The Lantern Mum
Blooming after grief
🌅Being and Carrying the light
April 12 2026
The Lantern Mum
Dark times started early for this Mum.
Death is a part of life.
Chrysanthemums symbolize growth, blossoming, new seasons, and transitions… and they are sometimes used in funerals. They serve as a remembrance during life’s darkest times.
That is why this bloom is The Lantern Mum.
Lanterns don’t remove the darkness — they simply help us walk through it.
And grief, much like a lantern, has been lighting parts of my path for most of my life.
Betty Christine (a.k.a. That Girl)
The First Lantern — My Momma
My momma died when I was five years old.
But honestly, it’s hard to remember her. I know that sounds horrible, but I often struggle to remember her face, her voice, and even her touch. When I look back, for most of those five years she was extremely sick.
She was a strict Alabama momma, but she was also a sweet diva.
My girl could wear an outfit.
Hair tea,
Body tea,
Smile tea.
She was that girl.
But she had been sick for a long time, and my big sister and I spent a lot of time between aunts, uncles, godmothers, and then eventually with my dad.
When she passed, I remember sitting in the backseat of someone’s car listening to the song Tom’s Diner. All the adults — and some of my older cousins — were whispering about how dire the situation had become.
And all my five-year-old brain could do to block out the noise was sing the opening of Tom’s Diner.
Da da da dada… dududoo da.
You know the song.
Shortly after that night, Betty passed at the age of 35.
I was five. My sister was nine. And we moved to Florida shortly after that to start life with our single father.
Daddy, although born in South Carolina, had been in Florida since he was three years old. My paternal grandparents — originally from South Carolina — became our village.
My dad bought a house and gave us our own rooms. I started first grade and spent my after-school days being picked up by Ms. Acie (my grandmother) and hanging out with my granddaddy after work, watching Westerns and In the Heat of the Night.
Granddaddy Raymond with Grandma Acie, my mom, my sister, and baby me.
The Second Lantern — Granddaddy
About a year later, one day during our usual after-school routine at my grandparents’ house, my granddaddy came through the door earlier than usual.
Most days he came home later and did what old Southern granddaddies do — take me to the corner store and let me ball out getting chips, candy, juices, and soda with whatever money he had in his pocket.
But that day he complained about being tired.
Well… mumbled about being tired.
If you had a Southern granddaddy, you know they talk in mumble spurts. IYKYK.
Anyway, my grandma went back into the kitchen to finish dinner, and he laid down in his favorite spot on the couch and went to sleep.
And me? I was in my favorite spot too — right at his feet on the couch while he put on an old Western.
I thought he was sleeping.
But actually, he took his last breath on that couch. He had a heart attack in his sleep.
When I went to wake him for supper, like my grandmother had told me to do many times before, I walked into the kitchen and said:
“Granddaddy won’t wake up, Grandma.”
My dad took him back to South Carolina to lay him to rest.
My grandma lived with us for a little while, but she liked her independence. She had been married to my grandfather since she was a teenager. Eventually she moved into a senior facility and found her village of Deerfield Golden Girls.
But I still spent my after-school days and summers with that lady.
Grandma Acie (Ms. Acie to you ) in her favorite wig — my girl kept a fly wig on standby.
The Third Lantern — Ms. Acie
I am an official grandma’s baby.
Heck, I even look like Ms. Acie.
Bus trips to the Swap Shop. Trips to Pick N’ Pay for 25-cent chips and snacks. Watching my WB after-school cartoon lineup — Tiny Toon Adventures and Goof Troop — with an early hot dinner of turkey necks, black eyed peas, and rice.
(Remember, she was a Carolina girl.)
I got my first (volunteer) job at 13, and our hangout time decreased a bit, but she was still my girl.
By the time I got to high school, around 16, Ms. Acie was developing dementia. She started to wander and forget things.
My grandma didn’t forget anything before that.
One day my dad said, “I think it’s time for your grandma to come back and live with us again.”
Unfortunately, a couple of weeks later, while hanging out after work with my then-boyfriend (now husband), my dad called and told me my grandmother had been killed in a hit-and-run.
She had been trying to walk to the grocery store early that morning and was hit crossing the street.
I didn’t know I could scream that loud.
I just knew Ms. Acie was going to see me graduate.
She was my IEP champion. She couldn’t read very well and didn’t have much formal education, but that lady made me read to her every single day until I became an honor-roll student.
She rode hard for my independence. She loved and validated my quirks. She loved my little fighting spirit.
I miss that lady.
I was always on her Excel row.
That was my girl.
She walked me home from school every day in the hot — and sometimes rainy — South Florida sun, often holding her parasol over us to block the elements.
Dinner was at 3:30 p.m. so I had a hot meal after school every day, except Fridays when my dad would bring her favorite combo: a Big Mac and a Little Caesars pizza.
She never told me she loved me.
But when I asked, she would say, “Well, I don’t hate you.”
And my favorite:
“They ain’t got no heaven or hell to put me in.”
That was her answer whenever someone thought she cared about their opinion of me or her.
She had a hard life, but she made sure no one dimmed my light. She always encouraged my independence.
My dad took her back to South Carolina to be laid to rest.
I graduated high school and later college with my bachelor’s degree — living my grandparents’ wildest dreams. They never had much education and worked hard labor jobs from the time they were children, but they poured everything they had into me
Daddy “daddying “, “I love you because you are so easy to love”
The Fourth Lantern — Daddy
By the time I graduated college, life was on the fast track.
