Where I'm From, by Tamara Miles

I'm from a papa preacher, Oscar Floyd Moon,
when church starts at 9:30, I mean 9:30, not 9:31.
I am from his bride, Dolly Jeanette, her hair braided and coiled,
her patchwork quilts for everyday use
(Thank you, Alice Walker).
When I said I love you, Granny Moon said, Bless you.
I am from people who missed school picking cotton,
an uncle whose first check from his first job bought
school lunches for the rest of the year for his eleven brothers and sisters,
who had previously gone without lunch or ate with some embarrassment
a cold biscuit from home.

I am from the Rook-playing crippled hands of my Aunt Sissie,
Moon Pies and RC's and an old wringer washer.
I am from that little red-haired girl adored by Charlie Brown,
and from a real red-haired girl, my mother, Sylvia,
who liked to play tennis and Scrabble and ride bikes on healthy legs
but died earlier this year in a nursing home, legs and heart
and mind and lungs drawn up from multiple sclerosis.
I am from that moment, holding her while she took her last breath,
a lonelier person with a greater appreciation of heaven.

I am from a drunken father, likeable enough now, too old to
cat around or beat his wife. Sober. He has gout, diabetes, arthritis,
heart disease, and only one kidney. We go to the movies, hold hands
during the Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford.
We laugh, I love him.

I am from Jillian Delaney Miles, born to me at 6:23 on September 23, 1990,
who cried incessantly and didn't sleep all night til she was three, and then
discovered her joy. I am from Mommy, it's 7:30 and I've got a cowlick,
and When's the baby coming back? When I told her her unborn baby sister
had died. I am from the last time she fell asleep in my arms, when she was four,
and I knew somehow it was the last time. I am from last weekend, watching with
my seventeen year old Dickens' A Christmas Carol, and recognizing the ghost
of Christmas Past.