Gifts

I am overwhelmed by the inauguration of President Obama.
Stories are bubbling up.
For everyone.
My story is about my mom.
I am so sorry she was not alive to see President Obama take office.
She would have cried all day.
Too.
These memories of her flood in me and they are gifts.

I must have been four when I first remember our annual six day journey
on remote southern roads to visit my grandfather. It was just the two
of us. Always. We drove an old green Rambler with the windows rolled
down to help with the summer heat. She refused to use the "white only"
fountains and bathrooms and lunchrooms. She was 32 years old in
1957, she was divorced, and she had a young daughter with her. My God.
I thank her.

At eight we went into migrant camps. She carried lessons for the children who
had to quit the third grade to work in fields so their families could
eat. She spoke very little on the drive in, it was just what you did. I thank her
for recognizing the work andsharing it with me.

As a public school teacher she never made alot of money but she
quietly paid for the dental work for classroom assistants. And as a woman figuring it out financially she shared the possibilities of teaching with Geraldine,
the school custodian, also figuring it out on her own. Geraldine
became a teacher at the very same school after ten years of night
school. My mom and Geraldine plotted in our home some evenings after
school. I thank them both for this vision of one woman supporting
another woman and breaking barriers.

My mother cried watching on television the civil rights struggle in
the deep south, and she was desperately sad that she had not gone in support and to
ride the buses. I watched her and as a child I felt both the despair
and the determination of the time. I thank her for sharing how close
injustice cuts us all.

These are just a few of my experiences growing up as my mother's
daughter. On Monday and Tuesday and Wednesday I remembered my mother. More.
More than I had remembered my mom for decades.

Obama remembered my mother in his inauguration speech. She was one of
the people in this country who is nameless but who contributed in
countless ways to overcome racism. I was very lucky to have been her daughter,
to have witnessed her love of humanity and her willingness to work for justice.

Healing comes in a variety of ways.
And it spreads.