“There was nothing my grandmother wanted . . . she had everything she needed—a beautiful home, a loving and devoted family, a new grandchild.” 

THIS IS WHAT MY MOTHER has told me: on the afternoon of Tuesday, October 16, 1973, my grandmother, Thelma Vivian Gordon, died of a massive coronary episode while tending to the garden in her front yard. I was eight months old. Earlier that morning, my mother had dropped me off at my grandparents’ home, a few seconds’ drive from where we resided, before beginning her daily thirty-minute commute to work. During my afternoon nap, my grandmother went to care for her plants in her front yard. While watering and pruning, and periodically checking in on me to see if I had awakened, she suddenly collapsed. Mrs. Emerald Lattimore, who lived across the street from my grandparents, saw my grandmother in distress, called for help, and retrieved me. My mother says that I did not wake up throughout the entire ordeal—when my grandmother lost consciousness, when the ambulance came to take her to the hospital, or when my family finally reached her as she breathed her last, labored breaths.