Living Legacy

People always remember where they were when they experience life changing events.  I was laying on my couch in Houston when my mother called to tell me that my great-grandmother, Ma Patra, had passed away.  I had just seen her the weekend before, so it wasn’t a surprise.  I knew it was coming.  Cancer had taken its toll on her body.  She was ready for rest.

And she deserved rest.  Ma Patra raised my grandmother, mother, and me (for the first five years of my life).  My mom delivered me three days after her high school graduation.  Ma Patra believed in education so off to college my mom went.  I saw my mom all the time and knew that she was my mom, but the bulk of my day to day raising fell on Ma Patra.

She taught me the art of side eyeing people.  She would sit on the couch and be fast asleep, but if you said something, she’d let you know she was just “resting her eyes.”  I loved her laugh and I LOVED her cooking.  Her biscuits let you know that there is a God.  The food from her plate always tasted better than the food from my own plate.  And she let me eat from her plate with no complaints.  With her, I knew what love looked, acted, and felt like.

Don’t get me wrong.  She wasn’t perfect.  She walked right into a sliding glass door trying to get to the balcony so that she could look at the beach.  She laughed and said, “That glass is sooo clean.”  It was even funnier when somebody else did the same thing a little while later.  (In their defense, whoever cleaned that room did it with the spirit of excellence)

She’s been gone for eleven years today and I still miss her so much.  I’m typing this blog wrapped in a blanket that she sewed for me.  Even though her physical body is not here, she left such a strong legacy.  She set a high standard for what living for Christ looked like.  Without using church language, she showed me what being sold out for God meant.  I pray that my family continues to honor her life and legacy by being the hands and feet of Christ on this earth.  In her words, “Soap and water will clean everything but a dirty heart.”  #wepreach