The Women Who Sit Beside Me
This week, I bought a frame for the polaroid of my grandmother- one that has stayed with me throughout college, a handful of moves and several life adventures. My grandmother is in a black cap and gown, on a white background, a middle-aged-woman, holding her GED diploma. After raising 10 children, she went back to school and graduated alongside her youngest child. This is one of the women who would raise me.
When I was younger, she would read the newspaper daily and save articles she knew I would like. One about a musical or an art opening, some horoscopes, but mostly, articles about politics and the world around us. It would baffle some to know that my gramma, a staunch Republican, instilled in me all the values that, as progressive Democrat, I carry with me today. She valued education and family, respect, democracy, and hard work. She loved to joke around and despite her rough edges, had a deeply generous heart. She kept us all fed, and when neighbors were hungry, she never turned anyone away from a meal. We would just make more room. She taught me everything I know, and tomorrow, her polaroid will sit on my desk as I’m sworn in.
My mother, one of the youngest of my gramma’s 10, will sit in one of the chairs behind me. Fiercely independent, my mom made her own rules about what it meant to be a woman of her time. Instead of getting married and having children right away, my mom was a single woman who worked hard, traveled the southwest, changed her own damn oil and had me, her first daughter, on her own terms. My mom taught me what it means to fight for bodily autonomy and to make decisions about my own life.
And in two seats still, will be my adopted mothers. The two who allowed me into their home as a young person during difficult times, fed, me, housed me, and claimed me as their own. They were the first to teach me how to love exactly who I am and help me to see the richness in where and how I grew up. They showed me the beauty in music and creativity- in being soft and strong at the same time.
They say you are who you hang around with, and I can only hope that’s true, because these women- they are the ones who sit beside me.
