For Mrs. Crooms, Our Oracle
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Mrs. Carol Crooms, The Carol L. Crooms Center, Utica, NY |
Oracle: a person or thing regarded as an infallible authority or guide on something.
For our lady of wisdom, love, and light. The woman who dishes out loving food and wisdom, from her home, something she had been doing all her life, but on Sunday October 26, 2003, Mrs. Carol Crooms became The Oracle for my son Cannaday and his college roommate Sam. My daughter Ana and I were in town from Rochester for Pratt at Munson Williams Proctor’s family weekend, and Mrs. Crooms, my dear friend Kim’s mom, had invited us for dinner. I don’t remember the meal but I remember the “dessert”- sitting in Mrs. Crooms’ kitchen, the young men eating at the table with Ana, as Mrs. Crooms lovingly “preached.” She spoke many words of wisdom to them as she served extra helpings on their plates. The young people were quiet, either because their mouths were too full or their ears and minds were too full trying to comprehend the wisdom she was teaching. They ate in silence. Mrs. Crooms gave her love to them in food, word, and her warm welcome into her lovely home, a place I’ll bet where many a person, young and old, have sat and soaked in her wisdom served on a plate of love. And that’s when Cannaday and Sam began calling Mrs. Crooms The Oracle, like in the Matrix movie, a woman who serves up love and wisdom from her kitchen. You think you’ve come there to eat, but you are fed much more than food. And her son Courtney was the same way. Courtney came over during our visit and picked up where his mother left off, speaking to the young men about interest groups they could start at Pratt, and Courtney and I had a deep discussion about love and duty.
Thank you Great Creator for the Crooms family! Mrs. Crooms’ apples have fallen very close to her tree; Courtney, Kim, and Pam are also beacons of love, light, wisdom, and community empowerment teaching. Mrs. Crooms will always be our Oracle, as she has been for so many. Today we celebrate and honor her life from a far, but the first of many days, weeks, and years to come. We love you and thank you very much for sharing your love, light, and wisdom with us.
With love,
Tina Della Maria Chapman DaCosta and Family
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