Grandmother

A poem dedicated to the hard and soft legacies that grandmothers leave behind.

Photo by Mike Labrum on Unsplash

Thank you

Grandmother.

Your prayers cover me long after you’ve left this place.

You built the foundation of our family home and ensured the land would stay with your daughters and their descendants.

Women like you are not easy to love.

Trading softness for survival guaranteed the children would always be clothed, fed, and educated.

We are generations because of you.

Your face, a roadmap of all the choices that you made.

All of your body, a sacrifice to the idea of hard work and self-determination.

You made a life, never stepped foot in a church, and yet you taught us, that it was God who blessed you to thrive.

You were always thankful.

Grandmother

I have so many questions.

Did you really build your house brick by brick?

Did you really flee from your husband in the dead of night?

My mother answers for you and says that you did.

I think that I may be like you.

I have also traded softness for survival.

I too am hard to love.

I value my freedom.

I kiss your picture and light a candle in your name.

Thank you

Grandmother.

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