my family.

When I was a very little girl, I would often get to spend weekends at my great-grandmothers home. She was what everyone would envision in an “nana”… very outspoken, sharp in dress, generous, and a very devout Christian. Her name was Lucille but everyone called her Big Mama.

What made me enjoy my time most with Big Mama was not the time she taught me how to pray, or the time spent in the garden picking vegetables, nor watching her cook, or me getting to eavesdrop on the many juicy grown folks conversations about church and the like. No, I enjoyed sitting down to listen to her personal stories and going through her old photo albums the most. I could do that for hours on end if she’d let me.

To hear what it was like as a black woman living in the south, being born in 1918… how she came to move up north…. stories of her own grandparents and aunts and uncles. Stories of my ancestors literally brought them to life in my imagination for a little girl like me. The stories gave me faces, and names, history, and purpose.

What she chose to share with me instilled a spark that pushed me to start researching my grandfathers family tree later in life. My sweet, dedicated grandfather whom I also loved hearing family stories from so much.

Most of what I would hear from both of them were tragic, and unfortunate. But, they also talked a lot about resilience and strength, and most of all love.

And so for the beginning of black history month, I choose to reflect on my great grandmother as well as my grandfather and all that they went through and sacrificed. We all have personal victors of diversity who have touched our lives in so many unique ways, directly and indirectly.

To all those known and unknown, this is my personal Thank you.