Sailing into the Past on Mother's Day

Mother's Day, May 9, 2010, 5:15pm Ocean Time 8:15am PT aboard Crown Princess sailing to Gibraltar, Great Britain.

To My Unknown Mother:

My birth mother, I know. She is the core of my earthly existence. But it is not she to whom this is dedicated. My unknown mother is my great-great-grandmother of my birth mother's lineage. I don't know her name or the circumstances in which she entered life in the United States. I do know with certainty she is the mother of my great grandfather. She birthed him on a plantation in Kentucky around 1830, as chattel. He was a child formed from a plantation owner's pleasure.

The family researched my great grandfather. We know his story. It unfolds a successful life in spite overwhelming odds against a slave. But it is not this heralded patriarch on which I concentrate. His mother is the focus of this Mother's Day post.

Nothing is known of this woman except that she was African. She contributed to my DNA. So she lives within me in a real way - through a scientific explanation and through a spiritual explanation.

In the days leading to Mother's Day, my thoughts of "this grand lady" flooded my mind. These insistent thoughts attest that she is reaching out, but not for accolades and praise, but for me to find her.

So I search for her. My search is indirect. I synthesizing and identify the common traits of my grandfather and my mother who I knew well, and use this knowledge to reconstruct her spirit. After all they were indirectly influenced by "this grand lady" through a direct connection, her son my great-grand father.

By statue my unknown mother's lineage is tall, confident, adventurous, intelligent, rich in high achievers and bearing an unbending integrity. My mother, her great granddaughter, was an educated nurse and she was among the first of this great lady's lineage to attend to college. My grandfather, her grandson, was a successful farmer, an acclaimed well borer of East Feliciana Parish Louisiana and among the first black men allowed to vote in that parish. He was highly respected for his integrity. Finally my great-grandfather, her son, was first from her womb to gain freedom in the United States. Purchasing it with his earnings as a brick mason earning. Then moving to Louisiana to purchase and successfully operate a farm.

I don't know if "this grand lady" came to these shores on a slave ship or whether she was born here. However she arrived, she carried a burden that would kill most. She buried these evil experiences and with an unyielding mettle and grew a hope for the good that life can offer.

The children of her womb though mixed with other DNA brandishes that same hope, that same determination, that same well-defined focus and that same positive wisdom. Certainly these attributes could not be strangers to her. To my unknown mother on this Mother's Day, I set aside this time to reflex on your trails and to thank you for my inherited gifts from you.

I began Sunday with an early rise for the last Bible Study class. Since this was the 5^th one-hour advance in time since the beginning of this sea trip and the 8^th one-hour advance since leaving Sacramento, early rising is difficult.

The class opened with the previous speaker requesting more time to continued a story she could not finish during the last meeting. After her story, the class leader opened an active discussion on attributes "remembered about mom". References were made to Proverb 31. It too was discussed. We closed and I went to church.

The minister was a relic from the old school. He preached the obvious over and over again - to believers. This made church somewhat laborious. But I got through it. While leaving the church meeting, a couple told me the preacher covered the Bible from Genesis to Revelation last Sunday. Boy I'm glad I was not there.

At 1:00pm I returned to the Princess Theater to hear the final lecture of the Bible class leader. She was supportive of my contributions in the Bible class. So I went to her last lecture to support her. She entitled her final lecture SAYING GRACE. It was the last of her week long series entitled "the AMAZING effects of kindness." She's good.

She has lots of energy, warm smiles and many emotional and captivating stories. Her lectures broadcast from 7:00 pm to midnight on Crown Princess Channel 30 for those who missed the live presentation. This made her a highly recognized and popular person on Crown Princess. The lecture was an appropriate close to my day of "saying grace to my unknown mother"..

It is not 7:46 pm Ocean Time. 10:46 am PT. The sun will set in about an hour. So off to eat so I can rise early for the Gibraltar Tour.

Happy Mothers' Day