LaToya Ruby Frazier’s best photograph: me and my guardian angel
Grandma Ruby and Me. Photograph: LaToya Ruby Frazier
The Guardian
August 23, 2018
by Edward Siddons
My grandmother, who raised me, was a stern woman of very few words. She believed in strong discipline. But she was also a devoted caregiver. Growing up, she would dress me in Baby Jane ruffled dresses and braid my hair into two twists with ribbons and hair ballies. On the morning of this photo, which I took in 2005, she did my hair again, just like she did when I was a child.
Every Saturday afternoon, around the same time each week, she would tend to her porcelain dolls. She must have had hundreds, all in different sizes, different outfits, different nationalities. It was like the UN of porcelain dolls in her living room.
She began collecting them when my aunt – her daughter – was murdered. It was something to do with filling that loss. But it was also about pride. Despite growing up in a hard, industrial town like the one I grew up in, I never felt poor. The care she expended on them taught me that, no matter what the circumstances outside were like, we should always take care of ourselves. She taught me that we had value.
Courtesy of: The Guardian
