What is Prête À Vivre?

September 16, 2024, 2:24 AM | PRÊTE À VIVRE 
Prepared to live | Curated with love

/pray ah veev/

John 10:10 The thief cometh not but to steal and to kill and to destroy. I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly.

PRÊTE à VIVRE is a lifestyle project founded with the mission to inject life. Curated with love, the project is dedicated to Linda Jackson, a family heroine who embodied love and devoted her days to preparing for life.

Linda Jackson~ a mother, daughter, sister, leader, and visionary.

Prete A Vivre is an abbreviated account of the life of a matriarch whose story originates in Monroe, Louisiana. Linda F. Jackson is the glue of her family: a mother, the caregiver for her mother, a prayer warrior in her community, and in my eyes, the most prepared woman on the planet.

Hourly, she fostered patience, and daily she employed virtue with her hands to the plow. Weekly, she excelled in ministry, and by the second, she demonstrated preparation to live with love in her heart.

During the summer, she prepared gifts for her family, [genuinely, shopping for Christmas Gifts in July], no one went without. When illness approached, her care swiftly debarred her preparations… but every time I needed some financial aid, Nana told me to hit her secret stash.

Her preparation was savant-like, and in her declining years, she began to prepare for the life she wanted to live; the vehicle she wanted to drive, the home she wanted to build, the places she’d travel, and plans to grow our secret financial aid stashes.

Except that, to see it, the flesh suit that she wore had to change. In April of 2021, Nana transitioned into her heavenly suit. Cervical cancer was terminal and was discovered in a lengthy period of pain and discomfort. Yet, even in this… she was prepared, and preparing me.

As Nana died in my arms, I began to forcefully call God’s hand of intervention; I told her, “Nana, wake up,” and she did. She said, “I came back [to life] because I heard you praying”. In the same last breaths, she inverbally assured me to always pray [always prête]… preparing me to use my access for as long as I live.

Ultimately, she went to rest the same day. 

Behind her resilience, patience, virtue, care, and ministry, pain suppression was the dis-ease that ravaged her flesh suit. A silent killer in my community. Yet, even in this… she was prepared, and preparing me.

For years, before I could remember, Nana wrote down passwords, account numbers, emergency “in-cases”, and strategically placed items exactly where we could find them, plus more personal things.  Even kept our financial aid stash spots stocked. She gave us access to every part of her life, even after she left. 

Because she was prepared. Because she heard me praying.

And now we share Nana with the world. The prepared one. Use this message as your personal guide for life, and life more abundantly. PREPARE TO LIVE. ALWAYS PRÊTE.

Besides,

If you stay ready, you ain’t gotta get ready.

An Ode to Linda Jackson.