Hope, again

Let's start at the end, with the five of them together outside, after the interview has wrapped, after all has been said and done.

The love between them is real, the affection between gramma and momma and daughter and granddaughters hard won and well worn, noun to verb and back again, shared in eager affirmations and embraces and jokes old and new.

Ella Mae is their center and start. She's Cofia's momma, gramma to Cofia's three daughters, bald as a newborn from the chemotherapy keeping her alive. 

The pancreatic cancer was unmasked in 2023 during gastric bypass surgery that was supposed to herald a season of hope, a reclamation of who Ella Mae once was before her marriage disintegrated, before her son died, before diabetes tore through her.

She'd prayed for and over the new life she'd planned after the weight disappeared. Topping the list was earning her master's degree, a promise she made to herself eight years earlier as she walked across the stage to collect her bachelor's degree in Black Studies from the University of Missouri.

Surely nothing could keep the master's diploma out of her hand; the huge $50,000 scholarship she'd won would guarantee she'd turn another tassel.

But the mass in her pancreas is lethal unless doctors poison and shrink it enough to carve it out of her. 

Forget your new life. Beg God to save the one you have now. Hope you have enough of yourself left to live it.

Cancer has savaged Ella Mae financially. Most people with cancer share that devastation, but hers is particularly brutal:

Ella Mae's monthly income is $1,137 in disability benefits. That's it.

Once rent and utilities and medical bills tear away their pounds of flesh, she has just $26 to live on. Not $26 per day, mind you -- $26 for the month.

She struggles in the deep shadows under federal poverty line where comfort and dignity vanish:

Where she is reduced to scavenging the edges and corners of the neighborhood food pantry just to survive.

Where she has to choose between fixing her dead car or healing her failing body, because she can only afford one resurrection.

Where she is terrified that the power company will disconnect her today and humiliate her in front of the granddaughters who've endured too much darkness already.

Where she begs heaven that the doctor will still treat her despite bottomless columns of delinquency and debt. 

There are no luxuries in this panicked twilight, no lazy and deceitful have-nots living large with money stolen from the virtuous and hard-working have's. The only thief is poverty itself, its only prey the tattered hope of a desperate woman. 

It's no wonder, then, that both Cofia and Ella Mae doubt whether this new TriUnity Foundation is legitimate.

Even though she received a message from Mazuma Credit Union (a founding supporter of TriUnity) about the foundation and its industry-leading grant program, Ella Mae still double-checks with another Mazuma employee to make sure it all isn't another elaborate, inhumane scam.

Eased by Mazuma's reassurances, momma asks Coco Puff to help her complete the grant application. They're both skeptical, though; with so many other hurting people vying for aid, Ella Mae's chances at any meaningful help are remote.

Momma and daughter brace for rejection, a heartbreaking "thank you, but...", more proof that hope is a lie.

Then, on September 16, 2024, Cofia's phone rings.

Alyce, TriUnity Vice Chair: I see that you completed the application on behalf of Ella.

Cofia: Right.

Alyce: So, we want to acknowledge how thoughtful and supportive it is that you've taken that step for her.

Cofia: Okay.

Alyce: I have great news. Your application has been approved.

Cofia: SHUT THE FRONT DOOR!

Alyce: We are so honored to be able to support you during this challenging time, and during this time for her.

Cofia: Oh my god, you are kidding me!

Alyce: No, I'm not.

Cofia: Oh wow, she's gonna be so excited.

Now that I'm sitting with all five of them, I ask Cofia to take me back to the moment when hope was restored, which she does with such unbound joy and awe that my face hurts from smiling so hard:

Cofia: I was in my kitchen, and I was like the lady, Ms. Alyce? She called and she was like -- you know, I don't know exactly what she said because it's blurry -- but I remember being in the kitchen. I remember her saying, 'Yes, your mom'. And I was like, 'No way!' I was like, 'Shut the front door!' And she was like, 'No, really!' She's like, 'I can call her'. I said, 'No!'. I...well...I think I first said she can call her. And then I was like, 'Well, no, I want to call her and I want to tell her.' And so then I was just like, 'WOW'. She's like, 'Don't play with me...don't!' I said, 'Momma, I think Ms. Alice said she's going to call you. You got the grant.' 'Don't play with me, Cofia.' I'm like, 'I'm not kidding!' I just talked to her and she [Momma] was like, 'Oh, thank you, Jesus!'

What will the grant do for Ella Mae? It will fix her car. Allow her get back and forth to treatment on her own. Wipe out past due utilities and medical bills. Restore her ability to take proper care of her family, her granddaughters, herself.

The grant will change her life by giving her the means to live it fully again, to feel alive again, to trust hope again, to enjoy the thousand small graces so easily dismissed in the haste of the everyday.

But there is more at stake, more to be redeemed here. This what the grant means to Ella Mae, in her own words, in her own voice.

And of all the audio clips in this article, this is the one I hope you listen to:

"I can breathe. I can buy toilet paper. I can buy personal hygiene items that I couldn't afford. Toothpaste, mouthwash, the necessities, the basics...being able to buy something I want to eat and not feel guilty.

I really would like to be healthy and go back to work and do some volunteer work with people who have cancer, who need the encouragement like I needed the encouragement. You know, you have to pay it forward. You gotta pay it forward.

All my dreams went down the sink -- but I didn't give up hope. I still got hope, even through the cancer. I still have hope that my body's healed, that I'm going to make it through this journey and I'm going to come out on the other side and be able to help others. That is my life goal: is to be an example of what love is, what God is. That's it. That's all I know. But I know one thing for sure is that God is keeping me. He's been so faithful.

I just feel like cancer, you do not have the right to try to take my life. My life belongs to God. I have so much to give.

We take so much for granted in life, and when you're put in a position where you are in a desperate situation where you're trying to live and not die, you know, and somebody coming in your life and handing you a check...it's unbelievable.

It's like God really loves me and he's taking care -- he said he would provide...and he's faithful to his word. Doggone it."

Just minutes into this interview, Ella Mae asked me point blank why TriUnity chose to help her. It wasn't a casual question to break the ice with the stranger standing in the middle of her living room, still unpacking the gear he needs to tell her story.

There was a ripple of disbelief in her voice, an undercurrent of fear that the grant's blessings -- already paid, already spent -- could still somehow be ripped away from her as the final punchline of a diabolical practical joke.

After explaining that I have no vote or say in the grant decisioning process, my answer in the moment -- How could they not choose you? -- was simple then, but fuller now:

Ella Mae's best days are still to come, yet none will be measured by scholarships, degrees, work, paid bills, or full shelves.

Her best days start here, after all has been said and done, held by every piece of her heart, nourished by a family too familiar with loss, too strong to be reduced or defined by it.

Days of purpose and love.

Days filled with hope, again.