Mama used the word “nuse” anytime there was a baby or young toddler present. “Somebody better nuse that young’un!” she declared when our neighbor drove away with her newborn lying in the front seat. I couldn’t make heads or tails of what mama actually meant, and for some unknown reason, I never stopped playing long enough to ask when my sister had her first baby and brought it over for its first Sunday dinner. As if this fat cheek, teeny tiny, wrinkled, pink baby was going to tussle with a chicken leg.

As soon as my sister walked in, swinging the baby carrier on her left arm, my mama, with her black hair, dark skin, petite self, reached out her arms to take the newborn “Here, let me nuse this sweet little thing.” I remember Mama gently rocking the baby left to right, to left, hugging it close until she took a seat on the time-honored throne, the rocking chair.

Well, growing up, I was confused. Does she mean nurse? I wondered. But no, that isn’t what nuse meant. Mama’s long gone now, going on 24 years. When I try to make some semblance of nuse, I think it simply means to hold near and dear, hold close, and love unconditionally.