A Heavenly Meeting With my Angelic Grandmother

     I met my grandmother for the first time last year. More specifically, I met my paternal grandmother for the first time on October 9th, 2019. You must understand the significance of this because my grandmother Barbara Hall Cherry, has been dead for as long as I’ve been alive. A little more than that, actually. In fact, Barbara Hall Cherry passed on April 30, 1996 exactly 6 months before I was born. She’s who I was named after. 

     Today is her birthday so it’s only right that I share my feelings, thoughts, and love that I have for her. Not only that but the story of how we met for the first time.

     One of my favorite stories about my grandmother is a story my mom tells usually on my birthday. She said they were visiting Barbara while she was hospitalized for pneumonia and she kicked my mother out the room, telling her to “get that baby out of here.” Before my mother even knew she was pregnant with me. I was always amazed at the story because how could she have known that my mother was pregnant before my mother even knew.

     Later, my mother found out that she was indeed pregnant with me. She prayed and hoped that she would have a boy because my father's siblings — he had a lot of them— were swearing up and down that the baby’s name, if a girl, would be named Barbara. 

     As you can see my uncles and aunts were correct and my mother stood no chance against the Hall/Cherry kids so I inherited the name Barbara. 

     And although we share a name, since I was younger I wish I had shared a bond with her. I longed for the memories my older sister had of Barbara taking her to school, or picking her up. There’s a picture of her holding my brother and my cousin who were both born in the same year just 2 months apart. I wanted an attachment to the mighty matriarch who had given birth to 11 children. My father’s mother, who’s always been described as small but feisty. 

     Last year, I met her. 3 weeks before my 23rd birthday, she came to me in a dream. Or should I say, I went to her. In the dream, my mother and I were in some kind of trouble. We called my father —who has always been the Fix it Felix when it comes to family being in trouble— told us to go to his mother who was staying in Pelham. This was strange because my father’s side of the family really has no connection to the Bronx. My grandmother is originally from Maryland, born to Geraldine Wade, then she moved to Harlem.

     The building we arrived at was a beautiful walk up. It was decorated with clean, gleaming mirrors all over. When we got to her apartment door, we knocked and she opened the door as if she was expecting us. Her first words were a command. “Y’all better not wake her up.” There was a woman sleeping on a pullout couch in the cluttered apartment but I never figured out who it was. It could’ve been one of my aunts who had joined my grandmother in glory, Ebony in 1997 and Lolita in 2012. Either way, we were instructed not to wake her. There was also a young girl sitting at the table, underneath a hair dryer, who turned out to be a younger version of my sister. 

     Back to grandma Barbara, in her long, white, house dress she was angelic and appeared to be the matriarchal figure I always wanted to meet. She didn’t mention the trouble my mother and I were in at all. Instead she took us in, without mentioning whatever trouble we might’ve had following us. We were welcome, under the condition that we didn’t wake up the woman sleeping on the pull out couch.

      

     My mother went to play dress up in the clothing and jewelry from the good old days. Both my grandmother and I watched as she donned diamond necklaces and beautiful gowns from the 80s and 90s that were lost in time. 

     If you’ve ever had a dream, you’d know that sometimes dreams can change settings in an instant and can also not make very much sense or give any explanation whatsoever. Leaving you to figure it out on your own. 

     Somehow the dream shifted from the small, cluttered apartment to a boat on turbulent waters and my grandmother was talking to me in a loving tone. She said, “I’m so glad that you’re here and I’m so glad that I got to meet you because I thought you were dead.” 

     I don’t believe the boat symbolized any importance whatsoever. Although, I am really big on symbolism and hidden meanings, I would Dreammoods and Google myself to death if I could! 

     What my grandmother said to me was more important than where we were. “I’m so glad that you’re here and I’m so glad that I got to meet you.” It was my exact sentiments. It was almost as if she read my mind. I was so happy to see her. So happy to meet her. She was everything I hoped she would be and more. 

     The last part, “because I thought you were dead,” had to be a little sci-fi my subconscious sprinkled in there to get my brain juices flowing because I woke up trying to convince myself that there was another universe where I died in 1996 and my grandmother survived and she visited me in my universe.

    The dream ended shortly thereafter and I woke up overwhelmed with emotions. I was overjoyed because I had finally gotten the chance to meet Barbara Hall Cherry. I didn’t need anybody’s stories because I had my own. She welcomed me. She spent time with me. She was glad to meet me. And in the dream, I knew she loved me. I was also sad that the dream ended because I wanted more time with her. More time in the archives of things she saved from the 90s, more quiet laughs because of the woman sleeping on the sofa bed. More of the grandmother’s warmth that radiated from her body even in my subconscious. 

After my emotions passed, I questioned everything. 

Was it all just a dream? 

Or did I magically go back to a time when my grandmother was alive and babysitting my sister and housing her daughter? 

I had never dreamed of her before and this dream was so vivid. 

Was it a parallel universe in which she lived and I did not? Or have I seen one too many movies? 

Either way I am so grateful that God allowed this angel some time with me. Even if it was just for a while. 

     Grandmothers are truly a gift. They ground us and remind us that we are loved. They bless us with their wisdom and their tough love. They are our past and our future, we become like them because we come from them. 

     If you have a chance, (and I know you do because most of us are confined to our homes) watch Disney’s Moana. Moana’s grandmother is my favorite fictional grandmother. She encourages Moana to listen to the voice inside of her, she guides Moana through troubled waters, protects her, and reminds her who she is. “If that voice starts to whisper, to follow the star, Moana that voice inside is who you are.”

My name, my inheritance, not only reminds me who I am, but reminds me of who she was.

Happy birthday, Grandma ❤️
I love you forever and always. In this universe and any other universe where you’re my grandma. In this life and the next.