Marriage.
New job.
New baby.
New city.
And Daddy.
Daddy, Daddy, Daddy.
I am the drama.
I called my daddy for every little inconvenience in life.
Daddy, how much detergent do I put in the washing machine?
Yes… 19-year-old college me had never done laundry.
Daddy worked wonders on my whites.
Daddy, they said I need…
Daddy, what do you think?
Daddy, I don’t like my hair…
Then I’d cry on his chest like a small child.
I was 20.
So when my sister called me almost a year after the birth of my second daughter — who my dad was so excited for — I will never forget her voice.
“Something is wrong with Daddy.”
The tone of her voice that day is something I will always remember.
My sister and I joke around a lot, but that was not a kiki moment.
Fast forward to a quick trip from my then-home in Atlanta, leaving my husband with a newborn and her big sister.
My sister and I heard the hardest news of our lives.
Stage-four rare aggressive cancer.
Daddy heard it too.
For a moment he was quiet.
But within minutes — unbeknownst to us — he had already made peace with it.
My sister and I went into survival mode.
We were going to show them. Daddy was going to be a survivor story.
Because why would life do this to us twice?
No way.
Daddy is Daddy. He makes things happen.
We talked to several doctors. He did multiple chemo treatments. We celebrated Thanksgiving together, and he even showed my second daughter how to walk. He swore she would walk before her first birthday — which is only two days after his in December.
We celebrated Christmas.
But by January, Daddy checked himself into the ER for the last time and ended up in a coma.
The cancer had spread.
My sister called me and told me to come home.
By the time I got to the hospital, I held his hand and told him:
“If you want to keep fighting, we’ll fight. But if you’re tired… I understand.”
My daddy was tired.
Our long conversations became quieter. Still long, but quieter.
Sometimes just a small “mm-hmm, baby.”
And then, “You know how much I love you, right?”
We buried Daddy before the end of January.
I felt cheated that I never got the chance to care for him in old age.
He was diagnosed in October and gone by January.
I miss that man.
But looking back, I remember what he always said:
“I’ll live for my kids.”
And he did.
Before we were their reason, they were just young, in love, and dancing through life together.
He went to all those doctor appointments for us.
But Daddy had already come to terms with his diagnosis on day one.
Losing Daddy — my Clyde — hit me the hardest.
My daddy daddied.
Sunday mornings pressing my hair before church.
Racing from work to get to cheerleading practice by 5:30 p.m.
Buying every school picture packet and making collages for his office cubicle and the walls of our house.
He even bought my first brand-new car in cash so I’d have something reliable for college.
My daddy daddied.
He went so hard on me when I told him we were going to be “one and done” by the time my oldest turned six.
He said,
“You can't leave that baby alone in the world. I never did that to you.”
So we had our second by the time our oldest was seven.
And Daddy passed less than a month after her first birthday.
Sometimes I think, dang Daddy… if you didn’t want to babysit, that’s all you had to say. You didn’t have to be so dramatic.
I know.
My dad had a dark sense of humor too.
We moved back to Florida the same year we laid Daddy to rest.
That was 2015.
Losing Daddy is actually what brought me to this point.
Remember, both my parents are in the arms of the Lord, and in life they didn’t live with fear — they lived with faith.
Their wedding day — smiling, celebrating, and already walking in faith.
Putting these memories into words was hard.
But it was also healing.
Time heals too. And God has a way of placing memories right in front of you when you least expect it.
Literally.
My oldest looks just like my momma.
My middle baby has my daddy’s dark sense of humor — they even share the same birth month.
And my youngest, my son, looks the most like me.
So now we’re both walking around here looking like Ms. Acie.
And sometimes when I look back at my grief, it feels like the rug has been pulled out from under me again and again.
Little me in grief, grown me in sunlight and mountains—five moments, one path to self-discovery.
The Last Lantern — Carrying Them Forward
Grief has a way of making it feel like the rug is always being pulled out from under you.
But our bloom requires faith, not fear.
Strength in knowing that no matter what, everything will be alright.
My Excel row is always with me.
Some in the physical.
Some in my heart and memory.
It’s important to grieve, but it’s also important to remember our loved ones as human. Sometimes grief makes us turn people into legends and we forget the real life they lived.
And that’s not fair to them either.
So as we close this Mum series and move into the next bloom…
Let’s walk forward with our loved ones — those beside us and those carried in our memories.
Let’s walk with faith.
With ambition.
With clarity.
With peace.
We will definitely need those things for the next bloom: finding a job.
Whew.
And here I thought I was the drama.
Drama has nothing on a panel interview.
Until the next bloom.
Remember—(in my best Mufasa voice… just playing)—I’m an ’80s baby, a ’90s Disney movie kid… so yes… the drama.
When your dad’s hair has more volume than the family budget, and a red lip couldn’t stop my momma’ s fly—classic ’80s energy
Cheesing with my Daddy—my Clyde (though to the rest of you, it’s Claude).😊
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No matter the decade, Betty Christine stayed fly in a mean two-piece. As the kids say… she ate.
Praying for love, health, joy, and power — now and forever.
"Among the blooms, I breathe, I smile, I give thanks for the journey—and the grace that guides me still."
“God allow us to walk in power, not in survival.”
- Chrysanthia
The Coastal Chrysanthemum
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