Their places at the Thanksgiving and Christmas tables have been empty in some cases for many years. Some say you have memories but you cannot speak with a memory and you cannot hug a memory. The tears last forever.
For the ones for which I have no photos I pour Libation and speak your name that your memory may never be forgotten. Wounds that will never heal. Tears that flow like a river into seas and oceans far from the distant shore. Ase.
Delbert Callahan, Gladys Young, Linda James, Clarence and Mamie Finney and the list goes on of family and friends most taken from this earth way too soon meaning except for two all died in their 50s and 60s. Every year that I get older the more people my age who pass away. Sometimes I wonder if I’ll be next and in what circumstances I will leave this earth.
Bernadine I still miss you so much. I carry your prayer card in my uniform every day. I still miss your smiling face and your laughter. However I know as much sorrow is in my heart your daughter and two sisters are hurting more than me and this year there will be no Christmas for your Loved ones.
Empty Chairs. Sorrow-filled hearts. Even though my parents have been gone close to twenty years I’ve never completely gotten over their loss and probably I never will. I still feel that ache Thanksgiving, Christmas and especially on Mother’s and Father’s Day which I don’t celebrate. When my parents passed away and I had to go through all their belongings and sort out things in their home one of the things I made sure went into the garbage was the Christmas tree and all the ornaments, even the ones dating back to the 50s and 60s because what sense would it make to have kept those things when the people who gave them meaning are gone? Of course now my space is the size of a postage stamp so I’m glad I tossed that Holiday junk. Since I never married nor had children it made no sense to carry on any type of holiday traditions. I make sure my brother Stephen has gifts and we go out on the town but I stopped decorating and sending Christmas cards long ago.
Fortunately this year I will be working on Christmas day and I am happy for the welcome distraction. My job will help me take my mind off what is a depressing holiday for me.
Mom & Dad
My Dad Edward G. Palmer
My Dad Edward G. Palmer
Mom Mable Palmer
Mable Elizabeth Palmer ~~ My Mom
My Grandfather William J. Palmer with some of his children in Mt. Morris aka Marcus Garvey Park
With your answers, please remember we are in the SYW world which may not always match our reality.
List 2 things you have to be happy about?
My brother Stephen
My Cat Sylvester
A measure of health and strength
My Blogging Family
As always I get carried away and can’t just list two!!
If you could take a photograph, paint a picture or write a story of any place in the world, what and where would it be?
Hawaii. It’s a place that I’ve yet to visit and is on my list of places to Travel when Retired.
Should children be seen and not heard?
Sounds like what my Dad used to say when we were kids, “That children should be seen and not heard!” Ha! Ha! LOL!! Well that did not work as I was always bugging him. I think he used to say that as a joke. Daddy would come home from work and even though he was tired he would get down on the floor and play with us if we were awake and he always took us places on the weekends to give my Mom a break.
I never had children but when my young cousins were little kids I took them many places and enjoyed their company. Child care can be challenging but I enjoyed babysitting them. I encouraged them to speak up to talk with me. In my opinion communication with kids is vital. Even if you disagree with the child or they say something completely off well that gives the adult the opportunity to explain to them about plants, animals, people and life in general. Always listen to children. They have wonderful unfettered imaginations!
List at least five of your favorite first names.
DeBorah
Stephen
Edward
Mable
Thelma
Helen
William
Eva
Gladys
Clarence
Hattie
Veronica
Yup!! These are all Family Names!! I know this list is more than five but once you get started!!
Family Photo Collage
Rufus & Chaka Khan – Once You Get Started
Bonus question: What are you grateful for from last week, and what are you looking forward to in the week coming up?
Health
Well-being
A nice clean safe place to Love. I Love Brooklyn!!
My Cat Sylvester.
Wonderful co-workers with whom I laugh and joke with about the nuttiness on our job.
No Matter What Other People Think or Say About Me, God Loves Me with a Sense of Purpose. The words of the enemy mean nothing to me only what God has to say about me. My writing and photography are my Passions and my Purpose. My brother Stephen is often my Muse.
My Raison D’être
Habakkuk2:2-3
New King James Version (NKJV)
The Just Live by Faith
2Then the Lord answered me and said:
“Write the vision
And make it plain on tablets,
That he may run who reads it. 3 For the vision is yet for an appointed time;
But at the end it will speak, and it will not lie.
Though it tarries, wait for it;
Because it will surely come,
It will not tarry.
In the USA March is Women’s History Month. Borrowing a phrase I heard used I Declare and Decree this Black HerStory Month. Twenty-Eight or in the case of this year 29 days is not enough to celebrate the achievements of African Americans nor do we often hear about the accomplishments or even acknowledge Black Women so I Proclaim March Black HerStory Month.
First Honors and Praises to the Our Black Family Matriarchs. Our Queens! From what I’ve been told I am very Blessed and Fortunate to have family photos from my Dad’s side dating back to the 19th century. My Paternal Grandmother Eva Sophronia Gordon Palmer kept meticulous records recording the name of each ancestor on the back of the photos. The one Woman ancestor photo that does not have a name is a tintype and at some point the name either fell off or became detached.
I have only a few photos of my Maternal Women ancestors as my mother’s family did not have the money to either purchase cameras or pay to have their photos professionally taken. All have now gone onto to Glory and passed into eternity but even the 19th Century Queens who I did not get a chance to meet in person I carry not only their DNA but their strength, faith and fortitude to preserve in and over all circumstances. Ancestral Memories flow through my veins.
