Remembering Mother

Aunt Nita, Aunt Elaine, Ma, Me, and Mother

The last two weeks have been hard for my family to say the least. After burying my uncle we then turned around and had to bury my grandmother nine days later. I knew the day would come for us to say goodbye but I was still unprepared. In a twist of fate or an act of God we were called home due to my uncle's passing. I saw my grandmother that weekend. Had we not had to travel home I would not have gotten to tell her goodbye in person. I will forever be thankful for that. 

Mother

Unlike many people I grew up near my grandmother as a matter of fact just around the corner from her. She was my primary babysitter along with my aunts. She was a feisty, witty, and powerful matriarch. To me she was the funniest person I knew. After giving birth to twelve kids wouldn't you have to have a sense of humor?  Our family is the most hilarious group of people I know and from stories that my aunts and uncles tell it comes directly from their parents. I wish I had been around to see the interaction between my grandmother and grandfather. You can read more about him here. (http://www.blackdebutante.com/2010/05/he-lives-on.html) Although losing Mother was hard I can't help but get a kick out of them being reunited after 30 years apart. 


My grandmother was a lot of things. First and foremost she was a Christian woman who worked hard for her God and her church. That was the hardest thing to deal with after her stroke was her want to get back to church versus her physical ability to get there. Second, she was a mother/caregiver. I remember how great she was at taking care of my mom after her back surgery and how Mother made sure she was in the operating room when I had my surgery at age 6. She wasn't going to let them put me out without her supervision. 

Mother, Me, and Ma

Growing up so close to my maternal family I always wanted to look more like them. I wanted to look like my grandmother and mother. I was always proud of the high cheekbones that my grandmother gave me and when people say I'm beginning to look more like her is the best compliment anyone could give. Outside of the cheekbones I also think she gave me my one-liners that my friends laugh at. If Mother had one thing it was a quick response. She wasn't the bake cookies and coo at you kinda grandma. She was the "I make the best peach cobbler and you kids better be quiet" grandma and I loved her for that. Another thing I loved was how much history she had lived through. I loved talking to her about living through World Wars, the Great Depression, and the Civil Rights Movement. I also loved getting her take on electing the first Black President. She told me she never thought she'd see the day. I also remember her saying she voted for John McCain and then cracking up laughing at my face. 


I try not to be sad that she's gone because after her stroke in 2006 she was never the same again. Her body was racked with pain and now she is free, but as a human being I miss her and I miss the fact that I won't hear her voice. I won't hear her say "there's my smiling girl" when I walk into a room. The biggest sadness comes when I think about the fact that she will never get to see me get married. Let's be real my grandma was QUITE concerned that I wasn't married yet. She got married at 16 so me hitting 32 and still single was something she couldn't quite grasp. She asked me every time she saw me did I have a boyfriend. And of course my answer was no. I never imagined that she wouldn't be there for my big day and this will remain my biggest regret. 

Mother at Christmas dinner

With 10 children, 28 grandchildren, 41 great-grandchildren, 1 great-grandchild and one on the way my grandmother leaves an incredible legacy. Not only did she pass down her humor, she passed down her love of Christ. We are above all else a Christian family and I believe this is due entirely to my grandparents and their love for God. 


I think about her every day and how lucky I was to have grown up with such a powerful woman in my life. She will be missed. 

In Honor of My Uncle

A limb has fallen from the family tree.

I keep hearing a voice that says, "Grieve not for me.

Remember the best times, the laughter, the song.

The good life I lived while I was strong.

Continue my heritage, I'm counting on you.

Keep smiling and surely the sun will shine through.

My mind is at ease, my soul is at rest.

Remembering all, how I truly was blessed.

Continue traditions, no matter how small.

Go on with your life, don't worry about falls

I miss you all dearly, so keep up your chin.

Until the day comes we're together again.

When I think of my uncle I can't help but smile. He was a hard worker, a dear husband, respected father, beloved grandfather and great-grandfather. Yet he was much more than that. When I mentioned his passing to my father the first thing out of his mouth was that he was a great friend. When I mentioned his passing to a family friend she said he was a great provider. When I think of him I recall being a child and him letting me sit on his back and brush his hair including his bald spot. He will truly be missed. If you attended a Hugle family cookout he always made sure you had everything you needed to have a great time. As a matter of fact our last conversation ended with him asking if I had gotten enough to eat. He was always a great host. When I heard the news of his passing I was overcome with sadness but my cousin said it best when she told me he passed doing what he loved and that gave me peace. 

