PARENTAL LOVE

I LOVE PARENTAL LOVE Mama and Daddy loved education; loved Jesus Christ; loved Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.; loved Stokely Carmichael; loved Malcolm X; loved John Fitzgerald Kennedy; loved Lyndon Baines Johnson; loved books; loved good while folks and good black folks; loved hosting food festivals-family get togethers during holidays. Momma and Daddy loved St. Matthews C.M. E. Church and our Kirkwood-Webster Groves, Missouri, neighborhoods. They especially loved their deep birth Mississippi roots, heritage, values, huge family whom they visited frequently on vacations. Momma and Daddy loved love ❤️! Momma and Daddy loved fun and laughter; they loved overcoming challenges. Mama and Daddy loved life; loved each other, loved children, grandchildren (step and half) and Momma and Daddy loved each second of the life with which they had been gifted by God and graced by circumstance. They did not complain. They would protest. But they knew that what God had for them was for them. They looked back appreciably over how far the Lord had brought them together as one and marveled all the more at wonder, power, goodness of God! Great southern-migration parents, like my own parents, whose eternal, invaluable bequests to their eight offspring (and every one else who was kin or somehow known) was abounding love, laughter, hope, faith in Jesus Christ, work, celebration of life, constructive engagement, land ownership, as much education as possible, and perseverance, no matter what, till victory is won! Such parents as these I know best and are those whom I most adore.