Patrice Thomas

Patrice Thomas; that’s me. My mother would always say to her children that we were her mistakes to take care of. So, earlier this year I finally got up enough nerve, and I lovingly confronted (I use this word loosely) her about calling us, her three children, ‘her mistakes.’ She and all of her 80 plus year old self said: “I made the mistake of laying with a man who laid with too many women and had too many kids. And I did it twice.” When I think about it, that didn’t really answer the question, but I understood what she meant. Annette’s three children were born and raised on the south side of Chicago and were the product of the Chicago Board of Education school system. My older brother went on to build a business in the gaming industry, while my twin sister plunged headfirst into the medical field, following our mom’s footsteps. As for me, I wrote. Our mother may have referred to her three children as her mistakes to take care of, but she is fiercely proud of us.

I want to introduce you to my late grandmother for just a second. She was short and round, with the softest skin, and perfect hands. She had a soft voice, and she never seemed to get angry; mad yes, but I had never seen her get angry. Ethel Thomas, that’s her name, was an only child; born in 1916. I pointed out that she was an only child, and in moment you’ll see the importance.

Whenever I would go over to her house, she always had a story about her childhood to tell me. She told me all about her laying tar on rooftops; how she loved the boys; how she even picked up the habit of smoking cigarettes; how she met my grandfather, and how he courted her. She told me how she and “Buffalo,” that’s my grandfather’s nickname; how they sang in a quartette and traveled around. What she had never spoke of was her life as a wife, a mother yes, but never about her married life. It wasn’t until I until I was in junior college and wanted to know about my history (well really her history), that she told me what she knew to be true.

This came about because, while I was taking an African American Studies class, the professor asked us to talk to the oldest living relative, we knew, and get their story. She was mine.

I walked across the street to my grandmother’s apartment; where where’d she cooked some collard greens and cornbread, and neckbones and potatoes. She invited me to stay for dinner, of course I did. I told her what my professor has asked of us; and just like that she told me everything she could remember.

How her father stole her mother off her porch when she was just 11 years old, because he thought she was the prettiest thing he’d ever seen. How he took her to his mother to raise, so that he could marry her when she became of age; he did. She told me how one of her ancestors was a slave breeder and gave birth to 55 children: 23 for the buck and 32 for the master. She told me what it was like to be the mother of 17 children, and the struggles they endured. She told me about her life!

And when she was done speaking, I asked her what it felt like to live to see all 100 grandchildren, 57 great grandchildren, and 27 great-great grandchildren…she said: “I was an only child, now look at me.”