In an interview (here) with filmmaker Louis Massiah, American author Toni Cade Bambara explained why she dedicated one of her books to her mother:
So, why I dedicated The Salt Eaters to my mom: I can remember any number of times my mother, unlike other parents, would walk around us if we were daydreaming. If she was mopping, she would mop around us. My mother had great respect for the life of the mid. Between working her two jobs, she would put one foot in her stocking and would go into this deep stare. She too had the need for daydreaming and for talking with herself.
I’m no writer (or even much of a daydreamer), but this explanation brought back memories of my own mother setting the table around me as I parked myself at the kitchen table to do my homework in high school. My mother, a former teacher, treated the educational endeavor as sacred. Nothing was more important than school. My sister and I weren’t pressured to get good grades — we just had to take school seriously. But we knew that my mother loved being a student and loved being a teacher. She loved everything about school. It is no coincidence that I became a teacher myself.
I don’t have a novel, so I’ll just dedicate this blog post. For my mother.
-Bridget Crawford
