Blogs

by President Heidi R. Lewis
April 7, 2025

I write this blog from Colorado Springs, CO. Stolen land—the unceded territory of the Ute Peoples, to be precise—developed with stolen and exploited labor. I do so, because as Sandra Guzmán points out, land acknowledgements “recognize and respect Indigenous peoples as the traditional stewards of their lands and the enduring relationship that exists between Indigenous peoples and their traditional territories.”

My relationship with anniversaries says a lot about me, a lot of different things. It probably says things about me that I don’t even know.

Today is one of those days. It’s my grandmother’s birthday. Marshene Regenia (Freeman) Odd—my dad’s mom, my grannymoll.

When I was a little girl, my grannymoll was one of my favorite people. She was probably my favorite person for a long time. I was an only child who often preferred being with adults. While futures, particularly those in the far distance, didn’t come up too much, I liked listening to old people reminisce. I liked listening to them gossip about the present. In listening, I learned about the people, places, and spaces surrounding me—the people, places, and spaces that made me. In listening, I also learned a lot about myself. I liked making comments and asking questions, too. While I was often told to “stay in a child’s place,” I was the type of only child who broke that rule as much as humanly possible. Even when I called myself eavesdropping from that small space between the recliner and couch and even when I called myself eavesdropping from beside the eight-track player in the next room, I was the type of only child who wasn’t always careful about not getting caught. 

“He ain’t so much as bring a pack of diapers in here!”
“Pat, stop lyin’!”
“Tuh! I told him don’t come here empty-handed no more!”
“Ooooh, what he say?”
“HEIDI, GO OUTSIDE WIT’ THE KIDS!”

By and by, a few resistant grownups came to accept, appreciate, and even feed my curiosity—namely aunt Pat (my grannymoll’s sister), aunt Terry (my mom’s older sister), and Nana (my mom’s mom). It helped that I learned to ask questions and make comments that pushed the conversation in interesting directions. I wanted to know things and be smart. I wanted to know what Boo Boo said when he walked his ass in that house empty-handed again. I also wanted to know why my cousin felt like she couldn’t or didn’t want to hold him accountable. I wanted to know what made him think that was acceptable behavior. I wanted to know what kind of relationship he had with his parents. I wanted to know why his parents came around only occasionally. 

When I was a little girl, my grannymoll was one of my favorite people, because I was always allowed—no, encouraged—to be curious at her house, even when others thought it was inappropriate. We had a special relationship more precious than any other I had back then. Maybe that’s because most often it was just me and her. No grandpa a lot of the time, because he was a rolling stone. No dad most of the time, because he was struggling with a crack cocaine addiction and visited only sporadically even after he got sober. No cousins, because my dad is also an only child. Most often, it was just me and her. And she took every opportunity to introduce me to wondrous worlds, real and imagined, full of other Black women who allowed—no, encouraged—me to be curious; who allowed—no, encouraged—me to be. 

I flipped through the pages of my grannymoll’s copy of The Color Purple when I was a toddler. I read those same pages before graduating middle school. “Shug is my favorite! No, Sophia! She’s tough!” We watched the film adaptation a thousand times after it was released on video when I was probably six or seven years old. I read my grannymoll’s copy of The Bluest Eye when I was around Claudia and Frieda’s age. “I like the hookers! They seem fun!” I read my grannymoll’s copy of The Women of Brewster Place before the miniseries adaptation debuted on ABC when I was in third grade. “My dad is just like Basil.” That same year, 1989, we watched Michele Wallace stand tall while being attacked for her Black feminist principles during a rerun of Donahue after watching her powerfully share that same stage with Maya Angelou, Alice Walker, Ntozake Shange, and Angela Y. Davis. Afterwards, I read my grannymoll’s copy of I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings and Betsey Brown. “I’m glad I can go to school wherever I want!” I read my grannymoll’s copy of Waiting to Exhale before the film was released during my first year of high school. 

“Them bitches was some hoes!”
“Okay, Shanté, so what was them niggas?” 

Actually, I don’t remember exactly what I said. But it was somethin’ like that. 

Around that time, things started to change between my grannymoll and me. She had introduced me to wondrous worlds that inspired me to desire, wondrous worlds where I met Black women who resembled a me I was not…yet. But what neither of us anticipated was that I would start dangerously and often unfairly juxtaposing the Black woman I imagined myself becoming with the Black woman my grannymoll already seemed to be. She was like Celie. I wanted to be more like Sophia. She was like Mrs. Breedlove. I wanted to be more like Mrs. MacTeer. She was like Mattie. I wanted to be more like Etta Mae, Melanie, or Theresa. I wanted to be more like anybody but Nel. She was like Nel. 

Sula, “I sure did live in this world.”'
Nel, “Really? What have you got to show for it?”
Sula, “Show? To who? I got my mind. And what goes on in it. Which is to say, I got me.”
Nel, “Lonely, ain’t it?”
Sula, “Yes. But my lonely is mine. Now your lonely is somebody else’s. Made by somebody else and handed to you. Ain’t that something? A secondhand lonely.”

Because my grannymoll got pregnant when she was sixteen years old, but mostly because she wasn’t married, her father didn’t speak to her from the moment he learned she was pregnant until the day my dad was born, and her mother punished every kid in the house by making them stay outside in the blazing early fall heat from the time they woke up until it was time to go to bed. Too soon after my dad was born and because his dad wasn’t interested in parenting, my great grandparents forced my grannymoll to work six days a week in far away fields from sunup to sundown to earn her keep and his. To this day, my dad considers his grandmother more of a mother to him than his own. I’m pretty sure that was my resentful great grandmother’s intention. When my dad was eight months old, my grannymoll hooked up with my grandpa (not my dad’s biological dad), and they were married for almost fifty years. But remember. He was a rolling stone, which I figured out before I even finished elementary school. “What kind of old, married man sits in his van for hours talkin' on the phone? My Papa don’t do that!” And before even that, my dad, my grannymoll’s only child, became an addict. 

