by Ida Keeling
Sometimes when I think about Charles, I remember how much he loved to cook and what a good dancer he was. He loved to dance. He would put a record on the record player and a smile would light up his eyes and mouth. Then he would either grab one of his delighted sisters and twirl her around or he would dance by himself with his eyes closed.
Anyway, Cheryl says that one night when Laura, Charles, and I were over at her place, he came into the kitchen to talk with her. He told her, “I was just looking around and wondering if something happened to me, who would be able to be here. I have a situation. I borrowed $1,100 from a guy because I was doing this deal with this cat. We could get this thing, step on it four times, and sell it to make $4,440. When we got it, the stuff was already stepped on . . . poor quality. So I still owe $1,100 and I have junk that I can’t use.”
Someone beat my Charles with a baseball bat. Naturally, when he got hurt, Cheryl thought that the culprit was the guy Charles owed $1,100. She went to speak with him. It turned out that he was a good friend of Charles’s and Cheryl did not get the sense that he did it. The beating that Charles took was not about business. It was personal. There was something else going on in Charles’s life that we will never know about.
When some of his childhood friends showed up at my house and Charles wasn’t with them, I knew that something was wrong. They told me that he was hurt bad and in the hospital.
The beating took place on December 16, 1980. His brain was still in its case but it was just mush, no longer intact. By the time we got to the hospital, he was no longer talking. On December 20th, the plug to the machines that were keeping him barely alive was pulled. He died right away. The official cause of death was blunt force trauma to the head. Because of the holidays, he did not have a funeral until the 29th.
I think that it was for my sake that the family tried to act normal throughout the Christmas holidays, but I wasn’t fooled. We were all hurting real bad.
No one knows if the $1,100 was connected to the killing. The beating took place on 144th Street and Seventh Avenue in broad daylight. All of the people on that street who were interviewed by the police claimed to have seen nothing. At the time of his death, Charles was working for the Department of Transportation giving out parking tickets. He wore the required brown uniform. It seemed to me that folks should remember who beat the traffic agent, but no one was talking.
Charles left four children behind.
After Charles’s funeral, Cheryl sent me to visit my eldest daughter, Laura, who was in Missouri working toward her PhD. My blood pressure went through the roof so Cheryl told Laura to send me back to Harlem.
It didn’t matter to me where I was. After I lost both my boys to drug related activity less than three years apart, I was just down in the dumps. My blood pressure wouldn’t go down and nothing I tried seemed to make me feel any better. I could see the worry in Cheryl’s face, but there was just nothing I could do. One day she stopped by and asked, “Why don’t you just come and go with me on a mini race?” I thought nothin’ else is workin’, I’ll just go on ahead.
It was my first race. I took off and all these people was rushin’ past. It felt like somebody pulled a sheet off me; it was horrible, but I said I can’t slow down now. I got to keep going. I started thinking this is too much, then all of a sudden, I started picking up a little speed and I thought, gee maybe this is good for me.
When I run, I feel relaxed and like I’m out with the wind.
Donald and Charles’s deaths still hurt me even today. Donald loved to draw boats and people. He never really liked school but he was smart. In the end, all of my lectures about drugs and street life meant nothing. They went out there and started messing with the drugs anyway. When kids are small, you can control them. When they get older and once they go with their friends, you don’t know what they are doing. They become secretive about everything, and you learn about it all only when something serious happens.
Donald and Charles did what they wanted to do and I couldn’t stop them.
The loss of my sons was unbearable. I felt my whole world fall apart. One was almost forty and the other one was almost forty-two when they got killed. I could feel myself going lower and lower. I didn’t even want to be here. I don’t even like to think about it or talk about it. It’s so hurtful.
SOAP STORY TO ALL MY CHILDREN
As the world turns we enter
the days of our lives
realizing we have one life to live.
The bold and the beautiful are young and restless
so must take it easy or end up in general hospital or
another world with no
guiding light.
CHAPTER 12
THE START OF SOMETHING
By Cheryl “Shelley” Keeling
Running is the sweet spot where mind, body, and spirit convene to commune with God. It is an answer to grief, stress, obesity, bad health, and bad habits. It is a physical act that is a form of expression for something nonphysical such as pain, anger, or happiness. Running is an opportunity to connect with fresh air, the ocean, the trees, sunlight, and people—and disconnect from the shackles that bond us to an overregulated existence or less than exciting life. When running, one is free. It is a survival tool.
