[Si] TV

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The day we buried my GrandMother was a rainy day in Texas... as i will never forget. The family gathered around in the living room of this house my Grand Father built on a hundred acres of land. Every thing was in slow motion...We have lost our GRAND MOTHER...The nucleus of this immediate circle...My Aunt Lorrene...the oldest sister of ten...kept busy...she was always the one who took care of things...fussin' at my younger cousins playin in the back of the house..." I bet not catch none a yall lil asses on any of my beds".Lol. Aunt Lorrene was always picky about the beds in the house...shoot, she was picky about everything...all the grand kids thought she was mean..they were scared of her...I always use to laugh at her...she was funny to me. She took care of everything...always making sure my Grand Parents had what they needed. My mother and her closest sister Lillie were in the kitchen...taking care of the food that was to be prepared. My cousin Billy, who we called Red, was raised by my Grand Parents. He was my age...Red was somewhere in a distant place in his mind. He just buried the only mother he knew. I remember my Grand Father sitting in his favorite blue lazy boy chair...still...quiet...starring off ...rocking slowly back and forth...I felt my Grand Fathers grief. It was at this moment i recognized grief... My Grand Mother was a big women that always had an apron on...money pinned in her bra..always snackin' on somethin'...she made the best homemade Tea cakes...My Grand Parents lived on a farm...they had chickens, pigs, cows...they had corn fields and vegetable gardens. My Grand Mother made her own pickles and perservatives...there was always jars of cucumbers and fruit sitting in her kitchen window..basking in the sun as they turn into pickles and jelly...she loved sitting in her rockin chair in the living room watching the stories...ooohhh betta not say nuttin when Big Momma is watchin her stories.LOL! It was so bad she had two t.v's goin at the same time..one would be on mute and she'd go back and forth. Lord...Momma even talked to the characters as if they were real. I always laughed at this. It makes me smile now just thinkin about it. Lol! My Grand Father always just let her do her thing...he was a quiet man that worked hard..loved to sit under the big tree that graced the right side of the house..playing dominos with Red and his other sons that would come visit and drink his moonshine.My dad loved drinkin moonshine and playin dominos with Red and Poppa whenever we came to visit....Grand was always talkin...lol...He said she did enough talkin for the both of 'em. lol! What they had worked, they had been friends since they were 14 and 17..over half their lives...they'd been thru it all together..being black in a small town in Texas since the early 1900's..raised a family of ten..survived the KKK..deep racism...the civil rights movement...bought their own land bit by bit, from the years of cotton they and their children picked...started their own cotton gin...raised some of their grand children and became Great Grands and Great Great Grands. My Grand Parents had been together for almost 70 years...I will never forget this day. It was my first experience of death....My Grand Father was then taken to live with his daughter in HillsBoro Texas...he did'nt like "city" life (if u could call HillsBoro,Tx "city life") He complained and withdrew more and more...He was then sent to Bomonte Tx to live with another daughter...He hated it...he wanted to be back in the house and on the land he loved...My Aunts and Uncles did'nt think it was a good idea...My Grand Dad was old..he could'nt hear very well and he moved very slow...all the years of hard work..laboring the land...taking care of the fields...and now his best friend was gone.... I remember the last time i saw him alive...my parents and I went to Bomonte, Tx to visit. My Grand Dad was sitting in a chair by his self in the back room of my Aunt Ednas house... I went back there to sit with him. "Hey Poppa..how ya doin'?" Not too good...Poppa's tired" he replied. He said he was lonely...missed Momma. I hugged him and told him that whenever he feels this way to look at his children and his Grand children and see her there. She's all around him..."You are not alone Poppa..we're here" he just looked at me and nodded his head....I sat there huggin' him for awhile. That's the last conversation I remember having with my grand Father. It was our moment. My Grand Father, Poppa, passed away about a year and a half after his wife..Momma, my Grand Mother. He died on his land at the farm...that's how he wanted it.

I wrote a song in memory of that day my Poppa and I shared  in the back of my Aunt Ednas house in Bomonte, Tx., It's called "Mista". I was thinking of my grand parents tonight...remembering them..their faces...their love..all of the fun times I had visiting them and my cousins on the farm....and I thought of the song I wrote for my Poppa...James and Letha Gipson...my Grand Parents...my Angels...

MISTA

So he sat...

 sadly...

 with his head in his hands

and he cried to his self...cuz she left

and the sound of the rain

eased his heart ache and pain

and an angel came with a message to sing

Mista

You are not alone.

As he rocked in her chair...

he imagined her there...

then he smiled to his self...

 cuz he knew she was there

and the fall of the rain

soothed his heartache and pain

as an angel came with this message to sing

Mista...

You are not alone

Poppa...

You are not alone.