I don’ know if this here is true, but I’ve always knowed that b‘hind ever’ good man, they is a good woman. All of ‘em girls growed up thinkin’ that the ma had to be tough for this here fambly an’ it’s true. I knowed that the secon’ I give in, or fall, so does that there fambly. It ain’t no job that I gotta choose, but I knowed it was mine and I never complained. It ain’t that I don’ trust my fambly, I jus’ know that what I wan’ done, I gotta do myself. There was times I camed acrost har’ on them fambly, but I wouldn’ ever hurt any of ‘em. “’I was afraid we wouldn’ get acrost,’ she said. ‘I tol’ Granma we couldn’ he’p her. The fambly had ta get acrost. I tol’ her, tol’ her when she was a-dyin’. We couldn’ stop in the desert. There was the young ones—an’ Rosasharn’s baby. I told’ her.’ She put up her hands and covered her face for a moment. ‘She can get buried in a nice green place,’ Ma said softly. ‘Trees aroun’ an’ a nice place. She got to lay her head down in California.’” You see, it’s in times like these that folks learnt that stayin’ togethe’ was the only way to survive, to live on. I knowed that every lil’ thin’ we got is somepin to be appreciative for, ‘cause that is one more than somebody else ain’t got. God knowed that all somebody needed to get through was faith. I figgered that is why Casey was so importan’. I knowed they was a mutual respect for each other. He don’ knowed that I heard ‘em but I heard ‘em say in wonder, “’All night long, an’ she was alone.’ And he said, ‘John, there’s a woman so great with love—she scares me. Makes me afraid an’ mean.’” I never wonder’ about them things I did an’ didn’ do, ‘cause I knowed that folks gotta do things sometimes that they wouldn’ normally do, but I honestly did everythin’ I could to he’p anybody and everybody. I jus’ know that that’s what I would hope folks would do fo’ my fambly if somepin should ever happen to me. No matter where we be, my job is watchin’ over my fambly and standin’ behind my husban’ when he needed me. It don’ matter if we in Oklahoma o’ California. My love’s unconditional an’ unselfish. I jus’ want everythin to be better in California. I don’ care if we gotta a nice home o’ if we got money, I jus’ hope we got land that is our land and nobody else’s. An’ watchin’ the fambly die, literally o’ figuratively, I watch the strength we could’a had disappeared in to the endless piles of dust on the groun’. Losin’ our home was bad enough, but even worse was the way all ‘em folks treated our fambly out in California. I never could understan’ how them folks could be so mean when they knew jus’ what a hard time we was having. We never got in their way, yet they went out of their way to interfere ours. I almost considered myself a gentle person ‘til I met them California folks. Can you even believe they had enough nerve to call us Okies as if it were some disease or somepin. But lord knows that I couldn’ ever show jus’ how I fealt o’ the fambly would crumble at my feet. An’ we’ve come way to far for that.
Reason for writing:
character analysis
Birth sign: Scorpio
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