“You don’t love people because …”
Keith Ellison and his mom Clida (Star Tribune)
Keith Ellison, Attorney General of Minnesota and the first Muslim to be elected to Congress, shares a wisdom from his mom, and reminisces about how wonderful she was. “My mom was God’s gift. To us.”
“She always said, you don’t love people because they’re perfect. I can complain about your father, I can complain about my sister. I can complain. But so what. You don’t love people because they’re perfect. I’m not perfect. Nobody else is. So don’t fall out with somebody, particularly someone you care about, because they did something you don’t like. Talk about it if you can, deal with it however you can. But don’t forget the larger purpose of the relationship, that the person is a good decent person that you want to have in your life.”
Keith’s mom died in March 2020. She was 82. He shared that she wasn’t particularly sick. She hadn’t been feeling well so she went to the hospital for a small surgery and came back the same day. She went back again to the hospital with an infection, “and never came home again.”
“Clida Cora Martínez Ellison – that’s her name. My mom was a country girl from rural Louisiana, grew up on a farm, went to Xavier University in New Orleans. On a trip to Detroit, she met my father, got married, had a bunch of kids. (Keith is one of five brothers.)
She was incredibly funny. My mother had jokes. She would tease you; she’d crack jokes. She would make fun of herself. (So she didn’t take life too seriously, I asked.) Oddly, she took life seriously, but she also found the humor in everything.
She was a social worker; she worked in the juvenile division of the Circuit Court in Michigan.
She was a phenomenal cook. She made gumbo, she made étouffée, she made jambalaya, she made pralines, she made beignets. You name it, and she made it.
She was even on a cooking show – with Mo Roccca – called ‘My Grandma’s Ravioli’. If you ever watch it, she’s cracking jokes.”
Keith took out his phone to show me pictures, as he reminisced some more.
“Here she is in DC in front of the Library of Congress; she came to see the Pope. My mom was very Catholic; she was really excited to see the Pope. Some people say, you took the Shahada, you became Muslim, was this an issue. It never was an issue. Never.
This is her funeral, here are my brothers.
Right there, she’s cooking, shelling crabs …”
During the month of Ramadan 2020, just a month after Keith had lost his mom, I was on a Zoom session with him, and he shared these reflections:
“The impact of Covid-19 is personal. It’s really taking its toll. When we had the final service for my mom we had to sit six feet away from each other; nobody could touch each other’s hand, nobody could hug each other. People had masks on during the services; we couldn’t have more than 50 people there. It made an already difficult situation all that much more bizarre and strange. It was really tough, but that did not get in the way of the love that was between us.
“Ramadan has helped me manage the loss of one of the most important people in my life. It’s an opportunity for me to think about my faith in a deeper way. My prayers have been more earnest, my connection with my family has been more dear. And this month, which is so much about contemplation, has also made me think that we can be in relationship with each other without necessarily being physically connected. Physical proximity is not required to build family relationship. I don’t call it social distance, I call it physical distance. Because socially, we can be as connected as we want. And I think that’s really important to keep this in mind.”
Thank you for sharing your mom with us, Keith.
And thanks so much for your interest in the “30 Days” book, for tweeting about it, and for joining my storytelling workshop. I continue to think about your six words.