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the good dirt.
Connecticut.
The jar had been part of the Freeman family for six generations. Ebby’s parents called it Old Mo
because of the initials MO carved just below its lip, clearly visible under the dark glaze.
crafted by an enslaved man in South Carolina
would become part of a daring flight to freedom, traveling by wagon and ship more than a thousand miles to the Massachusetts coast.
“Most of the trouble in this world boils down to one person not recognizing the worth of another,” Gramps said. “But sometimes, that can be an advantage.”
Surely, she is not the only person holding in a world of hurt that pushes against their skin like water against the walls of a dam.
Grandma Bliss liked to remind them that hers was the oldest black sorority in existence, formed at a time when African American university students had to establish their own Panhellenic associations in order to be accepted into one. Ebby understood that the sorors met mostly to discuss community service, a vague label she took to mean helping other people, in the way that their own kids’ social club focused on volunteer projects.
Alpha Kappa Alpha, Incorporated
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Good dirt,
They would take note of her thinner shoulders, her puffy middle.
Hold the moment,
Yes!
Be aware of a beautiful moment as it is happening. Take note of your life as you are living it.
Yes!
Arnita King liked this
She and her child had been stolen from the place she called home, the people she called family, but on the morning that her son was born she decided that no, she would not allow them to be stolen from themselves.
How much of yourself do you have to renounce in order to have the life you think you want?
Arnita King liked this
What had they done? This was the question that hung in the air above every black family that had ever run into misfortune.
Ebby could have had a child with Henry by now. Their baby would have been three months old. She never did tell him she was pregnant. No one knew, except the doctors. She’d kept the signs to herself.
Wow!
Every moment in life is a confluence of events and you can’t see it all coming. You need to try not to, Ebby thinks. See it all. Otherwise, it leaves no room in your head to simply live.
Arnita King liked this
“There will always be men willing to steal the freedom of others if they think it will bring them an advantage,”
We cannot undo the worst days of
our past, but we can always look to better days.
good dirt,
Refuge County.
No one knew that on that day, the day her brother was shot, Ebby froze instead of calling the police.
Ed believes there is something at the core of each person that works like a compass. It should tell them who they are and where they belong. But compasses can malfunction, and lately, Ed has been feeling as though the directional needle in his head has gone awry.
the hidden message carved into the bottom of the jar.
Today will be different.
Maybe all you can do is give yourself permission to embrace the rest of your life. To play, to love, to risk. To take the beauty that someone brought into your life and share it.
the small piece of wood with the black X burned into it that Aquinnah’s parents used as a silent plea for help two centuries earlier.