I’m sure my Aunt Joyce and cousins Rodney, Russell, Rendell, and Rontae have many more stories to share about him as a husband and a father. We all have stories about Uncle James Foster or as my uncles called him Sweet A and the laughter that he gave us. Although he left us suddenly his life will not easily be forgotten. His memory will always be with us, and his legacy will live on through his children, grandchildren, and great-grandchild. 

My uncle’s death serves as a reminder to me how short life is and that there is no time for later. If you haven’t had lunch with an aunt in awhile do it. If you haven’t seen a cousin is awhile go visit. It seems cliché to say that we have to enjoy our time with our loved ones now because we cannot predict when they will be taken away from us, but it is very very true. Our family is extremely blessed that we are and have been so close after all these years. It is in these times of loss that we must and will pull together even tighter. When I think of my uncle I am not sad for I know he is now at rest and looking upon us hoping we’re having a great time. 

As we celebrate his life I’d like to leave you with this scripture: 

 ¹⁵ Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, since as members of one body you were called to peace. And be thankful. ¹⁶ Let the message of Christ dwell among you richly as you teach and admonish one another with all wisdom through psalms, hymns, and songs from the Spirit, singing to God with gratitude in your hearts. ¹⁷ And whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.

Rest in Peace, James Foster 

October 17, 1943-August 9, 2011

Trying to Win A Trip!

As you all know my mom is my favorite travel companion. We both love Paris. We both love Paris but have been separately. I would love for us to have that experience together. I follow a great blog that is giving a 7 day trip. I hope I win!!! I'd love to take her. The contest is over at  http://ohhappyday.com/2011/06/goes-to-paris. She's done so much for me and this would be the best gift ever. 


Love, 
Black Deb

What Did I Learn?

A week after Easter I decided to reflect on my Lenten season to see what I learned. Growing up Baptist we never participated in Lent. However, over the years I have met people who do give up things from Ash Wednesday to Easter as a sacrifice to our Lord. Last year I participated in Lent for the first time. Lent is the period of 40 weekdays from Ash Wednesday to Easter, observed by some Christian churches with fasting, penitence, prayer and self-denial. The aim is for parishioners to make sacrifices as they spiritually prepare for Easter, moving closer to God. This year, Ash Wednesday was March 9. Easter was April 24. There are traditionally forty days in Lent which are marked by fasting, both from foods and festivities, and by other acts of penance. The three traditional practices to be taken up with renewed vigour during Lent are prayer (justice towards God), fasting (justice towards self), and almsgiving (justice towards neighbour). Today, some people give up a vice of theirs, add something that will bring them closer to God, and often give the time or money spent doing that to charitable purposes or organizations.

Deciding what to give up for Lent isn't an easy choice. Pastors suggest people consider what's valuable to them, and that includes their time. I used the time last year to study the Bible and to give up a little cursing issue I have. This year I upped the ante as they say. I gave up three addictions that I had in the hopes that I would turn towards the Bible instead of towards those things. I am gave up Twitter (yes, I am addicted), Pepsi (been addicted), and cursing (no it didn't take from last year). I was so hopeful and excited about this time of prayer and the freedom from these addictions.

I gave up Twitter for several reasons. The main reason was/is my time. I get Twitter updates on my phone all during the day and spend FAR too much time checking in and reading updates.I also find myself in trivial conversations with people I do not know. Not only does it waste my time but there is a lot of negativity on Twitter that has pulled me away from clean thoughts and healthy living. I have spent more time on Twitter than with my Bible in recent months and that had to stop. I also needed to rekindle relationships with people I know in real life. I had begun to talk to people on Twitter like I know them. I don't.

My love affair with Pepsi has been going on for as long as I can remember. I love it. It's my coffee, snack, etc. I know this is unhealthy for me and it's time to let it go. If my body is God's temple then Pepsi isn't what I should be pouring into it. And cursing. Wow. I don't curse a lot but there are times when a word or two slip out. It's not ladylike and can't sound well when I'm trying to extol the virtues of Christianity.

So how did I do? Well, Twitter was easy. I deleted my account. I also deleted SocialScope from my phone. So it was more trouble than it was worth to try to sign in. I made it 40 days and 40 nights without my Twitter friends. What's changed? Now that I am back I don't feel the need to check Twitter every second. I can go hours (gasp- I know) without an update and for me that's a wonderful thing. I also did myself a favor by starting fresh with a new account. I got rid of the negative people I was following without having to manually unfollow them. There were far too many to do that. Now I find people that I want in my life and most of them have been happy to see me return.

