Yesterday afternoon, I was standing out on the back porch, just praying and talking to God. It was quiet, a little breezy, and I was carrying this deep sense of gratitude.
I had just read a poem my late paternal grandmother, Marion Riley Brown, wrote years ago. In it, she mentioned me—alongside my cousin Jimmy and my brother Billy. I was only two years old at the time she wrote it, just a baby really. But in three simple sentences, she saw me. She expressed love for me. And she hoped good things for my life.
I’m sixty now. And reading those words—it hit something in me. Something tender. Something I didn’t even realize was still waiting to be healed
So I stood there on the porch, thanking God for letting that poem come into my life at just the right moment. I was crying, yes—but it wasn’t just sadness. It was release. Gratitude. Wonder.
Then something happened that I’ve never experienced before.
As I prayed, I felt this overwhelming sense of presence. I can’t describe it perfectly, but I’ll try. It was like… a knowing. A warmth. A feeling of being completely accepted and safe. Like being wrapped in a hug you didn’t even know you needed.
And then it clicked.
In that moment, God was letting me feel the love of my grandmother. Not just remember it—feel it.
It was so real. So gentle. So familiar. I wasn’t scared. I wasn’t confused. It felt like home. Like something I had always known but had never quite touched.
And I don’t ever want to forget it. That comfort. That sacred kind of peace. That deep, quiet knowing that I am loved—by her, still.
I believe God gave me that moment not just to remember her love, but to experience it. To heal something in me. To remind me that love doesn’t end. It reaches. It lingers. And sometimes—when we need it the most—it finds its way back to us.
Brown Study and Wool-Gathering 