Listen now:
When Keena Atkinson joined Black Oxygen last year, she knew the conversation wasn’t finished — and she knew exactly who needed to be part of what came next: her mother. In this episode, Keena returns alongside Gaylene Barber-Sirmons, making her podcast debut at nearly 70 years old, and together they open up a conversation about survival, faith, healing, and the kind of mother-daughter relationship that gets rebuilt, not inherited.
Gaylene shares her Wisconsin story — how she came to Madison in the late 1990s while escaping an abusive marriage, working weekdays in IT and driving back to the Quad Cities every weekend to be with her daughters until she could bring them home. She recounts the night she left for good: a prayer in a quiet bedroom, a voice telling her to go now, a hotel clerk who asked no questions, and $500 she didn’t know she had — money her own mother had been quietly setting aside because she knew her daughter would need it one day.
Keena reflects on witnessing her mother’s strength as a child, on leaving her own abusive relationship years later, and on what it took for the two of them to build the honest, unshakeable bond they share today. As she puts it, their relationship wasn’t handed to them — they burned it down and rebuilt it, together, more than once.
In a season devoted to collective care, this conversation is a living example of it: care that starts at home, shows up consistently, and passes strength between generations in both directions.
n this episode:
- Gaylene’s journey from the Quad Cities to Madison, and the year of weekend drives that reunited her family
- The night she left: faith, obedience, and a path that cleared itself
- How a credit union, a hotel clerk, a lifelong best friend, and a praying mother formed a web of quiet community care
- Keena on leadership that begins at home — and a mother whose mind, once set, has never missed
- Healing after abuse: independence, scripture, and refusing to disappear
- Rebuilding a mother-daughter relationship from the ground up
- Decentering men, contentment in singleness, and joy on your own terms
- Two generations of Black women teaching wellness in Madison — groove, dance fitness, yoga, and “preventing preventable prognoses”
On community care, from Gaylene:
“Community care is… not that one-time help. It’s consistent help, showing up, checking in… You never know when someone is struggling quietly.”
Connect with the guests:
- Gaylene teaches Groove classes at MSCR (Thursdays, 12:00 PM) and Princeton Club East (Fridays, 11:10 AM), and is available for private group sessions of five or more. (Times to be confirmed)
- Keena’s classes and annual August wellness retreat: roujiewellness.com (sign up for the monthly newsletter) or follow her on Facebook at Keena StayFly Atkinson and on Instagram
