Concrete Academic

Matriarch to us all you are.

Amid the darkest night, the brightest star.

Mischievous humor and twinkling eyes,

A smile to rival brightest skies.

Nor can I forget that rapier wit,

Enough to chop you down to size, or make you stop—and ponder life a bit.

Will I one day be someone like you? Strong and wise, in control and caring, even when from afar.

Someone who can learn and teach, maintaining dignity, joy and pride when the lessons of life are unfair and hard?

On the daily I think about you, and cherish the part of you that lives and thrives in me.

Maybe I don’t tell or show you enough, but I’m grateful for who you are—thankful to you for the gift of my heartbeat.

Expressions like these, they’re just mere words—hardly enough for the woman who is a large part of why I live and breathe.

Author’s background on MAMA NEWSOME:

I miss my grandmother. As I wrote this on October 9, 2009 I realized that a month from the previous day, she would have been gone for 3 years. The time flew by. She was an amazing woman. Mother to 11 (do the math folks—pregnant for 8 years and 3 months). Brilliant woman.  She was bedridden the last 3 or 4 years of her life, and yet somehow always knew what was going on with everyone before anyone else.  What kind of person does it take to call from her bed and say, you need to check on your cousin/aunt/sister? I’ll tell you. It’s the kind of person that would listen in to Bible study faithfully via phone and be able to tell you who was new or visiting based on voice recognition. I have no grandparents left, and each of my parents is the oldest child in their respective families. Someone said to me, “Your parents are the oldest people in your family now.” Intellectually I knew that. But I hadn’t quite thought of it that way. It’s a sobering concept.

So what brought on this wave of nostalgia? My mother—she has so many of her mother’s mannerisms. She’s the new incarnation of my Mama Newsome. So I went to kiss her goodnight that night, and it was the way she turned her head and blew kisses at me. My grandmother used to do that. She called it “fish kisses”. When my Mama craned her neck toward me, she looked just like my grandmother. I was transported to 3.5 years ago and Woodlawn Drive in Jackson, MS, so much so that I started crying right then and there because I miss my grandma. All that made me think of the poem I wrote for my grandmother. I was supposed to give it to her at a mini family reunion we were going to have at her house. The weekend it was planned was the weekend Katrina hit. So we never had it, and I never gave her the poem. Instead, I put it on her obituary. Enjoy it.  Reminisce with me.