By Dawn Borage
I still remember the sound of my grandmother singing on Sunday mornings. I smell her perfume and her face is vivid in my mind. Sometimes I still hear her walker clicking on our wood floors when the house is silent. My maternal grandmother helped raise my baby sister and I and my paternal grandmother was just as important in our lives. When I became an adult, I realized they never ceased rearing. My mother, aunts and cousins always sought their advice. My paternal grandmother will confidently say, “I don’t know whacha doin but ya need to stop”. It would make you evaluate your entire life. Like how could she know my secrets, my wrongs or my unshared transgressions. She looked straight into your soul with pure maternal energy. These are the types of relationships that shape black communities. Mothers! The ones that never take a break. The ones who are responsible for rearing children and adults inside and outside of their immediate family.
My mother is a stickler for honesty. She definitely inherited her mother’s gift of seeing through half truths and she always shared the full story about situations in her life, even if they were not her most proud moments. Sharing her journey and life’s difficulties had a profound effect on the way we viewed our lives, how we raise our children and the importance of forgiving ourselves. All of the advice that she received from her mother has been passed on to us through her. The importance of respecting yourself, honoring your body, loving your spouse and raising loving children are conversations that we have to this day. She always told us that there was absolutely nothing that we could do to make her not love us. This was our first encounter with unconditional love. The same love that we share with our families and friends today.
It has often been said that a mother’s love is the first love a boy experiences. It teaches him how to love as a man, how to treat a woman and how to cover and lead his family. Maternal love helps with developing expression of feelings and thoughts. It is very important to be heard. Another job of a mother is to help her son communicate his feelings in a way that he will be understood and respected. He is taught that he is deserving of love, compassion and empathy. This creates role models, leaders and amazing husbands and fathers. I remember watching my cousins pick my maternal grandmother up and carry her in the house when she was too weak to walk. The amount of reverence that they gave her was spiritual. She would tell them how proud she was to have such smart and strong men in our family. She also showed them respect as men and reminded them that they were worthy of that respect and love.
Being a woman is deep and it holds so much power. The title of “Mother” has prestige and honor to it. In the church, the wisest women are called “Mother”. Well known women like Maya Angelou, Cicely Tyson, Septima Poinsette Clark and Ruby Dee are often referred to as “Mother” in the black community. Then there are the “Aunties”. This colloquialism is very controversial because of its history and connection with the extortion of black women like Aunt Jemima. Recently, we have taken this term back and have detached the shame and racial stigmas. In endearment, aunty refers to your “other mother”. It is also a woman younger than the mothers but older than you who is respected in the community. The aunties hold another vital piece in the maternal lineage. They are tasked with rearing women and men but they have a special connection with the younger generation who are reluctant to approach the older mothers. Most importantly, in the black community “Aunty” does not have to be your blood aunt. She is an advisor, confidant and protector.
The maternal lineage in any family or community is something that can not be replaced. Maternal guidance is a major piece in creating loving individuals and contributors to society. Women are the creators of life, therefore motherhood in itself is Godly. It is sometimes the link that holds a family together. Black mothers have had to feed white babies from their breasts while their own children starve. They have endured demeaning and violent attacks on their full lips, wide hips, round behinds and thick thighs but they still make it a priority to plant seeds of pride in other black women. Black mothers have had to watch their husbands be beaten and forced to sleep with white women but still make it a priority to lift the black man up with love, compassion and understanding. Black mothers have seen their children taken and sold but they still teach forgiveness and unconditional love. The strong black maternal lineage has uplifted our people and uprooted hate. It has been imperative to the success of the black community. We honor the legacy of the maternal lineage because without it there is no us
