Still I'll Rise

Resilience. I have to say I feel like I'm blessed with that gift.

It's kind of a family trait actually. My cousins and I have inherited the gift of resilience from our lovely late Grandma Doris. Our Grandma survived ten years of fighting cancer, without complaints and with an abundance of laughter, smiles, and kisses. My Grandma is probably the greatest person I ever will have met in my life. The idea of her simply is strength and hope. Unwavering faith. While receiving a death sentence of cancer, she made a choice to utilize this fight to redefine her life. Cancer helped my Grandma learn to live without her anxiety; with it she simply made the most of every bit of life she had, and what could have been months left turned into ten years. She prayed every night for just one more day with her family. She loved us all endlessly, affectionately, and to the fullest capacity.

Whether her resilience is something that is genetically passed down (like our family anxieties...) or something that was transfered through her inspiration, I know it's inside each of us. My mom told my sister and I after my Grandma passed that we are what got her out of bed each morning, so maybe it's just the strength we find in each other? I know that I would be nothing without the amazing families I have.

I recently discovered what is currently my favorite poem, "Still I Rise" by Maya Angelou. It's unbelievably powerful and speaks of the resilience I hope to continue to find everyday. The poem's original intentions was to give encouragement for those facing prejudice, however I find Maya's sass and confidence to be beneficial to any person with any problem.

Still I Rise

You may write me down in history
With your bitter, twisted lies,
You may trod me in the very dirt
But still, like dust, I'll rise.

Does my sassiness upset you?
Why are you beset with gloom?
'Cause I walk like I've got oil wells
Pumping in my living room.

Just like moons and like suns,
With the certainty of tides,
Just like hopes springing high,
Still I'll rise.

Did you want to see me broken?
Bowed head and lowered eyes?
Shoulders falling down like teardrops.
Weakened by my soulful cries.

Does my haughtiness offend you?
Don't you take it awful hard
'Cause I laugh like I've got gold mines
Diggin' in my own back yard.

You may shoot me with your words,
You may cut me with your eyes,
You may kill me with your hatefulness,
But still, like air, I'll rise.

Does my sexiness upset you?
Does it come as a surprise
That I dance like I've got diamonds
At the meeting of my thighs?

Out of the huts of history's shame
I rise
Up from a past that's rooted in pain
I rise
I'm a black ocean, leaping and wide,
Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.
Leaving behind nights of terror and fear
I rise
Into a daybreak that's wondrously clear
I rise
Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,
I am the dream and the hope of the slave.
I rise
I rise
I rise.


I hope to someday have that level of confidence--the confidence that I am almost immortal. I think that's really what the poem speaks about--how to be secure in your sense of self. To have the confidence that although others may hurt you, you can still fight through it. Even as prejudice has taken lives, each of the lives taken are still immortal in memory and in pride for their race, just as my Grandma will always be immortal though the love of my family.

Oh, and Maya Angelou's totally hard core. She recieved a dance scholarship at the age of 14, became San Francisco's first female cable car conductor, lived in Egypt and Ghana as the editor of newspapers, ran a dance school in Ghana, worked with Malcom X and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., wrote novels and screenplays, recieved 3 Grammys, and is fluent in English, Spanish, French, Italian, Arabic, and West African Fanti. She's lead a pretty impressive life.