My Cream Puff

I seh! Look at this fine fine man! And I was his favorite. Of course I knew him when he was gray and balding, but look at him. Something like a legend. That's my "cream puff."

God blessed us and our blessings are too plentiful to count. I knew him and loved him much. And he loved me too.

I didn't know all of my grandparents, only my mother's folks. And I often wonder which traits I got from whom. There's so much to be said about the Bernard's and Urey's, but this grandfather of mine ... I mean just look at him and see the pride on his brows!

I hope I have his strength and humility. My grandfather was a well respected businessman and supported his family the way a man should. These days it seems men don't understand their role as the patriarch of the family. Women do it all. And I do not ever intend to slight the strength of my nana, because those who know me know that I love my nana more than air (and that's not an understatement), but when I reflect on my grandfather, I think about the type of man I would want to be with forever as well as the type of woman I should become. His principles apply for all people. I live to make my cream puff proud of who I am.

Thanks for doting on me when I was born as I'm sure only you could do, and for loving the red velvet cake I made with baking powder instead of baking soda, and for taking me to my first dance when I was little, and for sending me to see Europe, and for my first gold jewelry, and for wearing the hell out of the GT apparel when I got admitted, and for sending me letters on the world's last typewriter, and for driver's education because American schools don't mandate it, and for being so overprotective because you didn't want ANYTHING to harm us ('the Liberian ocean water is treacherous!'), and for making me feel like a Liberian princess all the days we were together, but especially the summer I went home right after the fighting finished. Thanks for being my cream puff and all the other things you could be in between.



Cheers to the men who make their granddaughters feel like they deserve the world, and try their best to give it to them. I'm one of the lucky ones.