This is what's interesting: Yesterday the results of my mtdna test arrived. Meaning the discovery of who my mother's mother's mother's mother's mother was... well, at least the earliest recorded mother in the Americas. And she was from AFRICA. West Africa to be exact. She belonged to what genetic scientists describe as Haplogroup L2. Apparently the majority of African Americans mtdna's are marked with L2. Which means most African Americans descend from the same group of people and region in Africa. And according to my results there's a young man in West Africa who shares a similiar genetic ancestry code on his mtdna as me. I'm thinking Nigeria. Maybe Angola.

Needless to say I'm pleased. And surprisingly a bit emotional.

The oldest documented mother in this particular mtdna genealogy [the maternal mother's mother line] was a woman named Mahala Woods. The first and mulatto wife of the Reverend Dave Woods. Mother of Carolyn and Margaret. She was born circa 1818 near Frankfort, Kentucky. Her parents were both born in Virginia. Maybe it was Mahala's mother who traveled from Africa. Or her grandmother. Or her great-great grandmother. Maybe if she was lucky, Mahala was told about the young girl who at 13, maybe 15, was kidnapped and taken across the Atlantic in a slave ship destined for an unknown land, with unknown faces, a mother and father nowhere to be found. No one who when they saw her would know her name, the rocks she liked to throw, the songs she used to fall asleep to, the river she and her brother used to fish from. And if Mahala was lucky, she cried for this young person. She spent one minute of one day and gave honor to her and her loss and her unrelenting experience alone. And prayed that she found someone [not necessarily the father of her certain daughter], but someone who embraced her melancholy, who held her tight when the stars became so bright they blinded her into unearthly restlessness. Who found a place right behind her ear that when tickled made her at least smile, and softened the blinding ache for her home across the sea.

If Mahala wasn't lucky enough to do this, then I will. I will give one moment of my life and honor this young person who's turbulent yet endured life ultimately unfolded into me.

To my mother's mother's mother's mother's earliest recorded MOTHER... I honor you.

Until next time,

Keith