My aunts shared the responsibility for years, driving up and down I-95 to take care of her in their own homes as equally as they could. When I moved to Arlington in 2021, I made sure I had a place with a guest room for her when she and my mother visited.

When I bought my house in 2024, a room for grandma was at the top of the list. 

It was a call my mother always told me she feared. 

My mother was on her way to a local theater production of Grease. She’d been dolled up in leather and pink with her long colorful locs tied back. She had to come back to the house because she had left the tickets on her dresser in her excitement. I jogged out to the end of the driveway to pass her the envelope like a relay stick through the open window. She was smiling in her black leather hat and tied neck scarf. 

And when she got that call, she called me. For once in my life, I didn’t have my phone on me. I was still outside, busily blowing the leaves back before they overtook the yard again. My phone was charging in the garage.

My sister came outside, handing me her phone. It was on speaker. 

“Diara?” 

“Yeah, what's up? You leave something else?” 

“I got the call,” was all she said. “I got the call.”

“Okay, how far are you?” I knew she was picking up her friend for the show. That was not happening. “Ok, turn around and come home. Just breathe and take your time. We’ll be here.” 

Ethel passed away on September 11, 2025, two weeks from the anniversary of George’s passing. She wasn’t sick or lost or hurt. She wanted to take a nap, something she never did. 

Except just this once. 

The next few days were a battering storm of grief and silence and screaming. 

There was no research, no reporting and no driving to Person County. Instead, I went to Florida with my sisters, my mother, my brother and my father. We joined my aunts, most of my cousins, and family I hadn’t seen for years. 

It was beautiful to see my family rise up and speak on the wonder and gift that was our matriarch. I cried as my father, who’d been divorced longer from my mother than they’d been married, said that Ethel showed him his first true example of Black Excellence. And that was what he strived for as an adult, successfully, if I can say so as his eldest daughter. 

Through tears and heartbreak, we placed our roses where she rested. 

After the ceremony and the crying and the care, we continued to share more about what we loved about her. Her commitment to veterans, her love of God and strength of faith. Her love of travel and for her grandchildren.  

Once, when I was 21, at a Las Vegas slot machine and betting for the first time ever, Grandma watched me win more than I expected. She told me (after she stopped giving me the side-eye and a flat smile for blowing past her winnings), “Ok, cash out now. That’s it.” She warned me that's how people get ahead of themselves and lose more than they should.

I wanted to keep going, I bet $2, and it went over $100! But I listened. I got my little receipt and my $120 before leaving with her and my aunts—self-control and discipline, and a little cash in my pocket, all in one lesson. 

Ethel was busier than any retired grandmother of ten should have been, and she remained a focal point of leadership for everyone she touched, even as 80 approached, and her bright personality softened.

She made my mother who she is, which made me who I am. She was the foundation of our family for my mother, my aunts and my cousins, whether we all knew it or not. And we are learning together to stay strong and connected with only her spirit and memory to guide us. 

I started this story two weeks before she died. I didn't know it would take nearly nine months to finish. I honestly didn’t know if I could finish. 

During my late fall reporting trip to Person County, after meeting with one of my sources for the story, I went to the closed Country Club Road. A cement-and-orange-drum barrier where a public thoroughfare used to be, running straight through land Microsoft had purchased for $27 million a year earlier. I set up my tripod, stood on my car and tried to get the highest angle shot of the sprawling 1,350 acres of rolling hills and trees. I recorded a couple of videos. I had no idea what I’d do with them. But I wanted to both capture and reflect on what I’d learned in my interviews and what I hoped to learn moving forward.

I stood there for a moment. A few dogs barked in the distance. 

Nobody around. Just the quiet of a rural county and the wind in the trees that bordered the now dead-end road. I choked back unexpected tears. A wave of grief as thoughts of my grandmother surfaced again. Thanksgiving and Christmas were around the corner, and she wouldn’t be there to pray around the table, squeezing the life out of the hands of whoever drew the short straw and stood next to her (both a fond and visceral memory). 

I packed up my equipment and climbed back in my car. I still didn’t know whether I had a clear story to report. But I was here, I was trying.  

There were a couple of hours before an advocate meeting I was attending would start, so I sat in a McDonald's parking lot, eating peanut butter crackers and a granola bar. My first paycheck for my new contract job hadn’t landed yet. I spent that time going through my notes, digitally sorting through a handful of the more than a hundred documents I received in August, September and October.  

As my story finally started coming together in January and February, a technical failure wiped out months of drafts I’d been working on since November in an instant. That was a night of swearing, praying, crying and, at last, final grim resolution. Lesson learned. Time to finish and cash out. 

I kept going, through the doubt, concern and constant reminders that I’m a scientist and a researcher who's learning to be a journalist (again). Was I done researching? Was I done interviewing? (Lord, please) Was I done reporting? I had to trust in the answers I received to the questions I asked and asked again. Even if I couldn’t see the finish line, I had to trust that I was here. 

I need faith in the walk I'm on — in my world of tarot and journalism, I don't always know I'm on the right track. And as I grow in my craft and in my spirituality, I find myself turning more to this scripture:

"For we live by faith, not by sight." — 2 Corinthians 5:7

Today is Mother's Day—the first without my grandma. 

One of my aunts is here, driving down to spend this Sunday with us. We've grown closer this past year, in the way grief pulls people together rather than apart. While I was getting her a card this week, my face turned hot, and my eyes welled with tears. I won’t be getting my grandma a card, I realized. And I won't be getting a card from her on my birthday in two weeks. 

To hell with that. 

I had one good sniffle, shook off the grief, and picked out a card for her. And I used all the space in there to write her a message. To thank her and to remind me that my grandmother made my mother who she is, who made me who I am.

I don't know exactly what today will look like. There will be church, and flowers, and messages of faith and love for our mothers. My sister and I will wear our red carnations. My mother and aunt will wear white. It will be stark, meaningful and heavy. The shadow of her absence hasn’t waned, but there is more light than dark now. We can see more clearly through the gloom, at memories that bring us joy—something for us to hold just as we hold each other. 

My story is finished and, if all goes well, will be published this week. 

I've been sitting with it for so long that I'm not sure what it will feel like to let it go. Nine months of driving and waiting and reading and second-guessing and starting over and writing and reporting some more. 

I hope it reaches the people who are looking for answers, for meaning, for understanding. 

Sometimes we can only hope that what’s changed in our lives is for the better. My grandmother lived in Alabama and Florida in the 1940s and 50s. She didn’t like to talk about the past, but I know she survived a dark time when others who looked like her did not. 

At that slot machine in Vegas, she told me when to cash out—when I'd done enough. But she also showed me, by living the way she did, surviving what she survived, and raising who she raised, when to stay in it. When the thing in front of you is worth every bit of patience and faith it demands. I have faith that she raised our family to be that change. And I'm striving every day to adhere to her guidance, lessons and love.

Journalism isn't just about reporting in a community; it's about listening, asking, and finding answers together.

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