(For Mildred Ellen Young, my Granny, who just passed one week shy of her 86th Birthday)
Her name is Mildred
Some still call her Middy/Aunt Middy
Her children called/call her Momma
Want something she’d be Mommy
Back when she had a fondness for welt-
painting switches and Daddy’s whipping machine belts,
do something wrong and she’d become
“No, Ma. Please, Momma, no.”
Her children’s children call her Granny
Grand Meir and Grand Ma
Most often they call her
“Can I have some?”
Today we call her matriarch
but to her oldest brother she’ll always be
Lady West Point
this woman who used to be so heavy at a
hundred-two pounds
who gave birth to six
already placed one in the ground
who used to go dancing at the USO
trying to luck up and find a man
trying to luck up and find the man
trouble was, she lucked up and found her man
Who is this woman
Mildred Ellen Mullen-Young
big sister to Mary
still grieving for Nanny
always praying for Stanford
wondering about William
still wishing James wasn’t so far away
who is this woman and what has she got
makes her so much that God’s already given her eighty when
he told Moses that man’s limit was seven-o
Reared in bluegrass
daughter to a railroading man and literate mother
raised with middle class sensibilities in a time when
black folks were thought to be shiftless and dumb
brought up Christian
never left the righteous path
even in migrating from mid-South to up-South
her feet’s been planted in solid ground
always stable, never one to wander or drift
Much more than mere woman
she is an anchor known as wife
loyal like a deep moving river to its shore
faithful as the horizon to the sun’s early light
we come to honor this four-score plus woman
to sing praises to her who deserves to be praised
to memorialize her who is so memorable
to offer love to her who has been our lover and love
to celebrate a life of a woman whose days kept rolling on
to appreciate her for being our strength when we’ve been down
a light in the moments of our blindness
the lifter of our most heaviest woes
and healer of afflictions to heavy to bear
We'll always love you Granny, and miss you.
