“My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge.” — Hosea 4:6
This series of articles was originally written by me back in 2003 and since has made its way around the world. It has been posted in Africa, the United Kingdom, Sweden, Canada, Europe and Asia, is translated into different languages, and it appears all across America.
It is story of the life and suffering of my mother, which I wrote in order to help somebody, so that her living would not be in vain. This week, the Lord told me to share this article with my readers again. Those of you who have read this column faithfully will remember the devastation faced by me and my family, as my mother suffered for 12 years with diabetes and all of the other implications it brings to the human body. Here is my story:
My own education and public relations campaign on diabetes prevention — established under the name Fannie Estelle Hill Grant — started after the loss of my mother, who succumbed to Type 2 diabetes on Christmas Day 2000.
I noticed a fire burning in the diabetes health arena, in the African American community in particular, and it is still burning out of control. Hopefully, this campaign will stop fanning the flames and put out the fire.
Mother was 73 years old, a wife and mother of nine, a homemaker who loved her family very much, and she believed in preparing wonderful home-cooked meals for the family, desserts any day of the week. Mama enjoyed cooking, cleaning and washing clothes, and even while raising nine children of her own, she always had room for other needy children.
In our early years in the 1960s, Mother was the wife of our sharecropper father in North Carolina, but they moved the family to Washington, D.C., in 1965. For more than 30 years the Washington metropolitan area was home.
The family learned of Mother’s Type 2 diabetes after a major stroke she had back in 1989. She lived only 12 years after the diagnosis. I and my sisters pledged to begin the educational prevention campaign while we visited with and cared for our mother during her last year of life.
Mother and Father moved back to North Carolina, where she enjoyed her later years in a very peaceful way. We purchased her a new home, took over the mortgage payments, and she was happy. Mother Grant enjoyed living on a 226-acre farm near Kinston; she was one of the heirs to a farm left to her family by their father, and my grandfather, Floyd Hill. She enjoyed walking around the farm, following my father as he worked.
Mother suffered many strokes, during one of which she lost the use of her tongue and couldn’t speak. Her kidneys failed, and she had kidney dialysis for the last two years of her life. High blood pressure was always present, and had been for many years. Both legs were amputated above her knees; suddenly, her five-foot-tall body was a little over three feet.
We wanted to know more about the disease that took our mother in such a brutal fashion. There was so much pain and suffering prior to her death. Mother Grant was a Christian, an evangelist who preached the gospel in churches throughout the D.C. area, and everyone loved her and called her Ma.
As her oldest daughter, I promised to educate millions of people regarding the causes and preventions of Type 2 diabetes.
First, I learned all I could about causes, preventions and effects. Well, I had already learned firsthand what Type 2 diabetes could do to our bodies. My interest was how to prevent these many devastations! I interviewed doctors from Johns Hopkins Hospital, Washington Hospital Center, Howard University and other private doctors who specialized in Endocrinology. Finally, I became an ambassador for the American Diabetes Association, and accepted speaking engagements to tell the story of my family.
In sharing with the general public, I feel a lot better now, because my mother’s living shall not be in vain.
Read Part 2 of this five-part series, “The Problem,” next week.
Lyndia Grant is a speaker/writer living in the D.C. area. Her radio show, “Think on These Things,” airs Fridays at 6 p.m. on 1340 AM (WYCB), a Radio One station. To reach Grant, visit her website, www.lyndiagrant.com, email lyndiagrantshowdc@gmail.com or call 240-602-6295. Follow her on Twitter @LyndiaGrant and on Facebook.