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My mother, Myrna M. Persaud, was one of the smartest, most literate women I knew, enamored of reading, especially Victorian literature. She frequently wove wonderful tales out of air and sandcastles to fascinated children, her own and others. Or else, she related stories from the Grimm brothers or Shakespeare. My nickname for her was "The Storyteller."
She was forced to quit school, however, at the age of 12, to care for her newborn baby brother because their mother had died during childbirth. It was a loss from which she never fully recovered, and she mourned the lack of an education as she immersed herself in raising her four children as a single mother after my father died when she was just 44. And after her children were grown, along came grand kids, the joys of her heart, to nurture and to love. She was truly selfless where her children and grandchildren were concerned.
But, even in her final days, confined this past March and April, because of the Corona quarantine, to a shared room in an Assisted Living Facility, books sustained her. She read any and every thing she could lay her hands on, including the books, magazines, word search and trivia books I sent her. She was doing well and feeling well, enthusiastic and energetic in the days before the facility neglected her and the Corona virus claimed her.
She told me that she was even starting to write her own life story., saying excitedly," I'll start from the beginning and describe my childhood, and how it was, and then I'll describe each of you, how the experience of motherhood was, and how each of you, my children, are unique."
If there was ever a woman who deserved to be educated and to explore the world of ideas and thought, it was my mother, Myrna Persaud. She gave each of her four children their roots and the foundation on which to build the rest of their lives. This is why I want to honor and memorialize her: by setting up a need-based scholarship fund for a woman as deserving as my mother was, so that someone, somewhere can live the dream my mother yearned for, and was so capable of, even till the end, before she was taken unexpectedly on May 1, 2020. Forever in my heart, Mom.
She was forced to quit school, however, at the age of 12, to care for her newborn baby brother because their mother had died during childbirth. It was a loss from which she never fully recovered, and she mourned the lack of an education as she immersed herself in raising her four children as a single mother after my father died when she was just 44. And after her children were grown, along came grand kids, the joys of her heart, to nurture and to love. She was truly selfless where her children and grandchildren were concerned.
But, even in her final days, confined this past March and April, because of the Corona quarantine, to a shared room in an Assisted Living Facility, books sustained her. She read any and every thing she could lay her hands on, including the books, magazines, word search and trivia books I sent her. She was doing well and feeling well, enthusiastic and energetic in the days before the facility neglected her and the Corona virus claimed her.
She told me that she was even starting to write her own life story., saying excitedly," I'll start from the beginning and describe my childhood, and how it was, and then I'll describe each of you, how the experience of motherhood was, and how each of you, my children, are unique."
If there was ever a woman who deserved to be educated and to explore the world of ideas and thought, it was my mother, Myrna Persaud. She gave each of her four children their roots and the foundation on which to build the rest of their lives. This is why I want to honor and memorialize her: by setting up a need-based scholarship fund for a woman as deserving as my mother was, so that someone, somewhere can live the dream my mother yearned for, and was so capable of, even till the end, before she was taken unexpectedly on May 1, 2020. Forever in my heart, Mom.