Poetry

An Epistle to My Mother

Sunrise 14 Feb 1930

Sunset 23 Nov 2023

?Dear Mother,

?We met at my birth. Decades later, here we are facing old frosty Death. There’s an old saying; ‘Amazing women make amazing mums. Such you were. Because you were, I am.

?Sometimes, our talents drew us close, for example, story and poetry writing, home-making and gardening. Other times, we were oceans apart.

?You were our praise and prayer home tutor and chirpy songbird. When on your hospital bed, I said, Mum let us sing. Knowing that I was no singer, you looked at me with those beautiful green-grey eyes and smiled. ‘Pray Louise. Pray’. We laughed. Then I asked do you know the song ‘Jesus Loves Me This I Know. You replied, ‘Yes. Let us try the first verse’. We harmonised to the point where you said, ‘Let us do the next’. So, we sang and sang. Then, I said do you know the song ‘He is able’. ‘Let us sing it’, you said. We did. ?At that moment, I felt that you felt our shared blessings.

?Like me, you knew that death is the end of earthly life. But, for the faithful of which you were, there is the gift of everlasting life in Heaven’s land. And there, death dared not show up to claim another of God’s children. But I'd like you to know that I understood the inner torment that pain had leashed upon your body. Thus, in Grenadian Creole, you screamed, ‘Mother Police’, Mother. Mother. It was at that intense moment I hurt for you. And in reflection, I saw your mother’s (Momma as we then called her), joyful face at your birth after 7 boys, hence your nicked-named Mama Girl. It is important for me to hold onto your spiritual legacy of faith, trust, Love and hope in our Creator God. Prayers and praise to him oozed continuously from your heart through your trembling lips.

?Reminiscent of your Atlantic passage from Grenada to London.

?In reflection, I am sorry for the hurt that you felt when your body rattled in pain louder than the sound of falling tears. I know now that you were brave and strong. Of the many trials that you endured. Chores you undertook; mother, wife, grandmother and great-grandmother until your dying day, you had an effervescent calm nature and peaceful personality. When the burdens were too heavy to bear, I’d hear. Louise, ‘I just pray and live it to God’. To me, you were an effervescent glow in bleak times. A rock. A river. An Evergreen-tree.

?I want you to know that you were wonderful. Footprints of your prayer, praise and love are your legacy. I believe you died knowing that this your generations will honour. I am joyful knowing that you rest free at last in the womb of Mother Earth.

?I’d like you to know that when we meet face to face on the resurrection morning, joy will erase all fears, and hope will become reality for you are free at last. One more thing; I’d like you to know that it will be such a blissful experience to wrap my arms around your healed body. In that moment you will be like that sweet suckling ‘mama-gal’ on your momma's breast.

?I’d like you to understand that I have not written this epistle to resurrect old pain or fears but, just to tell how much I love and miss you, Mother dear. There is not a day that goes by without reflecting upon your life, looking into your beautiful eyes and sweet smile and hearing your voice echoing through the phone from London to Grenada; ‘Louise have you Got Food?’

?Once upon an era, it was a Caribbean-Atlantic crossing. But. on the resurrection morning, because God so loved the world that he gave his only son so. that human, like you, who lived and died believing in him, shall not perish but have everlasting life, you will cross from mortal to immortal into the gates of that city where death will be no more. There, you will meet Jesus.

?Dear mother, thank you for the privilege of assisting in your caring during your last earthly hours. You must go. But I know that you know, that we are linked by what genealogists call genetics and what Jesus Christ called ‘born again’. That’s why I love you in life and death. And I will love you when we meet again, on the resurrection morn.

Your Beloved Daughter

the Poet

Louise Nyack Francois