Grandma

The daughter of an industrial town,
her mind and ambition flowed as fast as the much watched waves of the Mersey,
and she was much maligned,
as clever little girls often are,
but they are the kind of girls that build the strongest women.

Running across the bridge to Runcorn,
dark hair flowing and glowing in the moonlit wind,
the world wasn’t ready for a woman like her,
but she wasn’t ready to settle for the bounds they believed she should stick to,
and as the sun set across Spike Island,
she had made up her mind to be more than everyone was capable of allowing her to be.

Clever little girls that grow into strong women don’t just grow in their own regard,
they topple dams and tear down walls with weary smiles,
knowing that they alone must change a lazy, spiteful society,
so that more girls can grow and flower,
climbing higher and higher,
until they reach down a hand,
pulling each other over the barriers of their bounds, towards the road to freedom.

She never stopped.
Her eyes as focused as her detractors and their dismal desire to keep her compliant.
She, like so many before her,
and like so many after her hoped to do,
became the woman that she needed,
and the woman that a terrified, antiquated ogre could not stand,
standing tall, to show babies in pink blouses how to do the same,
and as I struggled to my feet before her,
I knew that one day,
I would be lucky to be just like her.