It Takes A Village

We grew up surrounded by mothers… a village of them. Most of the time you had to run and get daddy, but mother was a constant presence. Most of them worked outside of the home, but there was always one around when needed and when least expected… an all too watchful eye… a dispenser of discipline. Pauline was one of those mothers.

Robert, Pauline and Christine Newson grew up in Mount Vernon, Georgia with my grandmother and great aunts. Their mother, Susie, was one of several women who dated my widowed great-grandfather. Mother Sue was most loved and respected above all his companions because she was concerned with the children. At Easter when Pauline and Chris got new things, she made sure his girls had new too. She would go as far as to corner him where ever he was, regardless of who he was with to get what was needed so that the children didn’t go without.

When Georgia emptied out into Long Branch everyone pretty much landed within shouting distance of each other in the Grant Court and Seaview Manor housing projects. Sometimes, back doors faced each other. The community was tight. Children were interchangeable. We could go into just about any house and be fed. We might catch a beat down if caught acting up outside the wrong door. Surely there would be one waiting at home. Long before Verizon, the mothers had a network. For most of my childhood I believed Chris and Pauline were my aunts because that is how they behaved. I felt the same love and familial concern in their homes that I felt in those of my aunts. They looked out for me like one of their own. They looked out for all of us.

No one is meant to live forever, regardless of how much we think folks should always be with us. Another great-aunt is gone. There is another void that will never be filled. The best we can do is to cover it with memories and remember the lessons taught.

With each loss we are cast further apart. Along with our matriarchs, traditions pass. Sunday dinners go uncooked and holidays lack luster. The mothers are the glue that held us together. They soothed our hurts and mediated our arguments. Sometimes they disagreed as do sisters and friends, but always held fast to each other. We must follow their example and hold to each other. We must continue old traditions and create new ones so that those coming after us can have the bond that they shared… that we share. We must tell our mothers’ stories… of working in fields and migrating from Georgia… of cleaning another woman’s home to provide for us… of loving us even when they couldn’t stand us. We must tell how they aged with grace and dignity, grateful that all was as well as it could be. Then we must take up their cross and carry on. We must honor them by becoming the village it took to bring us this far.

Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil, but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails.