The Tree Remains
“…and time will bring you back”
The train to Chicago was 18 hours long. I was fresh out of high school and shared the overhead compartment with the drunkest woman I had ever seen up until then.
“Call your Aunt Pearl” my dad kept telling me. And I did. My father’s cousin, possibly the most genuine person in North America, lived on the south side. I’d call and speak to her every now and then, but swore I was OK. My sophomore year I decided to stop playing around and get myself over there for the full Sunday experience.
She picked me up at 10am on a Sunday (5am to a college student) and took me to her house. She made breakfast — Eggs, bacon, grits, ham, scrapple, pancakes, pork chops, biscuits and cornbread. I peeped the large can of lard on her counter and realized I hadn’t seen lard since my grandmother cooked for me as a child in Philadelphia.
I ate so much I fell asleep. I lied down in her dark living room on the most comfortable couch in the world and felt the safety of being in my mom and dad’s house. It was priceless.
Aunt Pearl…
Aunt Pearl is a gem. Pretty, ladylike, southern and tough. Her family, like millions of black folks, moved to Chicago in the fifties when Jim Crow was just too much. She married and settled on the south side and stayed in contact with my dad Ernest.
I’d never seen anyone cook like her since my grandmother in Philly. Cooking was an all-day affair and it seemed to happen regularly.
As soon as I woke up from my nap, Aunt Pearl told me dinner was ready. More pork chops, mac and cheese, greens, string beans, mashed potatoes, fried chicken, catfish and rice.
I couldn’t conceive of eating anymore but I did and passed out again. When she woke me up to take me home, she said she fixed me a plate. My plate was 6 containers of food.
“I saw your roomates honey, especially that big boy. I know he likes to eat” Pearl said
I laughed. That big boy was Mike, a very cool guy and he and my other 2 roommates, Soseh and Lara devoured Aunt Pearl’s cooking. All week they’d ask me when I was going back.
Her daughter, my cousin Adrienne, would drive me back and I’d just accept the idea that “Wow, family is pretty cool”.
I left Chicago in the fall of 1994 and never returned…..until this past January.
My sketch comedy show, AMERICAN CANDY, got into the 2018 Chicago Sketch Comedy Festival and I was surely going to call Aunt Pearl.
I had so many things on my mind I was stressed. AMERICAN CANDY is my show I started 9 years ago. My team of producers and actors are amazing but I have to stay on point all the time and this festival meant a lot to us.
I connected with my cousin Adrienne and she gave me cousin Eric’s number. Eric, around my age, arranged to bring Aunt Pearl and meet up for breakfast.
Now I’m a crier. It used to embarrass me but I no longer see it as a sign of weakness but rather a fluidity that serves me well. My tears always shed the truth or wash away the pain.
But when I walked through the diner door and saw Aunt Pearl and Cousin Eric I didn’t cry as I thought I would. And it had been 23 and half years since I saw her.
I was just so damn happy she was still alive and that I got to see her so many years later. She squealed and hugged me and I remembered what a hot mess I was as a college girl. Crazy boyfriends, late-night parties and insane plays all made little sense, but her mac and cheese was a life line.
One night she rode me home. She held my hand and said “Hollie baby, call me….I’m family”.
The funny thing about getting older is you often don’t realize what you had until it’s gone. And only it in its absence do you understand its full worth.
Very often youngins (anyone under 30) don’t know how many people are pulling for them, praying for them, thinking about them, watching over them.
I sat at the table and held that beautiful woman’s hand and remembered how she looked out for a nitwit young girl that could barely look out for herself.
I hugged her, thanked her and teared up a little, but most of all my soul was smiling ear to ear.
That college girl grew up and time showed her that true family comes when you call. Not because you are funny or cute or even spend lots of time with them.
But because you are family.
Your roots intersect on the tree of your family’s life. And each leaf must be accounted for. You are one tiny twig that is attached to the branch, attached to the tree of that family’s existence. You are part of them whether you know it or not.
And if you are lucky…you will be gathered to sit in the sun with them, even if its only for a time.
Because if you can survive life’s storms, Time will bring you back. There will be new leaves and branches and some branches will be gone. But some branches will still be there….older and wiser….. and you will be older and wiser too.
And the tree remains.
The tree remains.
Thank you Aunt Pearl.
#HolliesBrain
#YesIAmThatMom