Pepsi has been the most shocking result of all. I thought that after 40 days I'd crave a Pepsi but I still have not had one. I chalk this up to the fact that I am on Weight Watchers and those Pepsi's are rather expensive on the points diet. There's no need to blow my diet until I can sing annoyingly loud like Jennifer Hudson.

During Lent I can honestly say I had one slip up. I cursed. I was in am animated conversation with my girls on a trip to Chicago. The conversation topic? Guess. Men. Our dating lives were enough to make me curse. It was a week before Easter so I still think I did pretty good. I learned that I don't NEED to be on Twitter 24/7 and Pepsi should be used as a treat. Now cursing? I didn't learn anything. Sometimes a curse word is the only thing that works in a situation. :-)

How was your Lent? What did you give up? Have you ever taken a break (Lent or otherwise) from social media? Let me know your thoughts.

The Great Twitter Fizzler

At what age does fizzling out become inappropriate? I would say 30 but what do I know? Over the winter I began dating seeing eating dinner with an older man. A REALLY older man-like 44. I thought ok- this is different. I met him three years ago when I transferred to Illinois as a Writer/Producer. I remember not really caring for how he handled his business back then. He was very demanding and tried to dictate how I was going to get our project done. I didn't dislike him- I just never wanted to work with him again. I also never took the time to get to know him which was unfair. Fast forward two years and we randomly began speaking on "black Twitter". Black Twitter is really really small so I don't know who followed who but he asked me out for dinner after I realized who he was. I accepted. Since I no longer work at his place of business I thought we'd start anew. Was he what I'd been praying to God for since the age of 16? Not exactly but close-ish. He's black, taller than me, has a relationship with God, loves his mom, has a job, etc. There were also things about him that weren't in my list of must haves I didn't like: he's been married, has a daughter, is perpetually late and is 13 years older than me. I'd rather start my own family fresh but I thought "well the old folks at church always say your blessing might not come in the package you expect" so I went with that.


At first things went great. He called or sent texts everyday. We were Twitter and Facebook friends and he even came with an endorsement from a family friend. She  went as far as to say I was wrong about him two years ago and that he was a nice guy. Cool I thought and so it began. Doors were opened, snow was shoveled; we even took a trip up to Chicago for my cousins birthday- I'm talking the whole nine yards. Then about three months in I started noticing things not going the way I wanted them to go. Calls dropped off in lieu of texts. Now I'm a texter. Ask my family, line sisters, and best friends. I'd rather NEVER talk on the phone but when it comes to dating calls are the preferred method of communication. I mean how can I fall in love with your texts. So I voiced my desire for less texting and more phone calls. He agreed saying since he was "old-school" phone calls weren't a problem at all. Yet it never changed. Then I began inviting him to go on trips with me to Miami, Orlando, Italy and some beach in SC. He said ok yet plans were never made. The kicker however was that although he was reluctant to travel with me to warmer weather (he even dropped a black people don't go to the beach on me- SO UNTRUE with my family) - he was really excited about the possibility for a TWEET-UP. You heard me. A tweet-up. What's a tweet-up? Urbandictionary.com defines a tweet-up as a group of friends on Twitter (social network) that are planning to meet up. A request by a user to meet with friends via Twitter. I thought this was odd as I like the people I meet on Twitter but I realize they are strangers. The 44 year old speaks of his Twitter friends as if they are real people in his life. So to me a trip with the woman you're dating should sound a lot better than a tweet-up with random people but I guess not. 

There were other small things he did but in the sake of the romantic comedy relationship I sought I let them go- like the fact that he corrected things of insignificant nature i.e. texts, statuses on Facebook. I chalked it up to him just being overly critical but that's the thing. I DON'T LIKE OVERLY CRITICAL PEOPLE. Who cares if my Facebook account says I attended Illinois State University instead of the University of Tennessee? Facebook takes whatever school you attended last and puts it on your profile. Chill dude. But he wouldn't let up. He also had a really bad habit of being late for our dates. I mean LATE like really really late. I can't stand to wait for anyone because I feel like you are disrespecting my time. I don't make you wait for me so don't make me wait for you. I'd driven my car to our last date because I knew I'd blow a gasket if he was late one more time. He was never late if I met him out somewhere- go figure. Valentine's Day 2011 should have been my watershed moment or better yet the point of no return phone calls. He didn't want to celebrate but he was going to take me to dinner. Fine I said. The day of we had plans for him to pick me up at 6:00pm. At 7pm I sent him a text and said "let's just not go" since you're really late. He called to say he wasn't feeling well -AN HOUR LATE after I texted him first. I should have ended it right there. But I'm a determined woman so I went out with him again.


