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My Mother's Garden - Page 3

© Dorothy Harris

On Christmas morning, the day after my mother died, I was in my kitchen cooking something to contribute to Christmas dinner. My eight year old daughter said, "Mom, you are such a good cook. How did you learn to cook so well?" I responded, still referring to my mother with the present tense, "well, my mother taught me how to cook... and my mother is a very good cook." "and now she's dead," Chioma said in a blithe, eight year old matter of fact way, "and you'll teach me, and when I grow up, I'll be a good cook too." And she's right. Not only will I pass on the culinary gifts I learned from my mother to my daughter and son, who will pass them on to their children, but I'll also pass on Mother's respect for nurturing life, and for giving space to the divine and the creative spirits within us.

Harris, Minnie L., unpublished poems.
Walker, Alice, In Search of Our Mother's Gardens, 1983.

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