My greatest fear as my mother’s daughter was not that I would die, but rather that I would live.
It takes strength to live, courage to wake up each day and face someone that you are so unsure of.
You do not know whether they love you, and yet they say they do.
This is the ambiguity that leads to the
Of Ambivalence, Loss, and What Seemed Retribution … Read More »
by PINOY PHOTOGRAPHER I can only imagine what the months following my father’s death felt like for my mother. Though she had always worked as an elementary school teacher and made her own money, she must have missed my father’s companionship. They had long and routine conversations despite the fact that she regularly criticized him.
Of Companionship, Black and Blue, and The Buddhist Monk’s Pyre … Read More »
My mother was a stickler for rules. They seemed to give her a sense of safety.
I cannot say that I hate rules. I certainly do not like the way those in power misuse and bend them to punish those over whom they seek to maintain control.
I do not know that my mother misused rules. This is a comforting revelation. She was fair.
She did what she said and promised, even if the consequences she warned of involved excessive force or could be considered abusive.
I am not trying to protect my mother from the part of me that she hurt, the aspects
Of Rules, Quilts, A Coat of Many Colors, and Knowing … Read More »
My mother was proud the July afternoon I married. The day before Independence Day, July 3rd, 1982, I marched down the aisle of the church in which my mother and her mother had been faithful members.
Though I had not joined the congregation I attended services. I had chosen membership with my father’s church. The decision had been simple enough. Couples much like my parents comprised the congregations of both churches.
The town in which the two churches existed, where my mother had grown up was
Of My Mother, Black Limousines and The Day I Married … Read More »
I am the keeper of memories and bloodlines in both my families of origin and immediate relations.
By the time I was sixteen both my father and my younger brother, who was my only sibling, had died. Life had severed my family of four during the span of two years into one of me, and my mother.
It was painful, the losses.
I will never know
Of Memories, Loss, and Johnnie Myron Weeks … Read More »
Grace…., a photo by Acoustic Soul on Flickr. It always happens this way. A shooting takes place in our nation. A person and/or others are killed while going about their day. Voices cry out, those of the bereaved family members and others in shock and anger. Stories of the incident make a virulent trek across
Of Mothers, Sons and Actions that Leave Us Eternally Changed… Read More »
The Greek myth of Persephone centers on the relationship between Persephone and her mother, Demeter.
Demeter loved her daughter, Persephone very much. The story goes that the Greek God, Apollo, fathered Persephone by Demeter, Apollo’s sister.
When Persephone goes missing Demeter, quite distraught, searches every hill and valley to find her daughter and only child.
One can only imagine the multitude of emotions that flowed through Demeter.
The goddess of harvest and motherhood, marriage and the crone stage of female wisdom that comes with aging, Demeter led a life of holding her own amid her brothers Apollo (Zeus), Poseidon (Neptune), and Hades (Pluto).
Both Demeter and her daughter, Persephone, stand at the center of the Eleusinian Mysteries.
Initiation into the cult of Demeter and Persephone was said to prepare the participant to receive goodness and bounty in the afterlife that followed death.
Other beliefs held that those who underwent initiation would
Of Mothers, Daughters and Pomegranate Seeds… Read More »