Celebrating International Women’s Day

Today is International Women’s Day and March is Women’s History Month. No doubt there will be countless stories written about famous women, great women that have done amazing things. Women like Susan B. Anthony or Amelia Earhart.

The thing is, throughout history, women have been quietly doing amazing things each and every day without fanfare. Today, I thought I’d celebrate a few of them, each strong, wise Black women who despite any and all odds against them, were legendary in their own right and in one way or another, made me the woman I am today.

First up is my adopted mother, Winnie:

It’s almost beyond common knowledge to say my mother and I had a complicated relationship. She and my dad adopted me when she was 43. Their only child until my arrival was a then 15-year-old son.

Winnie made no secret that she wasn’t keen on bringing another child into the home. She felt too old, too tired, and too broke. But duty, and my father, called and she signed on the dotted line.

Oh, and she didn’t just get me, she got my brother and sister for a full year too. My brother was 6, my sister was 18 months. She and my adopted father struck a deal with social services and my biological father that allowed bio-dad to regain custody of the older two once he got his life in order after my birth mother’s death.

Winnie wasn’t perfect. In fact, she could often be a nightmare, but she could also be pretty awesome at times and was instrumental in how I turned out.

She taught me to read when I was 3. She introduced me to a world and a love of learning. She taught me the value of education. She pushed me when I didn’t want to push myself.

She encouraged my youthful scribbles and fought with endless teachers to see that her daughter got her due because as a bright young Black child in the 1930s, she didn’t.

She was always waiting at lunchtime for me with a hot meal and after school with a snack.

She also taught me to trust my gut way before I could ever understand what the meant. She used to tell me that if people felt off, it was because they were, in fact, off. She was right. Boy, was she right!

She was generous to a fault and gave out care packages to relatives and friends for Christmas. Little boxes of love filled with canned goods and treats, a throwback to her Depression-era upbringing.

And she adored her grandchildren in a way she couldn’t adore me.

Most of what I am, good and bad is because of her.

My grandmother, Thea was my father’s mother. Both fathers. Yeah, I know. My birth father was my adopted father’s baby brother. But I digress.

I never met her. She died of a stroke on July 27, 1970, exactly a year before I made my eventful debut.

But this was a woman that held it down! She raised 11 kids and lost 1 as an infant. I think. I hope I didn’t miss anyone. She had a husband that came back from WWI a different man than he was when he left.

The traumas of war changed him. He drank. He wasn’t always nice.

Being Black in the 1930s and 40s wasn’t easy in Canada. And being Black and poor was tougher still, but Thea was a gentle soul with a kind heart according to my father. Without her, I wouldn’t be here.

My Great grandmother, Ada was likely even a bigger influence on me than my grandmother because she was a huge influence on my dad. You can see her in the picture above next to her daughter.

I have very vague recollections of Granny Dymond. She passed in 1979. I remember being taken to see her as a child and being annoyed that my days of play were interrupted to visit dusty old people. God, I was an ass!

I should have had more respect. That woman was my father’s salvation! When he quit school at 10, she took him in. She knew he suffered the brunt of his father’s drunken anger. She was a woman of quiet strength, great faith, and generosity. She faced racism, poverty and struggle with grace and dignity.

She loved to cook and Dad learned at her feet. They could cook anything! No measuring, just a little of this, a pinch of that, and somehow, deliciousness came out!

That love of cooking (and eating) lives on in me. There aren’t many things I do well in life, but man, I tell you, like my Daddy, my granny, and my great granny, I can whip up a feed that will make your head spin! But you better act quick, because I’ll eat it all too.

Finally, I give you my stepmother, well, sort of, Erna. She was my biological father’s wife and gave him 3 beautiful children.

Erna only got 58 years on this earth, but she made them count! If there was ever a person on the planet that taught me the value of family, it was her.

I met her first as a 16-year-old kid struggling with her identity. I wanted to meet the father I came from. I wanted to find some sort of link to the only person that made me, you know, me.

I also wanted answers. Answers about my mother. Answers about what happened to her and how I came to be adopted.

She was a busy woman. She had 3 kids, 10, 8, and 5. She had a job, actually 2, maybe 3. That woman worked her ass off! And there I was a white-faced blast from the past that would have been easier ignored than dealt with.

Yeah, that wasn’t her style. She took me right into the fold as one of her own. She answered my questions as best she could and was honest in telling me what she didn’t know.

That was huge for me. My existence was a huge scandal in the town I was born in. Most people made up stories to look like they knew or were on the inside of it all. Everyone wants the scoop, right?

Not Erna. She told me straight. If she didn’t know, she said, “I don’t know.” She didn’t pretend to be on the scene when she wasn’t. She didn’t try to fill in the blanks, she just said she didn’t know.

She could have resented me. She could have rejected me. I was different. I didn’t look like her or her kids. I didn’t act like them. She had no legal obligation to me, I was adopted out. Didn’t matter. I was family.

When I graduated from law school and began practicing law, I visited her and my siblings. She put on a big feed because that’s what we do and I was received by dozens of relatives all waiting to see me.

It was a bit strange. But one moment stood out. There was a cousin, I think it was her cousin, not mine. She asked Erna, “Who’s that white girl?”

And Erna didn’t miss a beat, “That’s my daughter,” she said because that’s the kind of woman she was. She didn’t see adoption papers or skin tone, she saw a child of her husband, which made me a child of hers. It was that simple.

These women all contributed to who I am now and I hold each of them in my heart in different ways. None of them were rich in money, but they were rich in the things that matter and that’s what they passed down to me, hard work, love, compassion, generosity, and acceptance.

These women are true queens and on this International Women’s Day, it’s time to give them their crowns.

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Originally published on Medium.com