A few weeks after the V-Day debacle I brought up my Florida trip again. After discussing this and getting nowhere things only got weirder. I've read many blog posts about not following your significant other on Twitter and boy were they right. One night before I gave Twitter up for Lent I saw him tweet someone  about how good they looked in their picture. Uh-oh! Flag on the play. It was at that moment I knew it was time to move on. I asked him about the girl and whether they were dating and I do believe my answer was (through text) "Drop It." Now that might not sound odd to you but I'm a talker and drop it is never going to work. I thought back to some conversations he and I had over the course of our relationship and he always used his fatherly tone when I asked him questions. I brushed it off at the time but "Drop It" was the nail in the coffin of my May-December romance. I can't feel very romantic with "the tone" coming at me. So I thought maybe we'll just be friends (loose term) but one weekend in April things changed for the final time. I'd been getting more and more irritated by the lack of calls, lateness, and fatherly tone so I planned a field trip with my mom instead of going on our usual Saturday dinner date. He said ok and that he'd talk to me when I got back. I called him the next morning. Instead of getting a call back I got a text the next day. He sent " How's your day going?" Um. What? I never answered the text. That was three weeks ago. Now I understand that he and I might not be in the same place in our lives or Twitter relationships and it isn't going to work out but I assumed that at 44 you at least end the relationship with some sort of It's not me it's you conversation right? Now I have to tell the family friend (in my Coach Denny Green voice)"he was who I thought he was!" I can't even be mad in this situation. He's a nice guy that I'm incompatible with. It happens but now what? Do I owe him a call to state  that we're done due to mutual lack of interest and incessant texting ? Do I chalk it up to fizzlers have no age limit? Was I the fizzler? Is closure always necessary? Tell me Deb fam. I think in this case he should at least call to say bye but I've been wrong before. 

Have a GREAT Thursday!

In Search of a New NFL Team: New England Patriots

I am on a quest to find a new NFL team. I need a mistress team to get me through those times when the Titans just aren't doing it for me. I'm going team by team to find out which team is the best fit for me. Now let's look at the AFC East. This team isn't a fave of mine but I'll be fair.

 
After living in New England for four years I had just about enough of the Patriots. They're good. I get it. I just don't like Bill Belichick. Sorry. One Patriot I do like is Jerod Mayo. This former VOL has led a series of voluntary player workouts in Massachusetts for his teammates, according to a source, ensuring the Pats won’t be as susceptible to injury when training camp eventually opens. I like the work ethic while the owners and the NFLPA sort this thing out. Other than Mayo my love for the Pats is weak. I just can't do it. I'll think on it.

I'll be back tomorrow to discuss the Jets. Are they more annoying than the Pats...I think so.

In Search of a New NFL Team: Miami Dolphins

I am on a quest to find a new NFL team. I need a mistress team to get me through those times when the Titans just aren't doing it for me. I'm going team by team to find out which team is the best fit for me. Now let's look at the AFC East. What's going on down on South Beach?

On the surface Miami is not a bad team to root for. I love the colors. They boast the only undefeated season in NFL history. They also have a great city to call home. On the QB front - there are some issues. One season can make a big difference in the way fans and coaches view a player. Chad Henne started off in 2009 as the potential future QB of the Miami Dolphins. It only took an awful 2010 season for everyone to doubt his abilities and push him to the bench. Henne has a cannon for an arm, but problems with accuracy continue to hold him back. This season may define the career of the young quarter back, as he will get a chance to compete for a starting role. Do I believe in Henne? No. Not really. But there's hope. And then there's Brandon Marshall. Remember him? Dolphins fans rejoiced at the thought of getting a Pro Bowl wide receiver for 2 second round draft picks. They were all excited about the game-breaker Marshall could become in Miami. Do Dolphins fans still feel the same way now? I guess so. After all, as the roster stands right now, Brandon Marshall is the best player on the offense. Can I deal with more QB issues? Is a WR enough to keep me? Right now as it stands I'm down with South Beach.

Can the Patriots top the Dolphins? Doubt it! Stay Tuned!