"I told my grandmother in halting words that I didn’t know if that—children, motherhood, sacrifice—was what I wanted. She squeezed my hand and whispered hoarsely, 'You know you don’t have to.' In that moment, my grandmother broke an enforced silence around women’s bodies and the choices we can or cannot make and the implications of those choices for our lives. The next morning, I left for school, a choice she never had the chance to make. I left with the question and its underlying assumption that mothering was the only way to be a woman. Unlike her, I could live another way. I left with the imprint of her hand in mine, her words in my ears, saying out loud what I did not know I needed to hear. My grandmother, perhaps more than any other person, wished for me to set out to do what I wished with my own life, body, and mind."
~ Jessica Wilkerson
"Lady Vols Country"
https://oxfordamerican.org/magazine/issue-121-summer-2023/lady-vols-country
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