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

By Robin Caldwell

For though my father and my mother have forsaken me, the LORD will take me up. (Psalm 27: 10 God’s Word Version)

About 20 percent of the black folks I know were raised by their grandmothers. Grandma either had sole custody and guardianship or she played a major role in my friends’ upbringings.

Wait! I was raised by my grandmother too. I’m included in that number.

For the record, I have many fond memories of my mother. My mother was the first person who explained the existence of God to me, in a way that I could wrap my child’s brain around and comprehend. She did it in a manner that I’ve used over the years to explain His existence to little people and older people alike. After I asked “How do you know there is a God?” she answered, “Look at the trees; how did they get here? Then you have to ask who put the stars in the sky…” My mother concluded that humans could not stand on enough ladders to put the stars in the sky or create the seed that created the seed that created the seed and so on that would become a tree.

That’s something I’ll never forget.

My mother also had a love for social dancing and would put on popular records from her day and slide between two doorstops and dance her behind off. I watched and mimicked her often. As a result of dancing by myself or even with her, I’m in love with dance and all of its many forms.

If you want me to cry, take me to the ballet. If you want me to dance until I drop sweat, play some funky music.

One last memory: My mother taught me how to appreciate, truly appreciate a rainy day. To this day in 2008, if I hear the trickle of raindrops against the window pane, I smile. Not only do I smile, I give myself permission to be pensive and relaxed – two things my mother said one should do on a rainy day. She also said that rainy days make for the best sleep and naps were required. On a rainy day, I will stretch and yawn and take a nap, if possible. If not, I will go to bed earlier than usual or fall asleep on the sofa with the television watching me.

Those were some of the good things. There were some bad things too, which is why I have an incredible wealth of memories of my grandmother, Irene or Gaga as I called her.

I kid you not, when things were the absolute worst between my mother and me, Gaga Irene could make things better. I bless the day I realized that my biological mother only gave birth to me so I could have Gaga and she could have me.

Ask my friends, I always say, “Family does not have to get us, they only have to get us where we’re going.” My mother got me where I needed to go and that was to Gaga’s house.

My grandmother was a young grandmother. I’m the result of a teenage pregnancy in an era where those were not acceptable. My mother had to drop out of traditional high school and when she gave birth to me it was in the Salvation Army hospital in the section for unwed mothers. Moreover, I don’t know my father, to this day; I only know his first name …

At any rate, when I moved from the middle-class neighborhood where my mother lived to my grandparents’ home in the ’hood, I thought I struck it rich and not in a materialistic way – in an emotional and spiritual way. I was finally living in a home full-time with a man and woman who loved one another and who rarely argued and who were pretty quiet and peaceful folks – folks who minded their business and who even shared whatever they had with people in need. It took a while before I could believe that I was settled finally and that I would not be sent away, but when I settled in, I didn’t want to leave. I loved being with my grandparents.

Gaga’s influence over me was amazing. It wasn’t until she died that I understood the impact she had on me and my ways. Neither of us was fond of housework, preferring to read, shop or do something ‘more interesting.’ She loved to cook and bake and I loved to eat. Most of what I know about quality clothing, I learned from her. Gaga’s laugh was quirky as is mine. She loved to dance about too, which is probably where my mother got it.

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.

Mommy, thank you for teaching me about God and showing me how to seek Him out and find Him. Thank you so much for my love of dance, and teaching me the two-step in the doorway with my partner the doorstop. Thank you for letting me stay up and watch Imitation of Life with you when I was a child – I still love that movie and pray that’s not me running behind the casket yelling, “That’s my mother!”

Thank you for showing me how to appreciate the rain and a rainy day. And thank you for letting your mother be my mother too. She really did a great job, if I say so myself. It would be really great, if you’d agree too.