| My daughter puts her arms around me, her | | | | Josephine abandoned me when I was four years |
| brown eyes soft and beckoning. Her rounded belly | | | | old, leaving me with her mother. What a heritage! |
| and motherly curves rest against me, and for a | | | | When I look at my daughter, I see the images of |
| moment I choke up. She is pregnant with a girl | | | | my foremothers in my mindmy beautiful but |
| baby whose middle name will be Joy like mine. | | | | insensitive mother, my intelligent, |
| She will be my first grand-daughter, and my | | | | breaking-the-rules grandmother. I remember their |
| second grandchild. | | | | terrible fights and broken dishes that went flying |
| I was named Joy by my great-grandmother, | | | | when my mother came to visit, and I think of |
| Blanche, the mother of my grandmother Lulu, | | | | my grandmother's deathbed, where there was no |
| who spent much of her childhood living with | | | | forgiveness between them. I think of how my |
| Blanche's mother. When Lulu was a young | | | | mother didn't want anyone to know she had a |
| woman, she abandoned her daughter Josephine. | | | | child, and how I tried to win her love until she died. |