Straight No Chaser: Remembering My Grandmother

My Grandmother!  May the ancestors welcome her.  They have a new conversational partner!
I know she is talking stuff....

The saying goes, “You marry your mother.”  I believe that I married a brilliant, strong, wise and beautiful Black woman.  While my wife has some of the traits of my mother what I would argue is that the women in my life influenced how I saw women.  The women around me when I was young were brilliant, strong, wise, Black  and beautiful.  Today I want to pause and remember my grandmother, Mrs. Alta Bell Scott.

Today, in the wee hours of the morning my phone rang, it was my mother telling me that my grandmother was making her transition.  As I lie in the bed and clang to my wife the rest of the morning all I could hear was my grandmother’s voice.  She was a strong woman who spoke her mind. She wasn’t afraid of a confrontation.  If you wanted to bring it, bring it, but you might walk back with a limp.  She taught me how to speak up, stand up and be a strong Black man.  There was no apology in her spirit.  She was a fighter, pure and simple.  The fight I have in life I owe to my grandmother who exhibited such for me.

When she saw you she always made you feel good. She would hug you so tight and hit you with those little hands of hers.  She had the strongest hands in the world.  She would say, “Boy you look good.”  She would then go on to compliment you and tell you how well you were doing and how proud she was of you.  She always made me feel like I could leap the tallest building and climb the highest mountain.  When I was a little boy she would call me, "Mr. Burpee" look at me and say, “look at that little man.”  She made me proud to be a Black man.  When she would call me out, I would stick my chest out and walk upright.   She didn't allow you to apologize for your presence.  When you walked into a room let folk know you are there!!!

I remember a picture of her that sat on the mantle in the living room.  She was standing there looking like a queen.  It was one of those old black and white pictures that you would go to a studio to take.  She had a waist line and shape that made this little boy say, “I want my wife to look like that.”  To put it mildly and respectfully, my grandmamma was BAD!

She was a wise woman who didn’t shy away from giving you life advice.  She would talk common sense to you.  I remember her reading the newspaper from cover to cover and then talking to you about what she read.  I truly believe my love for reading, politics and social justice came from the women who influenced my life.  She also loved a good movie. She would read the description of the movie, the actors in it and say, “This is going to be a good one.”

Storyteller, yes she was a storyteller. When I was preaching in San Diego a week ago, Rev. Leslie White said, “This is a storytelling preacher.” My grandmother taught me how to tell a good story.  When we would stay with her in the summer she would tell us stories at night, as we got ready to sleep on the wooden floor in front of that box fan.  I remember one ghost story she used to tell and I am still scared. She would tell us stories about her life together with our grandfather, the things they did, places they went and how they had a good time back in the day. 

As a kid who stayed with her in the summer it was outside or inside.  We played outside all day and she would instruct me on what it meant to be a man. Be tough, be strong, stand up for yourself and don’t take no SHIT!!!  You betta not cry and if someone hits you, “Knock the shit out of them!”  She had a way with flowery language, and I get that from her as well.   I could go on but the tears are getting in the way. 

Did I marry my mother?  I married the good I saw in the women in my life.  As I sat last night talking to my wife about my grandmother I could see my grandmother in my wife.   Life is precious…and at times it seems so short and it goes so fast. It seems like only yesterday I was sitting in St. Petersburg waiting on some northern beans, rice and cornbread to be done so we could sit and eat dinner.  Yea, how I loved those “boiled pots.”  I say to my grandmother, “Thanks for being an example of a brilliant, strong, wise and beautiful Black woman.”