Mom, Grandmother, and race.

A story my mom told me about her childhood, about her mother, my Grandmother, that relates to racial problems. Both are gone, now, but still well loved, but what mom had to say was very powerful.

Mom grew up in a pretty desperate time. She was born in 1907, but she was born into a household that had very little. My Grandfather was a womanizer who left his family alone, and did little to help financially. My Grandmother had five daughters, although later one died due to her poverty. She ignored an infection because of an inability to pay. Reminds me of today, with kudos to nyceve.

Mom chose to remember those good moments of her life, and they meant something to her. As her child, I can only say that I wish all of us had a mom like her. My dad was a good man, too. Mom knew how to pick them. She was a school teacher, and seemed to genuinely love children. I know she loved her own kids.

My favorite of the tales she told of was one Thanksgiving Day, when her mother, far more poor than most of us today, did something exceptional. Down the street in her poor little Oklahoma town was a black family, and she was familiar with their, and her own, poverty. Mom said she baked up a turkey for them, and she and the girls delivered it. Mom was a little put off because they actually had a pig living in the house with them, but that was probably their only means to survive. To have left it outside would invite theft, and the loss of the means to survive. Her mother, Maggie, was a stern old gal, but then she had to be. I once spent a few days at her house, and as I recall (I was quite young) I sat on the sofa and didn't speak.

The four girls she, Maggie, did raise all did well. Two were married off into reasonable situations, two, one of them my mom, became teachers. Maggie helped pay for their college fees in the hope that they would help her later in life. They did, and to them I pay my respects.

My mother, and her mother, have been great, positive influences in my life. There really are good and caring people out there, if you scratch the surface a bit. I think Obama may be trying to do that, and seems to be pretty good at doing it. I do hope he succeeds.