Read Online Chicken Soup for the African American Woman's Soul by Jack Canfield - Free Book Online Page A

cake recipe for dessert. I’ll be back soon, Mama, and bring the kids, okay? Brandon wants to tell you all about school, and Eze is painting you the cutest picture.”
    Before I stand to leave, I adjust the pretty silk flowers in the vase I bought for her last birthday. I glance over toward my brother, Kenny, and then turn my attention back to my mother. “Can you believe that Rashad is almost fourteen now? And he thinks he’s ‘too old’ to have a party! Well, he is growing up really fast, but isn’t that funny?” I pause and then softly add, “You know, Mama, if only you could have hung on for two more weeks, you could have met Rashad in person. God knows what’s best, though. If he had taken Kenny before you, I’m sure you would have died from a broken heart instead of cancer.”
    I kiss my fingertips and gently touch the headstone on my mama’s grave and then the adjacent one where my big brother lies. “Bye-bye for now. I love you both.”
    Feeling immensely blessed and turning to walk away, I look briefly over my shoulder one last time, then up at the heavens. “Thank you, God,” I say aloud with a peaceful smile and a lighter soul. I find myself walking a little faster to my car. I can’t wait to make Mama’s pound cake for my family.
    Anesia Okezie
As told to Karen Waldman

Dancing in the Kitchen
    I was born in 1946, when Mama was in her early forties and her two other daughters were already adults—what folks called a “change-of-life baby.” On my own growing up on Chicago’s South Side, I spent a lot of time alone with Mama in the kitchen. I loved to watch and help her prepare great food for the soul like mixed greens and cornbread, sweet potato pies, skillet fried corn, salmon croquettes, biscuits, potato salad, black-eyed peas, red beans and rice, buffalo fish, chitlins, catfish, macaroni, spaghetti, chicken and dumplings, homemade rolls, bread pudding, lemon meringue pie, the best fried chicken in the universe, and my favorite of all, those divine fried pies.
    I especially enjoyed holidays and the family feasts Mama created, with turkey and dressing as the centerpiece. We would always get up around four o’clock in the morning.My first duty was to toast slices of bread on trays placed under the broiler, then cut up the slices into cubes for the dressing using scissors. My next duty was to chop up the green peppers, onions, garlic and celery. In the meantime, Mama would start boiling the giblets for stock, fixing the cornbread, melting the butter and beating the eggs. Once the dressing was mixed and seasoned perfectly
    (with me as official taster) and the bird was stuffed and in the oven (lavishly basted with butter), Mama would put a seventy-eight on the record player or turn up the radio, and we would dance around the kitchen.
    â€œWork a little while and dance a little while, that’s what I always say,” Mama would announce, starting to sway to the music of Ray Charles, Ruth Brown or Ivory Joe Hunter. This was her philosophy about all household responsibilities. In the midst of cleaning or washing or ironing, Mama would launch into a demonstration of the camel walk or the hucklebuck, with me as her partner. Years later she proudly handed me an article about housework she had clipped from some authoritative magazine like Woman’s Day . It recommended that you take regular breaks from your chores to dance. “Just like I always said,” Mama crowed—and rightly so.
    When I took on responsibility for the family Thanksgiving Day dinners in the 1980s, Mama would always come to my house the night before to help. I vividly recall how this tradition started. I was at work late at the local Urban League on the day before Thanksgiving and worrying about how I was going to get everything done in preparation for my first major family dinner. I was tired and particularly distressed about the prospect of