God Is

There is no place I miss more than my grandmother's lap. It was, after all, my very first altar.

She was my most sacred place—no church sanctuary, no choir's song could match the blessed assurance I felt in her orbit. I can still feel the handkerchief under my face she'd place on her lap, preparing for the inevitable long, hot nap I'd take during Sunday service as a little girl. She laid it there to protect her dress from the Royal Crown hair grease she'd used just the night before to press and curl my hair in the kitchen as we watched 227 and Amen. I think of her putting that handkerchief down now to protect whatever beautiful dress she wore as a valuable lesson: caring for others does not require abandoning yourself.

I learned to pray on my grandmother's lap. Before I could read, she taught me the Lord's Prayer and, soon after, the 23rd Psalm. They were both armor and lullaby, and I still arm myself with these words as protection and balm. When I feel alone and powerless in a world that uses our fear as a commodity, I am reminded that I can always return to the lessons of my altar for grounded and ancestral guidance.

She was my safe place, but she knew she wouldn't always be here. So, she passed on a divine trust—that goodness and mercy would follow me all the days of my life.

I remember her hands brushing through my hair, gently, like they always had, as I cried rivers in my childhood bedroom. She had just climbed the stairs to tell me that my mother—her daughter—was no longer on this side of heaven. She was about to live a mother's greatest fear: burying her child. And still, she held me at the altar of her love, giving me the strength to rise, to meet the cruel new day, to believe that even as I sat in the shadow of death, my path would be made smooth again. And it was in due time, guided by the light of her eternal love.

In my grandmother's lap, I found God.
And She remains remarkable.
Just like Hattie.