GC Mother’s Day Message: Grandma’s Baby, Mama’s Maybe

My grandmother hated to see anyone treated unjustly, as do I. She rallied for the underdog, often quietly without attention drawn to her good works. She could be counted on to speak up and out; that would be me too. And one of the most important things that bonded me to Irene would be something I didn’t learn until a year before she died: Gaga was a little crazy, in a good way and just like me.

The year before she died I remember belly laughing and rolling around the floor with her – howling over something absurd and loving every second of it. We’d laugh until tears fell out of our eyes and our tummies ached. We were silly girls. And I often imagine had she lived we’d only become sillier girls.

Friends of the family and family rarely refer to my biological mother as my mother. They’ll say, “Your mother –” and I will begin to correct them and they’ll correct me and say, “I meant your grandmother.”

On the right side of my face is a birthmark, one I share with my grandmother. For years, the years before she died, I wanted to get rid of it. After she died, I found myself touching it when I thought of her, just to check if it’s still there, I guess. It is still there.

There are so many children being raised by their grandmothers now and the conditions causing that is a sin and a shame. Still, I think it’s probably best for the children or at least I pray it is – no child needs another adult to fail them or not want them. Grandma, even while mama by default, is really the mama.

Proudly I say, I am grandma’s baby, mama’s maybe. I look like my mother, but in spirit I’m in the spitting image of my grandmother on most things. I am undeniably my grandmother’s daughter.

Posthumously, I say ‘thank you’ to Gaga. That’s all I can say without choking up.

Before it’s too late, I say ‘thank you’ to my mother. She not only got me where I needed to go, but she taught me a few things too.