Mama scolded, “You ate the fruit of freedom from a tree you ain’t planted. You know that, don’ you?”
Mama was referring to one of her favorite sayings: “You eat from trees you did not plant and are obliged to plant trees you will not eat from.”
Jordan nodded.
Mama continued, “I ain’t saying you don’ have reason to be blue. You los’ a lot—more than most—way too young and too many times. But you gonna see the ocean! Imagine that. The ocean, baby.” Wonder filled the older woman’s voice.
Jordan jerked her shoulders up and down.
“It ain’t nothing to shrug at!” Mama scolded. “You the first woman to see the ocean in our family since . . . well, prob’y since Africa. They was all bound up and taken to a strange land. They had enough faith in a better tomorrow to get us here. It ain’t the promised land, but you know you got it easy—so easy—compared to them. Don’ you forget it!”
A tear slipped out of Jordan’s eye and slid down her cheek. She wiped it away.
“You think I don’t know that, Mama?” Jordan pushed the words out through a tight throat. “Every morning and every night I tell myself that I’m blessed, but I can’t get my soul to unfurl again.” She took a shaky breath. “I have asked God to bring me peace so many times, but He’s not listening. Instead, He’s bringing me additional pain by taking you from me.”
“God listening. He always listening. And He always loving. But He don’ always have the power to make our prayers come true. If He did, justice would be flowin’ like water. Our Lord is jus’ like a mama. He wanting what’s best for His children but not always able to make it so.” Mama patted Jordan’s hand and said in a raspy voice, “The Lord gave me a long life, a good life. I don’ need more. I can go in peace.”
“You may be ready, Mama, but I’m not.” Jordan didn’t try to keep the bitterness out of her voice. Four deaths in three years. She could not forgive God. She didn’t even want to.
“Jordan, when you first born, you cry and the folks around you have smiles on they faces. If you live you life right, when you die you have a smile on you face and the folks surroundin’ you have tears in they eyes.”
Mama continued, “We been blessed to have each other on this earth. I gonna die with a smile on my face. You tears are gonna bless me on my way home. I gonna see Pops, my mama, Margaret, and baby Grace. They all gonna be welcomin’ me to heaven. And now I get to watch over you and yours—like they been watchin’ over us.”
Jordan took her mama’s hand in hers. Filled with sorrow, her heart hurt so much that it felt ready to burst. She brought Mama’s warm, bony fingers to her cheek and kissed them tenderly. She swallowed hard.
“I love you, Mama. And I’m gonna miss you.” Her voice cracked. “So much. Every day. Thanks for being my mama.”
Mama patted Jordan’s cheek. “I love you, baby. Always have. Always will. In this life and the next.”
Later that evening Jordan paused outside the door of her mother’s death chamber as Naomi sat with Mama. The tone of their voices gave Jordan pause. She hovered by the wall, just before the open doorway, to overhear the conversation between her daughter and her mother.
“This is gonna hit her hard,” Mama whispered. “You know that, right?”
“I agree, Grammy,” Naomi replied. “But how can I help her?”
Jordan was the “her” they were speaking about. Her throat swelled up.
“She need hope again,” Mama said. “In the future.”
Naomi spoke, but Jordan could not make out the words.
“Like a new gran’baby or gettin’ back to teachin’. Somethin’ to help her have faith in what’s to come,” Mama said. “That girl has always expected more from life than is right and then gets too disappointed by the natural course of events.”
Anger flared in Jordan. Mama shouldn’t be telling Naomi her business. She rushed through the door.
The two women startled, Naomi looking as if she had been caught in a lie, and Mama holding that self-righteous I know better than you expression.
“You need to get some sleep,” Jordan barked out. “Naomi, let Grammy rest.”
Naomi nodded, squeezed Mama’s hand, and exchanged a conspiratorial look with her grandmother.
“Don’ blame the girl. I brought up my worry ’bout you,” Mama explained.
“Naomi and Malcolm aren’t anywhere near ready to have babies,” Jordan reprimanded. “Don’t encourage them in that direction. They aren’t even married.”
Mama shook her head from side to side with a small smile. As far as she was concerned the birth of a baby was the wedding.
“How ’bout teaching again . . . when you get to Californi’?” Mama suggested. “I think that gonna revive your spirits. It always gave you hope, planting seeds of knowledge in the little chil’ren.”
I’m too tired, Mama, Jordan thought but didn’t say out loud. It was such a selfish sentiment, too tired. Jordan didn’t need to add disappointment and distress to her mama’s passing. Instead, she smiled with a nod and lied, “That’s a good idea.”
After the war, when she was still young and idealistic, Jordan had taught in a freedmen’s school in Richmond, Virginia. She poured her life into the students, working for a better tomorrow for her people. Before true equality was established, the government had abandoned its commitment to the freedmen. Jordan’s devotion kept a Colored school open, but it had been a constant strain. Abandoning the school and students when her family fled to Illinois was a festering wound to her soul.
In Chicago she had applied to be a teacher for three years before she finally secured one of the few positions for a Colored woman in the Chicago Public Schools, but that had been taken from her as well. In 1892, she was fired in the middle of the year with no explanation. But she knew why she had been dismissed. She organized for Negro representation at the Columbian Exposition and was labeled a rabble-rouser.
She did not want to hand over her reputation and well-being to a government that had no regard for her. She’d rather clean houses than devote herself to causes that could never be won. Mama would be deeply disappointed in her if she knew the truth. But she just didn’t have her mama’s faith, or strength.
“More?” Jordan asked, pointing to the Bible, grateful for a distraction that would be a comfort to Mama. She sat down beside her mother’s bed.
Mama nodded, patted her arm, and closed her eyes, but before Jordan could start reading, Mama interrupted. “Promise me something, Jordan.” Her voice was quiet and firm.
Jordan raised her eyebrows in a question, wanting to know the request before she committed to it.
“Dig up some crocuses to bring with you across this land, okay?”
Relieved, Jordan sighed and smiled. She replied, “Yes, Mama, I can promise you that.”
Mama smiled. “Then you gonna know that spring is gonna come. A better day always comes after the col’ of winter . . .”
Jordan was glad she could offer her mother this promise. She didn’t ruin Mama’s victory by reminding her that there was no winter in Oakland.