Secondhand lonely. Secondhand lonely. Secondhand lonely. Secondhand lonely.
Secondhand lonely. Secondhand lonely. Secondhand lonely. Secondhand lonely. 

During my early high school years, around the time the Waiting to Exhale film adaptation debuted, my journeys through the wondrous worlds my grannymoll introduced to me were sharpening all my critical lenses. I had thoughts and somethin’ to say about everything I was seeing and hearing.

My grandpa had a whole ass girlfriend in the next town over, where he spent most of his days and even some nights. But when he had prostate surgery, he recovered under my grannymoll’s care. Secondhand lonely. When my mean ass dad and his weird ass girlfriend needed a place to stay for a year or two, they lived with my grandparents. And since my grandpa was hardly ever home, that meant my grannymoll had to deal with them most of the time. Secondhand lonely. One winter, my grannymoll slipped on ice while walking to my cousin’s car, because my cousin ain’t have sense enough to help her, and she broke her ankle in a million places. Secondhand lonely. I was the one making sure she ate before I went to school and after I got home. I was the one changing her bedpans before and after school. I was the one cleaning the house. Not her husband. Remember. He was a rolling stone who was hardly ever home. Secondhand lonely. 

I wasn’t struggling with responsibility, but I was struggling with patience and compassion. I had journeyed to those parts of the wondrous worlds my grannymoll introduced to me, but I must have been skimmin’. I got my own taste of that Freeman family brand of resentment, and I, too, became an agent of my grannymoll’s secondhand lonely. 

I moved her to live near me and my family, twice, but my temper was short when she baby talked my son. I helped her divorce and get alimony from my grandpa, but rolled my eyes whenever she talked about how things “used to be.” I took her clothes to the laundromat, but fussed when she didn’t want to come with me. I took her clothes shopping, but got frustrated when she had no idea what she wanted. The same thing happened years earlier when I came home from college and had to fill an empty refrigerator since there was, of course, no grandpa to be found. I bought us tickets to see The Color Purple in Chicago, and fussed when she decided not to come last minute. I used my own food stamps to fill her refrigerator when hers weren’t enough, but I didn’t stay much longer than it took to unload the groceries, pissed because she wouldn’t come with me to the store. I cooked every holiday meal, but barely spoke to her when we ate. I invited her to my family’s Easter egg coloring and hunts, but rarely smiled unless I was lookin’ at my kids. 

Secondhand lonely. Secondhand lonely. Secondhand lonely. Secondhand lonely.
Secondhand lonely. Secondhand lonely. Secondhand lonely. Secondhand lonely. 

“It wasn’t Nel who fucked her best friend’s husband, though.”

My grannymoll introduced me to wondrous worlds, real and imagined, full of other Black women who allowed—no, encouraged—me to be curious; who allowed—no, encouraged—me to be. There, I learned to love reading. There, I learned to love writing. There, I learned to love learning. There, I learned to love teaching. 

And yet, by the time she moved back to Ohio, we were barely speaking. By the time she passed away a couple or few years after that, we weren’t really speaking at all.

As she was inching closer and closer to death, we briefly spoke on the phone. She was weary from letting go or, perhaps, from holding on, but I heard and felt her joy and relief when she weakly said, “Heidi.” After that, she couldn’t say much. I told her I was coming soon. I told her I was excited to see her. I told her I loved her. I didn’t tell her I was sorry. That wouldn’t happen until she came to me in a dream years later. She told me she was sorry, too.

My Grannymoll came to me in a dream. No one else has ever done that. Maybe that’s because we had a special relationship more precious than any other I had, at least way back when. 

But things changed, as they do. And I found myself creating a world of my own—sometimes wondrous, sometimes not so much, sometimes not at all.

When I was in an African American Literature course during college, we read Their Eyes Were Watching God. I had a nagging feeling, but it wasn’t until I had almost finished the novel that I told Dr. Ruzich, “I think I read this before!” I called up my Grannymoll to ask, and sure enough, I had. Of course I had, because she had. Back then, I would have said she was like Pheoby, and I wanted to be more like Janie. These days, I’m certain that doesn’t really describe who either one of us was or wanted to be. These days, I mostly want to remember Pheoby and Janie were friends. They were beautiful, powerful, flawed Black women who understood, loved, and cared for each other. They were perfectly imperfect human beings who talked through their differences. They showed up for one another. They laughed and cried together. They were sisters.

My Grannymoll would have turned 84 years old today had she not passed away ten years ago on April 30. That’s an anniversary I don’t ever remember. I don’t ever remember she passed away on April 30. I don’t ever remember she passed away in 2015. But I always remember her birthday. And on that day and everyday, I always remember the wondrous worlds she introduced to me.

My relationship with anniversaries says a lot about me, a lot of different things. It probably says things about me that I don’t even know.

Per my strategic plan, “Reconnect, Repair, Restore: A More Thoughtful, Transparent, and Trustworthy NWSA,” my president’s blogs are meant, in part, to give you a chance to get to know me and get excited about our upcoming annual conference. This one aims to do both. During one of our presidential sessions this year, we’ll be honoring feminist and womanist publishing by celebrating the 55th anniversary of The Feminist Press and the 45th anniversary of Kitchen Table: Women of Color Press. We hope to see you wondrous world makers in San Juan. And by the way, Happy National Library Week.