The Incomparable Grace Gourdine
Always Appropriate: Image & Etiquette Consulting is proud to kickoff Women’s History Month by honoring its co-owner Grace Gourdine.
Family members call her “Gracie”, while friends call her “Amazing Grace”, however, I have the privilege of calling her “my mommy.”
I know everyone says that the Black Panther is the first African-American superhero but I disagree, Anne Elizabeth Grace Gourdine-Claytor is truly the original.
To know Grace, you’d never think she’d be born a worrier, but she never allowed the challenges of life to affect her. A doctor thought pneumonia would kill her when she was a baby, but when it didn’t, she not only lived– she thrived.
Grace has also spent a lifetime of being a spokesperson for a variety charitable organizations and associations, including SATH–Society for the Advancement of Travel for the Handicapped, and LLS–The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society.
She doesn’t want to take any credit, as she feels she is a person who just forges ahead.
She came from a strict upbringing, with two caring parents and six siblings. Despite humble beginnings, the kids stayed safe, learned how to do crafts, dance, and were taught the Bible. Sadly, there were some battles as they grew up, including their Dad suffering a bad accident at work that left him struggling to walk.
Grace suffered her own problems after she got married. She eventually divorced her husband. Some would wonder if being a single parent to me would be a struggle, but instead, she accepted the challenge and soared in life. Mom and I have traveled the world together, clocking in 40 exotic destinations.
For many people, a cancer diagnosis would be the end of their story, but not for Grace, this was just the beginning. In 2003, she was diagnosed with Multiple Myeloma. We believed her long but good life was nearly at an end, but she surprised everyone with many more years.
In 2015, she ended up on a breathing ventilator, so we prepared ourselves to say goodbye, but she woke up. She wasn’t done yet.
Most recently, on December 6, 2017, she had a stroke in her oncologist’s office as she was prepping for her chemo treatment, and once again she beat the odds.
Grace is sweet, thoughtful, and fearless. When she enters the room, everyone wants to know, who is the beautiful woman with the million-dollar smile?
Being her daughter has been nothing less than awesome!
We’ve spent Thanksgiving on the equator–off the coast of the Galapagos Islands; eating her legendary Christmas cookies for breakfast before school; and with her walker–marched down Fifth Avenue in protest of police profiling of African-American men.
Grace’s mottos in life: Do whatever makes you happy. Make your own rules. Never look back with regret. And always be kind to others.
Go to the “About Us” section of our website (alwaysappropriate.com/about-us/our-team) to learn more about the incomparable Grace Gourdine.
