Birds Of My Feather … I Am Grinning As I Wonder

Birds Of My Feather … I Am Grinning As I Wonder

By #Gloria Faye Brown Bates / #Granny Gee

Gloria Faye Brown Bates/ aka Granny Gee … even when I look different … I am the same … ole bird!

 

 

This morning … my thoughts have traveled into the past to the time I was a young girl … to my earliest memories of someone who said … did something special to touch my life … until the present.

I know I have forgotten as much as I remember throughout the years. I was sitting here, reflecting on how in the world can someone thank ‘everybody’ who has touched their life in the most special of ways … to make it all better?

A lot of those people are gone, now. One being my favorite aunt … whose soft, quiet voice stayed in my mind, through time. When I was a little girl, she would come to me … say “Faye, one day … you will be older, you can choose not to live in this kind of life”. How I had wished she was my mother, too. I truly loved her. I loved my Aunt Frankie.

I watched as a little girl in Hell … when she would come to visit her mother … my Grandma Alma. Hell would try to suck her in … making it hard to leave each time without being burned by the flames of harsh words … or crushed by a physical fight. My Aunt Frankie wanted to stay above that.

She never knew this little girl admired her, loved her … wanted to be like her. She came from Hell, herself … when she left, she strived to be a lady. Of course, time to time she was pulled down … she had no choice but, to fight to get out of the clutches of Hell … it didn’t like to let go of people who tried to be the best they could be … be someone.

No, Hell hated ‘goody-goodies’ … I was hated as I grew older. I damn sure wasn’t a goody-goody … I just wanted a life without Hell being raised … that meant I was trying ‘to be better than someone’. I wasn’t better than anyone … I just wasn’t a … Hellraiser; but, I learned real good … I could raise Hell with the best of them. It didn’t feel good … I didn’t.

It wasn’t that I was a ‘goody-goody’ … God knows I was led down a lot of roads that taught my ass many lessons. Roads that were terrifying … damn, I had such a curiosity! I wanted to know how this … how that could be. I couldn’t imagine … I wanted to see firsthand. I made turns on many roads I should have never … turned on.

I saw firsthand … I felt the sting of Hell on a lot of roads. I made mistakes … not horrible ones … but, the beginning of horrible ones until I decided I didn’t want to be on the roads I was taking. I ran like Hell … from Hell. I was always running … you know, Hell is in a lot of places.

Hell is disguised in many ways. Beautiful, wonderful things … lots of beautiful colors that attracted a young girl like myself. Sights, sounds … oh, how I loved beautiful things … oh, the roads I traveled on! How beautiful everything I had … was; how beautiful I was!

Oh, the fun I could have had … if only … I’d been ‘bad’ enough. I wasn’t as … bad as I thought I could be. I wasn’t tough enough to ‘walk the talk … talk the walk’ … (I probably said this wrong … but, I’m good at that … you know what I mean 🙂 The most beautiful colors in the world … the most awful consequences to pay.

I am glad I got off those paths … though, I have to say this. I can’t ‘knock’ everyone that was …. ‘bad’. There are a lot of ‘good-bad’ people. We need them in this world we live in. Though, I’m sure a lot of people wouldn’t agree … I lived real life … I have good-bad people to thank for being good to me. They were much tougher than I … and understood my path needed to go in a different direction.

My friends, people I love … care about … are all birds of a different feather. None of them are the same … they come from all walks of life … none are so low that I wouldn’t be proud to stand in public to speak to. So, if you see me talking to someone you can’t believe I’d be seen with … just know, you are only seeing the ‘outside’ … there’s good somewhere there … you just can’t see it.

You know the old saying … my Grandma Alma used to tell me all the time … ‘birds of a feather stick together’. Looking ‘at my birds of a feather’ … you wouldn’t be able to ‘see’ why ‘they are my birds of a feather’ …

None of us would look alike … talk alike … sound alike. We would all be many colors … every size. Some would be dressed in the finest … some wouldn’t have anything fine to wear at all. Some live in the most grand of homes … some don’t have the luxury of a bathroom.

What you can’t ‘see’ is the … goodness, kindness, love … caring, unselfishness … all the ‘birds of my feather’ … share.

That’s what we all have in common … sure, you’ll think, ‘okay, but … so and so, has a bad reputation; so and so, drinks, drugs, and such; just keep this in mind … so and so, could save your life … do, say that little something that can make all the difference in your life. They wouldn’t have to … but, they would.

I love good people … kind, honest, loyal people. They don’t all look alike. Their feathers are all different colors … some are smooth, clean & shiny feathers. Others … well, sometimes, they are very poorly groomed feathers … I don’t judge their feathers. I only care about what can’t be seen … a good Heart.

These are the types of people I’ve seen, known through time … that either said, did something that meant the world to me … along with people who do look like me … look like the ‘birds of my feather’ … I wish I could be sure I thanked all of them … of course, I can’t. I just went on trying to do better, not make the same mistakes … twice.

I have been molded, shaped by … different birds of a feather. My colors change all the time … yet, down deep … I am the same person. A good, kind, loyal person who cares about everyone, everything … unless it hurts a person, or animal. I won’t go there … that’s Hell … flaming Hell.

I guess what I’m getting at is … everyone who has reached out to touch my life … even in the smallest … biggest of ways, I would like to say ‘thank you’ for caring. Yes, I know all I have are … words; but … my words are sincere. Thank you … all you birds of my feather. We don’t have to look alike to understand.

I wonder what my Grandma Alma would think of all my friends … if she saw the ‘birds of my feather stick together’? I am grinning as I … wonder.