International Women Day: You are a Legacy

You are so much more than your circumstances.

You are a woman and you will always look to the East.

You will Run. Walk. Crawl toward the light.

No matter how bleak your skies look, no matter how dark your circumstances.

To the seed that you were in your mother’s mother’s uterus two generations ago.

That woman knew you’d be an oak tree.

That woman knew the shape or your heart, when she pushed your mother out in a howl at dawn.

That woman knew, when she held her to her breast and squeezed her own milk out for her as she took her first breath.

That woman knew, as she stirred her “kapama” with a wooden spoon and your mother under feet.

That woman knew, as she rolled your hair into pin curls with her fingers.

That woman knew, as she taught you how to clean green onions and how to add butter to a roux.

That woman, who gave her bone marrow to her sister when nobody else would.

That woman, who tucked you in with “It’s a sin to tell a lie,” by Billie holiday even though the same song was used to slander her because she “dared to sing publically as a woman."

That woman, even as alzheimers took her memory, remembered you.

You are someone’s most precious seed. You are loved. You are a legacy.