Aunt Carrie_George Gordon’s sisterAunt SusanAunt CarrieEva Sophronia Gordon Palmer — Paternal GrandmotherMable Elizabeth Palmer circa 1950sMaternal Grandmother Hattie Banks 12251974_Dayton OhioRosalie Palmer_William Palmer’s SisterMy Mom Mable Elizabeth Palmer around 1956Aunt Thelma, me, & Aunt Helen at my High School graduation in 1977Helen Louise Palmer Garcia ~~ My Dad’s Oldest SisterAunt HannahUnknown Woman Ancestor on my Dad’s side. This is a tintype and her name must have fallen off at some point.Mable Elizabeth Palmer ~~ My MomMMC 2002 GraduationTwo of the Sisters. My Mom Mable Elizabeth Palmer and Helen James.Aunt Thelma circa 1940s or 50s
The Lioness of Judah Reigns. The Lioness does not concern Herself with the opinions of a sheep for She is the Alpha Female of the Tribe!! Victory is within her grasp!! Time to Rise and Grind!! For I come from Great Peoples of both African and Native American Ancestors who built a Great Nation!! A Warrior Queen may rest but only to regroup and come back even stronger than before!! The bloods of Nzingha, Queen of Ndongo, Yaa Asantewaa was the queen mother of the Edweso tribe of the Asante (Ashanti) in what is modern Ghana, Candace, Makeda ~ The Queen of Sheba, and Amina flow through me!! I am a Nubian/Native American Queen!!
4 When Ehud was dead, the children of Israel again did evil in the sight of theLord. 2 So the Lord sold them into the hand of Jabin king of Canaan, who reigned in Hazor. The commander of his army was Sisera, who dwelt in Harosheth Hagoyim. 3 And the children of Israel cried out to the Lord; for Jabin had nine hundred chariots of iron, and for twenty years he had harshly oppressed the children of Israel.
4 Now Deborah, a prophetess, the wife of Lapidoth, was judging Israel at that time. 5 And she would sit under the palm tree of Deborah between Ramah and Bethel in the mountains of Ephraim. And the children of Israel came up to her for judgment. 6 Then she sent and called for Barak the son of Abinoam from Kedesh in Naphtali, and said to him, “Has not the Lord God of Israel commanded, ‘Go and deploy troops at Mount Tabor; take with you ten thousand men of the sons of Naphtali and of the sons of Zebulun; 7 and against you I will deploy Sisera, the commander of Jabin’s army, with his chariots and his multitude at the River Kishon; and I will deliver him into your hand’?”
8 And Barak said to her, “If you will go with me, then I will go; but if you will not go with me, I will not go!”
9 So she said, “I will surely go with you; nevertheless there will be no glory for you in the journey you are taking, for the Lord will sell Sisera into the hand of a woman.” Then Deborah arose and went with Barak to Kedesh. 10 And Barak called Zebulun and Naphtali to Kedesh; he went up with ten thousand men under his command,[a] and Deborah went up with him.
11 Now Heber the Kenite, of the children of Hobab the father-in-law of Moses, had separated himself from the Kenites and pitched his tent near the terebinth tree at Zaanaim, which is beside Kedesh.
12 And they reported to Sisera that Barak the son of Abinoam had gone up to Mount Tabor. 13 So Sisera gathered together all his chariots, nine hundred chariots of iron, and all the people who were with him, from Harosheth Hagoyim to the River Kishon.
14 Then Deborah said to Barak, “Up! For this is the day in which the Lord has delivered Sisera into your hand. Has not the Lord gone out before you?” So Barak went down from Mount Tabor with ten thousand men following him.15 And the Lord routed Sisera and all his chariots and all his army with the edge of the sword before Barak; and Sisera alighted from his chariot and fled away on foot. 16 But Barak pursued the chariots and the army as far as Harosheth Hagoyim, and all the army of Sisera fell by the edge of the sword; not a man was left.
17 However, Sisera had fled away on foot to the tent of Jael, the wife of Heber the Kenite; for there was peace between Jabin king of Hazor and the house of Heber the Kenite. 18 And Jael went out to meet Sisera, and said to him, “Turn aside, my lord, turn aside to me; do not fear.” And when he had turned aside with her into the tent, she covered him with a blanket.
19 Then he said to her, “Please give me a little water to drink, for I am thirsty.” So she opened a jug of milk, gave him a drink, and covered him. 20 And he said to her, “Stand at the door of the tent, and if any man comes and inquires of you, and says, ‘Is there any man here?’ you shall say, ‘No.’”
21 Then Jael, Heber’s wife, took a tent peg and took a hammer in her hand, and went softly to him and drove the peg into his temple, and it went down into the ground; for he was fast asleep and weary. So he died. 22 And then, as Barak pursued Sisera, Jael came out to meet him, and said to him, “Come, I will show you the man whom you seek.” And when he went into her tent, there lay Sisera, dead with the peg in his temple.
23 So on that day God subdued Jabin king of Canaan in the presence of the children of Israel. 24 And the hand of the children of Israel grew stronger and stronger against Jabin king of Canaan, until they had destroyed Jabin king of Canaan.
You May have Stolen My Land but not my Spirit!! I have been anointed and called by My Eternal Ancestors for a time such as this!!
Name know only to God. Paternal Woman Ancestor
Philippians 3:13-14 King James Version (KJV)
13 Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended: but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before,
14 I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.
Espiritu en Fuego/A Fiery Spirit 