You is Kind. You is Smart. You is Important.

I got lost in a book today.  "The Help"...  its been on my "to read" list for a while... I don't read like I used to. I miss it.  I was reminded of that today, when I devoured a few chapters on my lunch hour and was late getting back to work because the time slipped away.  And tonight, as I read till I finsished the whole book.  I felt like a little girl again.  Safe in my bed, escaped to someone else's world, someone else's problems.  I love books.  I love the stories, the people.  They may be fictional, but they are us - where else could their stories come from? This particular book just opened up my soul.  I felt so much peace the past three days.  I felt like a woman.  A woman charged with making something of myself so I have stories to tell my children.  My grandchildren.  The setting of the book, in 1962, was a different time.  You didn't google your questions.  You asked your grandmother. I loved my granny.  I could crawl up in her lap and ask her anything. And she could tell me anything.  Good secrets.  Stuff I was special enough to know.  I miss her.  I love spending time with older people, soaking their stories in.  See, the things we remember are people...relationships.  This book wasn't about pretty things.  It was about the heartache inside black women, working for white families.  Raising their children, but banished to use seperate toilets.  In the end...  no matter the color of skin, these women had relationships.  They loved the same children.  They kept the same secrets from their husbands.  You can't make this stuff up.  Its timeless. It was a beautiful story.  It opened me up, raw spots.  Things I let scab over, but maybe I need to peel the scab off and let it heal better this time.  I need to un-plug.  I need laughter in my belly.  I need to watch the world through the eyes of my children.  I will remember the tuck ins and the giggles.  I will remember my granny telling me the truth.  I won't remember who text me...  who painted their world a rainbow on Facebook.  If I'm going to have a story to tell, I have to live. I have to be. Exchange. React. I am passing this book to my thirteen year old daughter.  She says she doesn't like to read, but I am hopeful if there's one ounce of me in her... this book will light an interest. And she will know the feeling of a Saturday tucked in her bed, lost in the world inside that book... The title of this blog is from the book. These are the words a wise, loving maid repeated over and over to a little girl whose mama didn't love her. That little girl called her maid mama. Love knows no color, no bounds. It is timeless. Its right in front of us. Grab it. Savor it. Tell your children they are kind. They are smart. They are important. Show them. And when you're done, curl up inside another book. If I'm lucky, me and my girls will all be curled in our beds, reading timeless stories, inspiring us to write on our own. If not on paper, in our hearts, and the stories we tell those we love.