Just a Label

I agree with Sigmund Friend that one needs both purposeful works and meaningful love to be considered a success. According to the Webster's New World College dictionary success is defined as "a result; outcome; a favorable a satisfactory outcome or result; something having such an outcome; the gaining of wealth, fame, rank etc; a successful person.

In the community, in which I live success, is based on materialistic thing, such as cars, jewelry and clothing. At my school, Metro High, amongst my friends, peers and faculty success appears to be defined as a goal in which one accomplishes. One sets a goal, one achieves that goal, and one reaps the rewards and benefits. Society along with the media has defined success by economics, power, and influence.

Growing up, I have had the pleasure of being surrounded by influential, powerful and successful women. Two of the women I consider successful are my grandmother and my mother.

My grandmother, Ozell Roby White, was born December 3, 1925 in Durant, Mississippi. Grandma White is what we called her. I have always been impressed with her endurance and overcoming of obstacles she endured. She was a farm girl who got little education, but was always taught to love, pray, share and trust in God. She lived through the boycotts, the Civil Rights movement and the Great Depression. Grandma White was thirteen years old when she moves to St. Louis, Missouri. While in St. Louis she met my grandfather. They married and had thirteen children. My grandfather died on February 15. 1976 and Grandma has many young children at home to care for. It was not easy for her, but she always knew she could depend on God. She exercised her faith and did her very best, and that far exceeded most two-parent homes. People would ask her "Why did she have so many children?" Well next to God Grandma White loved her children and her children loved her. She was there for then, and they were there for her. She has a passion for cooking. Cooking was Grandma and Grandma was cooking. She seasoned food well, but in addition she would constantly state "a smiling face flavors a meal more than any seasoning can." My grandmother was my idea of success; she was the one that kept the family together.

Grandma's success is defined in Friend's statement of "success being one who has achieved meaningful work and meaningful love." She had come from a background of hard times,