Rest well, my friend, and make a place for the rest of us for when we get there.Beyonce accused of ripping off ‘Renaissance’ tour visuals from Japanese artist Tina’s second grandson was born one month ago, shortly before she would have celebrated her birthday, and although she is not physically present, we can all feel her warmth and see her shining bright light around that baby boy every second. How she could love anyone and everyone in such a way without any judgment or expectation is still a mystery to me. I was reminded of a year or so ago as we all sat around joking and laughing together, and Tina, ever-loving, ever-smiling, teased that if she went first, she wanted Willie to have companionship, but for me to never allow him to bring a woman into her kitchen. They had been together every single day for 35 years with the exception of the times when Willie was out fighting fires. I found myself fully devastated and shocked as she informed me that my friend, my unconditionally loving family member, Tina, had been killed in a car accident.Īs my own shock subsided, all I could think of was Willie. This past October, while out for a Harley ride, I received a phone call from my mother. I hadn’t thought she could exude more joy and love, but upon the birth of that little guy, the brightness from her nearly doubled. When Tina became a nana to her first grandson, it was quite obvious that her circle was complete. I have seen people repay her kindness with disrespect and disregard, and yet still, she opens her home and her heart to them again and again, if need be. I have never known anyone with that capacity to love unconditionally. She has always afforded her girls the confidence and fortitude to live their lives - exactly how they see fit while always providing a safe place to land, if the world got too monstrous. Tina Jeanine is probably the best mother I have ever known in my entire life. And upon the conclusion of every one of my big adventures, there would be Tina, smiling and bright-eyed, excited to hear me regale her with every detail, enjoying every moment as if she had been with me. Whether it was babysitting so that I could go experience life in my 20s or floating me a couple hundred dollars to keep my cellphone turned on, Tina always offered up whatever she had to make my situation a little easier.ĭuring the worst and scariest moments of my life, she was my first call for help or a shoulder to cry on. Walker always called Tina “mom” and she truly was his second mother. And in the years that followed, as I navigated being a single mother and a young woman coming of age, there was no way that I or my son Walker would have come through it unscathed if not for Tina. When I became pregnant with my oldest son at 17, Tina was my soft place to land. One thing I can always remember her saying is, “Kaci, they are going to talk about you anyways. Tina was always there to encourage me to be exactly who I am, and where I am. ![]() I’ve always been a little different than those around me, a little more outrageous, maybe, or just a little weird, any time in my life when I felt awkward or embarrassed. It is difficult for me still to speak of one of them without the other, almost as if they are one being, not Tina or Willie, but always Tina and Willie. Through ups and downs, through disasters, and through raising four daughters of their own, one grandson and dozens upon dozens of other young people who sought refuge in their household from one terrible situation or another, the two of them quite simply loved each other, eternally and unconditionally. ![]() Thirty-five years together and neither of them ever even dated anybody else. Willie was more like my big brother, and I was his “little brother.” He brought Tina home, madly in love with her, to meet the family, and it didn’t take me long to recognize why she was so special. When I first met Tina, I was a scrawny, awkward little girl, following around my cousin Willie, a decade my senior.
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