Mother Wound Daddy Longing
Happy 114th Birthday Grandma Lois
Reclaiming My Body
Connecting with my ancestors, The Goddess, The Divine Mother
Celebrating Her Birth this Day and Giving Thanks…
No accident I was named for my grandmother .
More than anything especially today, I miss my grandmother and feel her presence so deeply as if she was sitting right next to me on the couch. That day, the day of the photo, we were somewhere. She had motioned for me to have a sit down next to her, I was nursing my baby. I kind of remember the house, curtain and drapes, they sort of matched, but it is the only picture I can find of her though she was in my life at important times my memories are so fond. She was born October 24th 1908 and died on February 20th in 1985.
Of course, I was not there when she was born, but it is as if I was there joining the circle of women that would form the maternal line of my ancestors and to whom I pray and ask living witness to what to do, when I am floundering and yes the steady steady stream of keeping on and carrying on. They answer even when I don’t thinkthey are there.
Mother wounds and Daddy longing… she told me as such about her life and her journey to keep me engaged and loved and of course to keep me asking so many questions to fill in the gaps in the story. The parts we knew and didn’t know; couldnt know at the time or even now.
How to be in the world with my mind, my body and Spirit. How to have the courage to heal. The really good grandma stuff. I was lucky enough to have those women and not just one that encouraged me and let me know that I could be and do anything with such love and grace.
She was also one of those women who never said anything bad about the other women in her life. She had a sense of humor and such grace and now what I would call nonjudgmental compassion and capacity for unconditional revolutionary LOVE.
When my mother could not be with me, she let me know that there would be kind people around and that most of us could get along with the kindness of strangers and that we could be kind and do the same for others always. Most importantly my mother would come back, always be with me and was always doing the best she could given what she had to work with just because she loved me.
How lucky I was. She also curiously said almost in the same breath that you could be living in a house and not be “no kin”. Again a good reason to be kind and to not assume that because someone was related to you, it didn’t necessarily mean they were family. not everyone could always be at there best.
Her mother died January 5, 1912. She was only three years old. Her name was Mary Ellen Thomas Laws. She told me she had two baby brothers, the youngest died the same day as her mother and the other baby boy Laws died November 14th, 1911. She said the boys were so small born early and sickly and that “sugar diabetes” had killed her and the babies and that insulin was not invented in time for her. She said her mother said she was stronger and seemed to live longer maybe she was her sweet baby girl. She kept her so so close. Took in sewing at home so as not to leave her.
When I began to look for records, more evidence about what shaped her life and now mine. I found they had had another son born May 5, 1905 shortly after their marriage February 20, 1905 to Lorenzo Laws.
She and all her babies, three little boys were buried in Moores Cemetery , renamed Rosemont Cemetery, (defunct they say) and now Rosewood Cemetery, the colored Cemetery coincidently the name of the street I live on a short distance 2 minutes away from where my daughter and grandchildren, and all her great grands that live today in DC on Stanton Terrace.
Her oldest great grands held fast moving where freedom and joy might take them. She would be happy to know I have five healthy grandchildren, three boys and two girls and today they all lived and are strong and my blood sugars , and my son’s blood sugars are all are all good and we track such things and listen close.
She had a mother wound and missed her mother. She longed for her daddy that no one could replace. She reminded me that she and my father’s mother both missed their moms so and that’s maybe what made them such good moms. Taking nothing or a single day for granted.
Try not to leave your babies if you don’t have too. Leave them if you can with someone who lives them, even with the kindness of strangers. She didn’t have a picture of her mother, but she had a picture of her father.
She said he was so handsome and they loved each other so. He missed his wife. She missed her mom. Grief makes the heart ache. He knew that losing her babies was a sadness that never went away. She said she poked his eyes out, so she couldn’t see her sadness because he left her with her mother’s sisters and her father Samuel Thomas on Gresham Place where my good friend lives today saying he had to go to work, that he couldn’t work in DC anymore and that he would return as soon as he could. She said she didn’t see him after that and wondered what might have happened and why she couldn’t live with him. She never heard what happened.
I tell folks I get my tolerance for ambiguity and my love for strong women and strangers from her. She made good work of freedom. She always was open to wonder. So many babies taken away from their mother’s breast and she knew how her mother longed to keep hers close and could not. Her body gave out! She did her best.
listen for the stories the black bodies tell…
Solar eclipse tomorrow..black moon lilith a space in time in the moon phase reclaiming what was lost…once again an opportunity to heal and make whole.
Today I thank her every day a ritual circle. Maybe that’s why I was called to be a midwife, why I always feel surrounded, protected, and loved. Healers draw off the strength that surrounds and beauty that goes before go and the love always circulating and present.
Somedays, I look for her father and his father and the fathers daddy longings and try to retrace their steps so I kind find my way and reclaim what is mine and the hope and beauty ahead.
I know why he was unable to return now. I give him grace. I am grateful for my grandaddy, and her Father who always made a way.
She owned her own house, had her own business, stayed strong and steady with an open heart.
Happy Birthday grandma, the kids are all right! I feel you near at all times.
Three years old, with a world full of magic gathering stones for healing surrounded and protected by love.
