Kimberly Bryant
I was in my tenth year when my grandmother asked me if I knew where her daughter was. I told her my mother was at work. She nodded, paused, then asked again. Ten minutes later, again. And again. She moved slower after that, spoke little, laughed even less. Before, we were constant companions. I’d stand and watch her quietly as she snipped her roses in the morning. And she sat quietly watching me when I pulled out the tiny dollhouse suitcase from under her bed and built Barbie worlds when no one else wanted to play with me. But then she began slipping away. The family hired a caregiver. I stuck close, watching, waiting for a fleeting moment where she might recognize me—remember I was hers and she was mine. Sometimes she’d smile when I nestled close, and I thought I saw a twinkle—like she might actually know who I was.
One day, she walked into her bedroom, and I heard her rustling through drawers. A few moments later, she returned and pressed a Kennedy half dollar into my palm, her fingers lingering just a moment before pulling away. Then she turned and walked back into her room, closing the door behind her without saying a word.
The coin was warm in my palm, and I traced Kennedy’s profile, his face turned left, a gentle smile like my grandmother’s. At the bottom, the numbers—1976—a Bicentennial memento. She’d never given me a coin before. Not me, or any of the other grandchildren.
I walked to her door and stood there for a moment; the coin growing even warmer as I clutched it tight in my hand. I wanted to knock, to say thank you, to ask if she’d known—in that moment—that it was me. Instead, I stood there staring at the closed door, listening quietly to the silence.
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Kimberly Bryant is a writer and the founder of Black Girls CODE. Her memoir Ascending: Black Women and the Power Paradox is forthcoming from Tiny Reparations Books/Penguin Random House in 2027. She hosts the podcast Inner Garden: Stories of Healing, Land & Legacy and has been featured in The Boston Globe, Essence, and Amsterdam News.