To help me grapple with shadows of the past that I needed to make peace with, I first had to delve deeper into my mother’s history to understand the woman who nurtured and shaped me. Her name was Cecil Irene, but everyone called her Bobbie. When she was young, she had a Bobbie haircut, and the nickname stuck with her all her life. Bobbie was born in the small Alabama town of Cordova, where poverty was rampant and education was limited. The only employment available for young girls at that time was service jobs of some sort. Hers was waiting on people in a small town diner. As a young…