I Am Rahab…The Grandma of the Future
by Janice Richardson
Times have changed the face of what we perceive a Grandmother to look like, talk like, or even offer the wisdom of days long gone.
Lotti ( grandmother from I AM RAHAB) learned how to be a businesswoman from her grandmother, yet passing on the traditions to the younger generation.
My parents raised me, but my Great grandmother lived with us. We called her Grandma by default. She taught us the real art of being an essential worker, a term that we have become familiar with during this 2020 pandemic, as she took care of another White family that lived down the street in the same community and us.
How to survive in the cold winter months and the scorching hot dog days of summer are the things that she instilled in us. We learned how to sew our clothes and mend holes in our socks. We learned how to grow food, freeze, and can it for the winter. Playing in the yard with the chickens by day and dinner by night was a norm. I still enjoy the memories of taking fabrics and sewing them together as we made patchwork blankets. The conversations didn’t include us because we learned how to listen and ask for permission to speak in the presence of our Elders.
Grandmothers were Big Mamas, who we leaned on for advice. But what happens when time progresses, and we lose the art of being like Big Mama. Do we think about who will give us the wisdom and nurturing care as she did? What happens when the subtle voices of caution are snatched like a waist trainer, squeezing the very life out of us? How do we continue?
We take what we have and the memories that we possess, and we embrace the good times and use what we own to build again.
The face of Grandmother may have changed, but the love and wisdom can remain consistent!!!!
I pray that we will continue the legacy of the Grandmothers gone on and teach our youth how to be survivors, businesswomen, and entrepreneurs because…I AM RAHAB too.
