The women in their lives!

I had such a delightful time cooking dinner tonight. Grace went on and on and on telling me about her mother, grandmother, great grandmother. The thing that triggered the conversation was "corn on the cob" which coincidentally being a girl from Illinois was a vegetable that connected me to my grandparents as well. So, she told me her mother loved corn on the cob but would cook it in the husk right over the flame. Then she told me how her mother also liked coffee and would cook it in a really small pot (sounds like espresso) also over one flame. They would have people over to eat injera and have coffee. Then she told me her mom also loved popcorn but would put sugar on it. Then she reminisced about her great grandmothers house and how she had two dogs (one would bark and growl at her when she went toward her puppies). That home had 3 bedrooms and bathrooms with holes in the ground but was nice. There was a cow, roosters and a goat there too. Great grandmother loved flowers and would cook bananas and make berbere and shiro. Food would come in these giant white bags like pillowcases (Grace then literally pulled out a pillowcase to illustrate).

She also described her mother as tall and having beautiful long wavy hair. She would braid Grace's hair into two braids. Grace had friends and lived with her mother two brothers and father. THey were so happy. Her father left when her mother became pregnant with Ella. Then he died. Grace hated the men that came around after that. Her mom got sick. Very very sick....Ella and Jared lived with her mom. She lived with Grandmother. The neighbor lady took care of her mother and the two youngest when they were really young and mom was very sick. Grace was called to be with her mom before her death. When she showed up again to say goodbye ...she was already dead. Grandmother took them all in. The lady in the village helped them make the decision to put them up for adoption together.

I think about the people in their early lives. I think and pray about Bayoush their mother and Atalay their grandmother (who is still alive) and I see so many similarities. Our conversations with Grace brings simultaneous joy and sorrow as we speak. WHY did they not have the privilege to see how beautiful these children are as they grow.?I am reminded of the loss for the children especially Grace who really remember, in the simple things like watching the way her mother would chop onions or make popcorn with oil and sugar. I don't think I can ever recapture the flavor of her mother's SHIRO or Popcorn. I don't know if she will ever taste popcorn like that again. Those women who stood strong as a sister/daughter died amongst them and took the hands of these children and led them into the gates of Layla and then eventually into my arms. I am so grateful for all of the women and men still in Ethiopia who adopt the hundreds of children into their families with no paperwork but just an extended hand to the neighbors child whose parent just died.

I pray that my children, especially my girls can grow to be very old women and extend their hands to those in need. I pray they are spared any more anguish in their lives but that their lives are filled with constant joy and happiness. I pray they will get married and be surrounded by friends and girlfriends they dress up in hopefully some decent bridesmaids dresses. I hope they will teach their daughters how to make popcorn that has the salt from the recipe I learned from my sisters and mother and the sweet sugar recipe that that she remembers from her mom in Ethiopia (no doubt a recipe she learned from some other amazing woman).