Henrietta

There have been a lot of days, since my daughter was born, that I've thought about my grandmother, Henrietta. How much I wish that she was around, how much I wish I knew her. My memories of her are still strong, and she's been gone 17 years.

I can't fathom how much she would have taught me as a woman, and as a mother. She was the mother of six children. She lost three of them during her lifetime.

In my mind she's like an angel. She is everything that I want to be. She was so strong, so determined, and so devoted as a wife and mother. She was chasing after 6 children, strangling and plucking chickens for dinner, pulling potatoes out of the earth to boil, scrubbing clothes with a washboard, all the while with curlers in her hair and cigarette in her mouth. But as a grandmother she was so soft and gentle.

I miss her.

I hope that even a fraction of her spirit is a part of me.