memories don’t live like people do

@girlkell MArcy Nolstagic love

kelly snider (she/her)

marcy houses brooklyn nyc, 1960-2021

my great grandmother was my grandmother because she raised my mom. Lois Gilmore Marable was born in 1931 a capricorn of course, 1 of the eldest of 18 kids. So naturally her home in Marcy was the family meet up. She lived in the building where the marcy daycare center is and loved to live alone.

I spent the 1990’s summers in marcy playing in that park was the best times of my life. My grandmother had the windows in front but she would come to the hallway to the big windows to check on me every 20 mins (that’s love). Every morning she made me my fav breakfast grits w/ cheese or pancakes & hot tea sweetened already exactly how i wanted it. I would eat while she watered all her plants and played kiss FM. On sundays my great uncles would come visit her and always treat me like a real princess. One of my great uncles lived across the street in the other side of marcy and he would make me a gingerbread HOUSE bday cake.

In that 2 bedroom apartment i was taught how to cook, sew, garden, clean, gut fish, hand wash clothes, my true family history and how stand up for myself. I remember having to watch the entire Oj Simpson trial when I was 8 years old, to make it fun I painted my granny toenails and fingernails. My first unsupervised train ride was to Brooklyn from harlem to visit my granny. We were really close. Once covid happened I couldn’t spend time with her then I got pregnant and I was able to see her twice during my pregnancy and we had so much fun. My grandmother never wanted to move she said this was her home she was fine and it was other people that needed to move lol. A home is truly what you make it I learned that there. March 2021 my grandmother had a bad fall at her home in MArcy and passed away during her hospilation recovery.