The women who came before

She stares at me, fiercely, every day at work. 

She ran the War Office of Tennessee. 

Truth be told, she was a ‘Rosie the Riveter’ but.

She stayed. Her best friend and her decided now that

They had made it into the workforce, they weren’t going home.

I stare at that tiny woman with a BOSS face,

And I am steeled for my next meeting.

She was my grandmother.

She was a professor at UT and now retired.

No. Scratch that. She just died. And I’m still painfully reminded

Because I honestly, weirdly, thought she would live forever.

Her scientist background convinced me that she would tick

Right past the nineties and live well into the hundreds. 

So many ‘remedies’ for this and that,

God love her, it mostly worked. I want to live to 90-something.

She was my friend, and I miss her already.

She was mother, she is sister, she is daughter, she is friend.

She flies. She fights. She is fierce.

And because she flew the heights 

And fought the fights

And fiercely did what used to only be done by men, 

I can be and do pretty much anything I set my soul to do.