I'm thinking about my great-grandmother. She was an Enslaved person. People tend to think of slavery in terms of ancient history, but for some of us, that is not true. My brothers, cousins, and I grew up playing around the feet of this Lady who lived almost to be 100. We all lived with my grandparents and GG-Mother used to sit in a dark, wing-back wicker chair in the dining room. We were young & bad, giggling, running back and forth around and up to her. Every once in a while, she would use the hook of her cane to catch one of us by the ankle, and pull that squealing kid into her arms for a big hug! Her ebony face is my younger brother's first memory: he says he saw love in her eyes. I was the first girl born and she laid hands on me imparting an undefined "knowing" that troubled me most of my life. DNA revealed that GG-Mother was an Israelite woman, and she left breadcrumbs for us to follow so we could discover ourselves. One hint was that she named her son after the Spanish king; my younger brother carries the same name. Being raised military around whites, caused him to hate his name because they made fun of it. Now, he is beginning to understand the significance of the name "Alfonzo" and doesn't hate it anymore. And, that undefined "knowing" is clear now. It connects me to GG-Mother's painful past and hopes for a glorious future for her descendants. I am fully awake and extremely grateful to YAH to have known her.