All the Forgivenesses

by Elizabeth Hardinger

It was as if Mama was what she done, and not who she was. It wasn’t nothing I’d thought about before, her being somebody like everbody else, and now I’d never know her, not that way.

But what I couldn’t explain was the feeling I had, like I’d just took the first deep breath of my life. Like it was the first time I ever filled my lungs clear up to the shoulders. Like I was breathing in air

through my skin, my hair, my fingernails, my eyelids. Like I myself was made out of breath, like I was breath itself. But now, instead of feeling empty, I felt light. Light was shining on me and in me, it was filling me and lifting me. I felt like I didn’t deserve nothing, but, somehow, I had everthing.

Out loud I said, “Is this what grace is?” Nobody answered me. I never expected them to. And anyhow I knowed the answer. By the grace of God, I knowed what it was. Grace wasn’t hard, like Mama taught me, though it was stro...

whatever needed doing, and whatever I done would be blessed, and I had everthing I ever needed or hoped for, ...