I don’t have a very vivid memory of my mother when I was younger. I do, however, remember when she was pregnant with my little brother. I remember how much she used to drink while she was pregnant, I remember how sad she always was while she was pregnant, and I remember how sick she stayed. This would be my mother’s fourth and last child. My mother changed greatly after she became pregnant with Caleb, my brother. We had just moved into a new house, a house that my mother felt that we had to have, because it seemed perfect for our big family. This “new start” on life was supposed to be all for the better, but things only started to accelerate down hill after we moved in. My parents were constantly fighting, sometimes all through the night. I would wake up to hear screaming matches, things being thrown and then broken. I was one scared little girl. That is until a woman named Josephine Robinson, walked through our front door and into my life.

Josephine, an older, black woman was the plain and simple kind, who stood no taller than 5 feet 2 inches. She always used to wear a white nurses’ outfit, with white stockings, and white orthopedic nurses’ shoes. She never wore make-up, yet her skin always looked so soft and unflawed, as if she soaked every night in a butter milk bath; her shiny hair, cut short, curly, and black with streaks of gray all through. She wore a perfume that smelled of sweet musk. I used to sit in her lap and take in deep breaths just so I would always remember her scent.

I was four years old when my father hired Nana Joe. My mother was in her last month of pregnancy and Nana Joe was there to help. She would help with the cooking, cleaning, and the daily care of my older sister, Beth and, me. Caleb, my brother, was born on December 31, in the dead of winter. My father tells me that the day that my mother and he brought him home, Nana Joe arrived at the house extra early just so that she could turn up the heat, turn on the lights, and have the doors open. She was standing out on the front porch ready and waiting with such excitement to see the new edition to our family. From that point on, I don’t ever remember Nana Joe not around.

The next fall, I had just turned five and my brother was about ten months old, my father received some news that would change the rest of our lives forever. My mother never returned to the person she once was; she was sick, not physically, but mentally. She was hospitalized, and never to return again. She ran away with another man and left Caleb, Daddy, and me behind. Feeling scared and helpless my father went to Nana Joe and said, “She’s gone, and I have two babies at home. What am I going to do?” Without one moment of hesitation, Nana Joe replied, “Don’t you worry about a thing! I’m not leaving my babies!” She never did. Nana Joe was there every day, from six o’ clock in the morning to sometimes all night long. Daddy worked three jobs just to support Caleb and me, all the while trying to make enough to compensate Nana Joe. I am not exactly sure how much my father paid for her services, but I do know that her love and care for us was priceless.

Most children, at the age of five and one, have a mother to take them to school for the first time, we had Nana Joe. She was always out on the front porch watching and waiting for me to get off of the school bus. Most children, at this age, have a mother to take care of them while they were sick, we had Nana Joe. Caleb stayed very sick for a long time after he was born. He was hospitalized several times, but Nana Joe always stuck by our sides to make things seem better. She was there to tell stories, to hold us when we cried, and always there to try and to help us understand why our mother would leave.

I am not taking any credit away from the rest of my family, who also was always there for my father, my brother, and me, after my mother ran away, but Nana Joe was special. She wasn’t blood related, she wasn’t related by marriage, and she was under paid, but she never once left us. A mother is supposed to make you feel safe, secure, and taken care of; my brother and I didn’t have a mother, we had something better. We had a woman, once a complete stranger, who loved us just as much as any mother ever could. She took great pride in her job, and she did it well. Seven years later, my father remarried and no longer needed Nana Joe’s services. He and his new wife decided to let her go when I turned eleven.

I have a saying about Nana Joe and, it is this, “God gave me a mother who gave me life, but He gave me Nana Joe to teach me how to live life.” To this day, I have never forgotten the woman that God sent to my family to kiss away the pain and hurt my mother had left behind.