'Early' for the month in honor of my son's great-grandmother: my grandmother, who is being laid to rest as this is posted...
For Mabel Black (5/29/09)
Legacy:
Mabel Black was no saint; she’d be the first to tell you. Others would disagree. Not totally embracing the concept of ‘sainthood’ for anyone, it could be said she was above and beyond any ‘ordinary’ human. One would not have had the honor of knowing this perhaps, had they not known her well, or been her grandchild.
She was not a matriarch in the traditional sense, though some may disagree there also. She certainly wouldn’t have called herself that either. Just being who she was was special in and of itself. She was not ashamed or afraid and was entirely self-possessed: a true role model.
If only today young women could claim themselves as early as Mabel Black did; she was a woman who in many ways was scores of years ahead of her time, who lived to exemplify what she stood for. If girls today (or other humans, for that matter), found and claimed themselves or their respective purposes in the way my grandmother did, the world would have been a better place much sooner, though her legacy was infinitely meaningful, nonetheless.
At a time when other parents were pressured by society to join in marriage when an unexpected child was on the way, Mabel had already done something somewhat radical for her time, though she wasn’t the first. #1: she got a divorce, and #2: she had re-married before her first grandchild was born. Details aside, she had chosen in perhaps a less tolerant time that life was too short not to move on to a situation that suited her better: a lesson for us all. She was blessed to recognize the option, and seize her opportunities.
By the time I was born, with her parents, my grandfather’s and her respective re-marriages, and maternal grandparents all around, with no basis for comparison, I didn’t know it wasn’t ‘normal’ to have four sets of grandparents. Not only that, she seemed to effortlessly juggle caring for her aging parents (Carrie & ‘Larry’), me, & my sister (& ‘Mr. Black’) while my parents worked, as if there was nothing else she would rather do.
It didn’t occur to me then, of course, that she could have made other choices, or that the quality of care she skillfully administered to her parents and me were far superior to the highest caliber of any home care professional nurse or caregiver of a child, all at the same time, as the routine of the day. And it was all done usually without any hitches amidst jokes, smiles, and fun.
It cannot be left out that she had been a popular, confident, and happy child all through school and made others smile in spite of themselves just by being herself, without an objective to be accepted. She was also exceptionally beautiful. Both she and her brother (who passed earlier), had ‘movie-star’ good looks. I remember her telling me what life was like with her parents when her father ran a diner and what their days were like. They were well cared for and enjoyed what they had. Either she or her brother could have simply relied on their looks to get by. Mabel and French were made of different stuff, the substantive kind, learned from their environments and upbringing.
Firsthand, I can only say that this is the quality Mabel successfully passed on as her legacy to her own and this generation, as what has become a part of us down to our DNA on an unconscious level has come through as recently as her great-grandson, Emmett’s writing for 3rd grade. He could choose any topic; his subjects were about a girl being empowered and encouraged to be able to do what’s more recognized as what boys do, and the special bond between a boy, his family, and community, where teamwork and cooperation accomplish more and offer hope where otherwise none may have existed, where smiles quickly replace tears, and there is freedom and energy to help make more happiness for others.
This can be traced directly back to Mabel Black: no nonsense, in the moment, always taking care of what needed to be done with no complaints, and with smiles. Always there when no one else was: loving, strong, and with full knowledge of who she was from an uncommon existence that becomes exemplified in every generation in not enough measure for others to know and become inspired by, because she did what was right with no time for the world to be on notice of her unsung heroism. In this she was not alone, though she succeeded in her purpose: recognizing an option to choose and taking action with no looking back and no regrets. Having a purpose was a conscious choice: the one gift most all of us have in common. She now shares her space with the heroes of all time, not unknown to any of them, laughing and dancing.
In more contemporary terms, Mabel Black was not a ‘diva’, nor a saint, nor a matriarch. Throughout her lifetime, she was likely called many things. Any that were less than complimentary were simple envy for her gifts or the inability or lack to find in themselves what Mabel found in herself, and taught in her own way to every life lucky enough to understand the light inside, as she did, as she helped us find in ourselves.
What Mabel was she would also not call herself. It wasn’t a word in her vocabulary. She identified according to who she was to her family without diminishing her own self-worth: an accomplishment we can all aspire to and learn from.
Mabel Pearl Black was and is an Icon, a Woman of Valor who was successful in being the creator of a legacy. Mabel is now free to not only watch her legacy unfold. She can dance, laugh, and continue making jokes at the same time. Thanks Grandma, for the gift that was you in this human existence that will be with us always, forever, and until next time...
With Love,
Your Infinite Family (with a little help from one of your students: a granddaughter)
