Grandparents

Category

Is Jesus for Poor People?

[caption id="attachment_1053" align="alignright" width="296"] Me and Celebrity Christian Donnie McClurkin. I wonder if he's rich.[/caption] This morning, I dreamt that Keegan-Michael Key, of the TV Show Key & Peele, kept clotheslining me. He kept hitting my neck in the right place to make me lose my breath. He thought it was funny, and he was trying to make the people around us laugh. I wasn't laughing. I was starting to panic in the dream because I didn’t know how to make him…

Great Expectations

[caption id="attachment_757" align="aligncenter" width="3264"] Me and some of the girls from Spelman College's Early College Program in 1999[/caption] I had my life planned out at nine-years-old. One Thursday night, while I was at my grandmother’s house for our weekly Cosby Show date, we discussed where I would go to college and graduate school. I knew Hillman College would prepare me to become a lawyer, an author, and a cashier. Cliff and Claire Huxtable went there. He was a doctor, and…

Silver Alert

[caption id="attachment_730" align="alignleft" width="316"] My "Grandfather"[/caption] I was shopping for nail polish at a beauty supply store, when I found out that my grandfather was missing. It was six years ago in July. My mom called and told me that no one could find my grandfather. I assumed he would return home soon. I assumed he took an "Alzheimer’s trip," a quick getaway that people with Alzheimer's disease sometimes made. My great-grandfather, on my father’s side, also had Alzheimer’s and…

Will and Ashley

[caption id="attachment_633" align="alignnone" width="471"] "Will" and "Ashley," on The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air[/caption] “You’re dead to me.” For the longest time I thought that phrase was too dramatic and should only be used in Mob movies and reality shows. But as I’ve gotten older, there are a few people in my life that I’ve had to push to the outermost limits of my brain, almost like the deepest, darkest, coldest parts of the sea. They can no longer live in the most…

Grieving Someone I Never Met

[caption id="attachment_152" align="alignleft" width="236"] My grandmother Minnie holding my mom, who is probably going to be upset that I posted this photo. (Sorry.)[/caption] Whenever I walked through my grandfather’s front door, I saw an 8 x 10 photograph of my deceased grandmother sitting on a glass coffee table. I often studied this picture without letting anyone catch me. I examined my grandmother's chocolately, smooth complexion, her pastel blue dress, and her pressed, dark hair with soft curls around her face. “Am I short because of…

My First Heartbreak

[caption id="attachment_58" align="alignleft" width="366"] Me and Gramps[/caption] The first emotional pain that I can remember experiencing was the death of my great-grandfather, “Gramps.” I was 9-years-old when he died; he was 86.   Aside from being a much older relative, I considered Gramps to be my friend. We played together every day after I got out of school. My father worked first shift, and my mother worked second shift. So, my mother would pick me up from school and take…