In my life review paper is about the life of an elderly woman by the name Lisa Newsome, the grandmother to my girlfriend and this was the greatest opportunity to dig deep in his family roots. She is the wife to the late Jed Newsome. It made the interview cheaper to me since I was able to create more intimate relations by questioning the grandmother of someone so close to me. Their ancestors were believed to have originated from the African countries, they were brought to America as slaves to work in the farms and in the mines. Her parents were Jenifer Jameston and David Jameston.
During her childhood, Lisa lived with her parents in the slave camps in Washington DC where her parents worked as laborers in the flower farms. Her parents spent much of the day in the farms either planting, weeding and harvesting the flowers and when there is little work in the farms' women would go and work as maids in the homes of the heads of the farm. She could not forget the hard lives her parents lived, hard work with little pay that could not support a family of two to the satisfaction. The parents struggled to work overtime so that they could get enough money to provide the basic needs for their two children, Lisa and Robinson. She was born in the year 1943 in the slave camp where she was raised before leaving to work as a maid for another family within the city.
During her childhood she had friends just within the camp, these were children of other slaves who were working on the flower farm just like her parents. They could wake up very early in the morning to the morning house chores before they get prepared for school. Because their parents were ever busy on the farm, much of the house chores they were doing with his brother before they go to the playfields to play with the fellow friends. Among her friends, she could only remember the few, that is, Janet, Jacqueline, Romeo, and wisdom who was very close to her. Although life in the camp was hectic, as children they enjoyed the company of their friends playing together, gathering fruits together and doing so many things that she did not mention. Lisa really appreciated the effort of her parents who work hard day and night just to make sure they get enough to eat, wear and their school fees paid for.
In 1958, when Lisa was 16 years old her father passed away after battling with pneumonia for two years. Her mother’s earning was not enough to sustain her family, therefore, as the eldest child, she was left with no option but to drop out from school, get some casual jobs to help her mum feed the family. Lisa got a job as a maid and she earned some good amount of money that she sent 40% to her mum, save 30% and the remaining 30% she used to buy her own things. She worked as a maid for nearly 7 years before getting married to Jed Newsome who works as a delivery man for a certain bread company.
When Lisa was working as a maid, she met Jed whom she dated for several months before moving in with him to start a new life as a wife and a husband. They started life from zero with her husband in a single room where they lived a happy life. In the year 1970, God blessed them with a boy child whom they named Jack Daniels. After another five years, they had a girl child Marie. They jointly raised their children happily, took them to school and provided for their basic needs. Life was a bit easier since Lisa got a job as a casual work in a motel, the money she got from the motel plus the husband’s wages was enough to cater for food, rent, and other family needs. Lisa and her husband seldom visited her mother and brother, her mother was by then aged and was no longer working on the farm. Her brother was taking good care of the aged mother, he also got some support from Lisa. She would send money or once in a while give them a visit, caring with them some shopping and gifts from the grandchildren to their grandmother. Life became challenging after the children have grown old and their needs are more than the total amount of money they earn.
Although paying high school fees for their two children was a nightmare, they tried, by all means, to make sure they keep their children in school. After completing high school jack joined a polytechnic and trained as a structural engineer and Marie joined a medical college where she trained as a dental assistant. She could remember foregoing so many good things in the name of paying school fees for her children. Her husband passed away before Jack and Marie finished their training in their respective colleges. Jed passed on after a road accident that happened when he was doing his work of distributing loaves of bread to various retail shops. He was driving a company van when they hit head-on with a long track taking his life on the spot.
After the demise of the husband, life was not the same but full of stress. Jed had a child outside the wedlock with another woman and he never disclosed this to Liza. He did not only have a kid but he was also providing for the needs of the kid and the mother. The core wife demanded a share of their saving and investment that left Lisa with almost nothing. Even though she was left with little share, she managed to fully pay school fees for her children from donations by family friends and church members.
Besides, she felt betrayed and humiliated, they lived for so many years with Jed, shared a lot together, trusted him but he kept secrets from her. She quoted “No woman knows where her husband is, until that time he is laid in the grave. With the help of well-wishers, she managed to raise her kids, take them to school and gave them a future they deserved. She is pleased to have another happy family who is taking good care of themselves and loving one another. How she wished she could bring the life of her lovely husband back to enjoy the fruits of the hard work they did together.
Analysis of the life Review
According to my intervention with the elderly grandmother, I can say life is so hard, cruel and merciless to a certain group of individuals. These group of people consider life as a punishment; therefore, they gave up working hard and believe there is nothing substantial they can gain in life. Referring to the life Lisa was living during childhood, life was hard and merciless on their side. But because her parents never gave up in life, they persistently work harder to ensure the little they earned feed their families and in the long run changed their living standards.
No matter how hard life was hard for Lisa, her parents and her husband never took pleasure in engaging in criminal activities as other individuals who steal and injure others for their survival. When life is so cruel, some people even commit suicide in the bid of avoiding the injustices of life. Nevertheless, Lisa considered the hard life as a challenge and a route leading to discovery and innovation. To her life was a route leading to wealth and possibility for success. She did not bother whatever life threw to her she kept on moving, after the demise of her husband being robbed of her savings, she did not take her life to get away from the merciless life but worked hard to support her children. Even when her father passed away, she dropped from school, worked as a maid to generate some income for the family. She handled life with the mantra "Where there is life, there is hope" I am happy to be among those in this latter category. I am pleased with the different achievements, for instance, when I landed in the United States, I joined high school and after my graduation, I started doing partly jobs for my maintenance while I college. To be sincere life was not easy, but with the determination to live a better life I took every single experience with a positive attitude.
Throughout her life, Lisa never gave up in life or developed a negative attitude towards any bad experience in life. The hard work and perseverance that Lisa's family made right from his parents bared fruits and their new generation is now living a better life compared to the life their grandparents lived. People say the heart is the deepest ocean for secrets, I confirmed this when I came to learn that Lisa had a core wife and she lived not knowing until the core wife spilled the beans when the husband died. According to my point of view, Jed would have informed his wife about the core wife, because if Lisa would have come to know about this before his demise it would have brought instability to their family.
Education is life, more so education for the girl child, because Lisa took her children to school, she is now enjoying the fruits. Similarly, education makes the children of the rich and those from poor families equal. Based on the interview I carried out, I can say that old is gold if you used your youthful life appropriately in useful things you will not live to regret the life you lived. Those people who lived a careless and wasteful life come to regret the great things they had the potential to do but fail due to a wasteful lifestyle they lived while having the energy. She appreciated the life she lived since she spent almost her life doing things building the economy and smiles whenever she shows the results of her hard work. Lisa was please sharing her life story with me and sent a message of hard work and perseverance to our youths.
