sweet smell and your face

You coming home from work and bringing me half eaten packages of life savers, being jiggled on your lap while you talked on the phone....not really liking it BUT not wanting it to end, cause I wanted to be close to you

Standing up beside you in our red VWbug and you putting your hand out to shield me when the car stopped

Watching you dress, watching you put on your make up, dancing with you, laughing with you, wanting so desparately to be as much like you as possible for so long

I also remember the turbulent years
Me blossoming into womanhood and your difficulty accepting it
I remember telling you of my first kiss and my decision to get on the pill after I went away to college
I remember how we fought every day after I turned 14
I remember the migraines I suffered from daily trying to negotiate the sharp stones and twists and turns of our relationship

I remember you dropping me off and college and saying "You grown now" and driving away
I remember you saying, "My mother never said it to you, but I do not want to die without saying it to you, I AM PROUD OF YOU" when I graduated from Fisk

I remember our arguments, our debates about Afrikan religion
giving the children Afrikan names
eating a vegetarian diet

I remember not being able to talk to you to share with you, to be with you
I remember being cut off from the one person in the world whose opinion means as much to me as my own
And I remember falling before my ancestral altar and asking your mother about it and her saying to me clearly
"She does love you, soo much, please understand that she is doing the best that she can do"
And making peace within myself

I remember watching you slip away, lose your mind, leave me , leave us, leave this world
AND STILL
you had grace, your beauty would still cause folx to stop and stare...still You were You

And I remember waiting for the rest of you to slip away into the land of the Ancestors
My touchstone
My centerpost
My earth
My sky
My creatrix

The Source from which I sprang, almost singlehandedly

Your life taught me how to live my life
Taught me not to ever answer to anyone but myself
Taught me not to put dogma over personal preferences or true actual goodness
Taught me that when you are truly yourself, you will be respected
you will be honored
you will be loved
no matter what

You were unconventional ALWAYS and ALL WAYS
you lived life on your own terms and died death that way too

You loved who you liked and dared the world to say you nay
You bore seven of us and raised five of us by yourself AND our life was rich and luxurious and we and you were envied
You are STILL the prettiest woman in the world, even though you've left this world

You told me I was a witch before I was five and you gave me every spell you knew

My queen my goddess
I pay homage to you Mama
Enter into the Ancestral Realm with peace, with glory
Knowing that not only did you live your life here on Earth well
You did it your way, as only you could have
I am honored to have sat at your feet
to have come from your womb
to have walked by your side
to be yours

Your loving daughter

After a 13 year struggle with Alzhiemers My mother passed away last Tuesday, March 25th