Skip to main content

Betty Baisley








 WCW I’m writing about my Grandmother for her birthday. The way she wanted me to when she was alive. The stories that my family attempt to elicit out of me.


In 5th Grade I won the NYC Writing Contest based on an piece I wrote about Nana. I literally blocked it out guys ALL these years.  Not that  it was about her but the depth of the subject matter. It was the only time besides when Carlyn died and my Daddy that I really saw her cry HARD. Even now I feel like I am betraying her(I know for naught) Nothing fazed this WOMAN. To compensate for my deplorable handwriting God assigned me the gift of prose. Mommy was sooo elated. Ms. Rand too. It had been a HARD year for my family 


I also have a great Memory and my paper Ms. Goldstein held on to it like Ms. Douglas and Ms. Kaplan and Karen Connors would later down the line. They always reread it over and over again and would look at me. When I feel weak and get tired of fighting the powers that be and who don’t BE I draw on the fact that it’s statistically proven that I will WIN I always do. Because even if I lose it’s a lesson. Kita Jean taught me that. She’s so similar to Nana in so many ways. 


Two arms and endless love. 


100 years ago God said “I will create a Woman that will be reared by her Aunt Bert and taught loyalty and humility. I will give her the fortitude of gold, the patience of Job and a heart that can hold so many. It will be beat for 89 years and create a legacy that will last the test of time. I will name her BETTY JENKINS and she will meet James Filmore on My Time and they will helm in Heaven and on Earth together their family through it ALL.”


She was not an ostentatious person. She was anomaly. She was born at the beginning of the 20th century as an orphan and grew up during the Great Depression. Never melancholy or morose just forging ahead and moving right along. She had 13 children yet her circumstances, her race or gender never suppressed or stifled her tenacity. 


One of the greatest compliments is when the Mother of your Grandchildren weep when you pass away. My Mother loved and respected my Nana because she was THERE every TIME. 


I love you and WE are EVERYTHING we ARE because you LOVED us.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Turning the Page

  Mommy and her friends at Russo’s on the Bay at a Post office reunion. Uncle Goode sent me this and boy oh boy was I startled this morning.  I see her life as a testament that you reap what you sow. It takes under ten seconds to tell anyone what you do for a living. My Mother worked in the Post office her entire career. After a brief stint as a teenager with Auntie Helen at ironically the phone company.  Choosing a federal job over the BANK! She was hired on the SPOT as a woman of color because she was a mathematical genius. Courtney inherited that trait for her. She was seventeen years old. Tour 1 like a FOOL (11pm-7am)she would say. After she began working in the Vault 7am-3pm after almost thirty years of the night shift. She was in the vault in the Post Office at JFK in NYC on September 11, 2001.  She was concerned about me getting home newly hearing impaired at MetroTech downtown Brooklyn. I love EVERYTHING about you Ma but the BEST thing was you were so GENUINE...

Fan Clubs

 Kim’s Korner  Everyone has FANS that are OBSESSED with THEM OK! I LOVE Jay-Z from the BEGINNING called him HOV and Everything! Aunt Audrey was so mad 🤣🕊️I am LOYAL to THAT Man! He’s a BUSINESS MAN 💪🏾🐐I WATCH what I SAY too because the Bey or Bee Hive is CRAZY they will be online calling me all kinds of MUTE WHALES🤣🤣🤣🤣 SHE cannot control them or tell them to STOP 🤣🤣🤣🤣Chris Brown loyalists don’t GIVE AF about NOTHING but HIM🤣🤣🤣🤣💯💯💯💯 But Nicki Minaj BARBZ y’all do THE MOST! Funny thing is I BET they are the most law abiding, good credit having, nicest people in the world. The bartender at a party I planned is one. He was so nice and dope! Like one she KNOWS 💯That Woman can say James Evans (“ the Father on Good Times”)deserved to DIE 🤣🤣🤣🤣💀💀💀💀and her FANS will find 182 reasons to support HER! Never seen an episode in their LIVES. I used to go to the Co-op Mall in Rochdale with Aunt Colette six times a day. Nana was in OTB and she was going to get me a...

Betty Baisley

 As I write but more importantly LIVE I THANK y’all for letting me sit in the front of the bus and listen to music with y’all when I stilll could hear. Papa used to turn the music up real loud for me too on the way to his customers to make his deliveries.  For keeping me in Ms, Goldstein’s class knowing I may have needed a different environment. For coming to my first day of Junior High school (albeit afterschool WHO does that?) For pressing my hair SO GOOD the first day of Martin. For telling me that Brooklyn Tech was a memory (I got waitlisted and didn’t want to go to Summer School to get in because I didn’t want to go there and NANA and GRANNY knew it! ) To not beat myself up over it. (Mommy is STILL MAD in Heaven❤️) To standing outside Martin with Aunt Colette and Mommy because the girls didn’t like me but the boys did!  The most important lesson I learned was to put ME FIRST! NANA you loved us ALL independently and individually. You made sure we had toiletries, pens ...