Can't Never Could

It’s been decades now since I last saw my grandmother, but she still continues to marvel me every day. Every morning when I wake up, I’m always reminded by her ingenuity and strong sense of empathy. She was 76 when she passed. Up until her last days, she always maintained the ability to see long term, “the big picture” as she always said, better than anyone I had ever known. Because of her foresight, her intuition, I have been able to accomplish the things that I have. Without her, none of this would be possible. I wake up every morning knowing that all of this happened because ultimately, she believed in me. My grandmother was more than just my grandmother. She was my mentor, my best friend and my first real investor.

It’s been decades now since my grandmother has passed on and decades since I’ve been holding onto this secret ever since the day of her will reading. Even after thirty years, I’m still not sure if I’m ready to confess what really happened with my lottery ticket.

I can hear my grandma beyond the grave, laughing and telling me “Now baby girl, if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” with her long southern drawl.

Every time I think about telling someone in my family, I’m reminded of the special motto that only her and I shared.

“Is this helpful?”

I know there’s nothing good that would come from my confession to my family, so no, this would not be helpful. That confession would just be the beginning of an endless, throbbing headache. Because of that confession, I can only spill these secrets on these pages of my little smooth, black book.

She was passionate about journaling. When I was little, I would watch her write in her own little books, filling up page after page with thoughts, ideas, dreams and fears. Whenever she’d go to bed or leave the house, I’d steal her old journals and lock myself away, getting lost in the life that my grandmother had lived. She’d catch me reading her memories and would often laugh, telling me not to tell my parents what I was reading. I know she had some journals she never wanted me to even see. Since she color coded her journals, they were easy to avoid. They were a deep red color with a deep purple spine. She’d refer to them as her “journals of woe” and would always quote Conan the Barbarian whenever she was going to or just finished writing in them.

“Hey grandma, why do you look so blue?” I’d ask.

“Oh, I was just contemplating life in my book of woe” she’d bewail.

As soon as I could write, we created and shared our own tradition of keeping notebooks between us. They were our own personal journals that we would take turns writing in weekly, and then pass it off during the weekends whenever I would visit. Eventually, I branched out with my own collection of color-coded journals. When I was a teen and going through my angry years, I bought a really pretty, soft black book. That was going to become my “journal of woe”, or at least it was until my grandmother saw it. She rarely ever told me no, so when she did, I hardly ever gave her any pushback.

She never explained why, all she said was “this color’s been claimed, there’s a time and a place for everything..” and that was that.

She was an oracle in my eyes. What do we do with Oracles? You always listen to them. If she told me to do or not to do something, I’d listen whole-heartedly to her advice. It wasn’t until the lawyer handed me back my little, soft, black book that it finally clicked, that this was now the time and the place. Black was grief, black was death. I originally bought this book to become my own “journal of woes” but getting it back, it didn’t feel like sorrow. It felt like a new beginning.

“I can’t believe she kept this, after all these years” I said smiling. “That’s just like her, holding out for “the big picture…”

“But wait there’s more Ms. Robinson. I’ve been instructed to tell you to open it, read it and meet back with me tomorrow for the rest of it” the lawyer concluded.

Flipping back the cover, I see that familiar scrawl etched on that first page. One final message from my dearly departed and dearly beloved grandmother.

“My wild and wonderful granddaughter,

Since you’re getting your journal back, now must be the time and the place. Do you remember that big powerball winning a few years ago? The one from South Carolina with the mystery winner? Wouldn’t you know it, I just so happened to be the winner of that jackpot. I bought that ticket when you and I took that drive down to Charleston to see those lighthouses. Since we were gone all weekend, I didn’t see that I had the winning numbers until that Monday. I was messing around with that fancy phone your folks got me and checked on there. I didn’t believe it at first since I had never used those fancy smart phones before, so I had called Deloris to come over and take a look. She confirmed it so we went right up to the store and turned it in. When those officials asked me if I wanted to remain anonymous or not, I decided to remain anonymous. What was a 71 year old gonna do with all that money? I could just hear everyone now if they knew. Lord have mercy, everyone would get just down right greedy and I just could never take part in that. I decided that I would hold onto my winnings until death and then invest them into something wonderful. Now at the time, I had no idea what or who that could have been.

Watching you grow up over the years, you’ve never had a shy bone in your body. Always voicing your opinions, thinking up different ideas and what not. I’ll be the first one to tell you that some of your ideas were a bit too out there sometimes, but you also had some really good ideas that just sat in our journals. It’s so hard to get some of these ideas up off the ground when you don’t have money and I know we’ve came a long way, but a lot of folk still don’t really like investing in women. I never did understand that. Society says we can manage a household but can’t manage a business? That makes as much sense as tits on a bull! You don’t have to worry about looking for investors no more, you’re gonna be your own investor now.

Since I’m dead, it don’t matter to me what you want to tell everyone. You can tell them the truth or you can tell them you won recently and chose to remain anonymous. If it were me, I’d tell them I won it. That just seems a bit easier than explaining everything to everyone. Whatever you decide, it’ll be the best choice because you made that choice. I know you’ll use this money wisely too. Go start a girls club in those boy clubs, create your legacy!

Can’t never could baby girl”

After the initial shock of losing my grandmother and becoming a billionaire all in the same week, I did just that. I kept quiet about my “winnings” and slowly started to fund my projects and the projects I cared about. Eventually, people caught on, especially after I quit my job. I told them I had won a lotto and that you can remain anonymous in the state of South Carolina should you choose. People wanted to know how much and I’d just tell them “bless your heart” and change the topic of conversation.

Since becoming a billionaire, I’ve been able not only invest in my business ideas, but have been able to help out my community more than I could ever imagine. I even bought my own little town. It’s the same as any other town, just more sustainable. I’ve invested back into the water infrastructure and our quality of water is the best in our state as well as the surroundings states. I started roof top gardens and have even made donations of them to city government buildings across South Carolina. I tore down abandoned houses whose bones have rotten and transformed those lots into different things for the communities needs. Some became gardens, others became playgrounds. Whatever the people voted for, that’s what took it’s place. I’ve bought land all over just for the environment to take it back and to allow certain species to have a safe haven. I’ve been able to create scholarships and have met with other world-changing visionaries.

This list of accomplishments is endless. I’ve spent the last 30 years dedicating myself to bettering my community and the world. I’d like to think that I have done just that and I never would have had this opportunity if it weren’t for my grandmother’s forward thinking. For every accomplishment celebrated, for every flopped endeavor, they all ended up in my little, black book, with this personal conversation between me and my grandmother.

It’s been decades now since I last saw my grandmother, but she still continues to marvel me every day.