Maya Angelou's MOM and ME and MOM-Her Last Great Work of LOVE

Maya Angelou's many awards & well deserved accolades include the Nat'l Medal of the Arts, Medal of Freedom, Pulitz Prize nom., Tony nom. and 3 Grammys.  This exceptional auto-bio is her loving tribute to her mother is her last published work before she passed away in 2014.  It also paints herself as a wonderful role model as both a daughter and mother.  Angelou's literary legacy is well known.  Her many other artistic gifts are revealed in her modest and moving life narrative.  She was a nightclub performer, a scintillating dancer, a Calypso singer and screenwriter.  Her life intersected with talented musicians, writers and dancers prior to her own illustrious career as a writer:  Leontyne Price, Cab Calloway and Langston Hughes to name a few.  Her early childhood was marred by rape and a 10 year separation from her mother, Vivian Baxter.  Maya & her brother Bailey, with whom she shared a lifelong, loving bond, were sent to AK from CA to life with their paternal grandmother.  The reunion between mother & daughter was tentative. Vivian was a maverick, an entrepreneur and colorful, indomitable force of nature.  Vivian taught her daughter to feel confident and omnipotent.  She also  packed heat (for backup.)  Maya was 17 when she gave birth to her only child, Guy, whom she raised as a single parent.  MOM and ME and MOM is an uplifting and inspiring homage of motherhood. Angelou writes in her graceful & insightful style what she felt from her mother's love "in an interesting and maybe an eerie and unworldly way, she stands in the gap.  She stands between the unknown and the known…my mother shed her protective love down around me and without knowing why people sensed that I had value."  Vivian told her daughter often, "I love you and I am proud of you.  With those two things, you can go anywhere and everywhere."