This attitude about running was the primary factor in a decision to enter my mother, then sixty-seven years old, in a 5K race after the brutal murders of both her sons within two years and eight months of each other. The loss of a child was not an uncommon occurrence in the St. Nicholas projects where we were raised or other low-income areas driven by a drug trade that was accompanied by crime and violence, death, destruction, and despair.
What was uncommon and very noticeable was the shell of the woman remaining after the deaths. Generally playful and full of life, Mom was in a downward spiral. Desperate to help Mom get her mind off the tragedies, I asked her if she wanted to run in a 5K race. She did not know that 5K means 3.1 miles. I felt certain she would finish without incident, and she did. This began a three-decade running career which would include five age-group world records in both indoor and outdoor track.
A track athlete moves to a new age group every five years. Mom began in age group 65–69 and has competed in eight different age groups with her most impressive accomplishments after 90 years old. Mother is a most remarkable human being. Now at 101 she still sets goals for herself and tests her strengths and abilities. She is a role model and inspiration for people of all ages.
“Miss Ida” as she is known in the world of track and field was always easy to coach. She did not mind that our roles had been reversed, and since she had always been very active, the tasks were welcomed and came easily to her. People sometimes find it hard to believe that my mother just took off running and won that very first time. They want to know if she underwent weeks of some kind of professional training. The truth is that it never occurred to me that she wouldn’t be able to finish. Mommy was always athletic in some way. She taught us how to ride our bikes by pushing it and running behind us, and she was already in her forties at that time. She has told me that when she was a kid, she was the handball queen of her block and that no one (boy or girl) could beat her at the game. When my sister and I were children, Mommy walked us everywhere. It wasn’t unusual for the three of us to walk forty or fifty blocks in one day.
None of this stopped her from pushing herself when it came to racing. She is her own toughest critic and had been bitten by the running bug. She has experienced the serenity and feeling of well-being that accompanies running. She commented that she had slept the best since the passing of my brothers the night of that first 5K race.
After a series of four and five-mile races over many years, I explained to Mother that we lose muscle mass as we get older. To stay strong for the outdoor season of road racing, we began competing on the track; to stay strong for the track, we began lifting weights. Mother always loved to go to the gym. She had many friends there and the new venue added a social aspect to t
he training which she loved. I could see she was now ready for an international meet. Mom was eighty years old. I entered her in the 800 meters—the half mile—in the age group 80–84. She finished third and brought the bronze medal home for the US. She was happy. I was beaming. The transformation seemed complete. Although nothing could bring my brothers back, I felt that Mom had climbed her way out of that dark hole. Now I knew it was time to really get busy.
Regardless of the distance, one must always have a plan. Those who fail to plan, plan to fail. The race plan must be within the physical capabilities of the body. Mom was training, running, racing, and I was watching and calculating. I decided the 800 and the 400 would be too stressful for Mom’s tiny body. By ninety years old she was running the 100 meters outdoors and the 60 meters indoors. She was fine as long as she continued to medal, which was almost a certainty as there were few people her age racing. This brought her a Lifetime Fitness Award at the Atlanta Senior Games and a gold medal in the 100 meters.
As her coach, I looked at the race as ten 10-meter races, calculating each step, her arm movement, her breathing, the expression on her face. She too was calculating, but differently: Am I too tired, will I stumble, will I disappoint my family and friends? Even when the race is short, it is long!
In 2008, when Mom was ninety-two years and ten months, I asked her if she would like to go with me to France where I would be competing. She was excited about the opportunity, and off to the World Veteran Athletic Games we went. Clermont-Ferrand was where Mom set her first world record. We were now paying more attention to diet, making sure Mom had enough protein and calories. She always had healthy eating habits but now she was aware of how to tweak her eating for maximum benefit.
Mom caught the attention of the media after her indoor race at the armory in New York City. She had set a second world record at ninety-five years old. She has set a record every year except one since that time and has been featured on evening and morning television shows, on Lisa Ling, and in Vogue, O magazine, Time magazine, and many more. Her latest and most watched story and race was Penn Relays in April 2016, just a few weeks short of her 101st birthday. According to Noah Remnick (author of the feature) of the New York Times, mama’s story received twenty million views in five days. He said, “It was the second most viewed article in the history of the Times.”
She is not finished with us yet!
SOAPS
As the world turns with one life to live, we must continue to make use of
the days of our lives.
General hospital is overcrowded with the young and the restless.
Ryan’s Hope left TV for another world in search of tomorrow.
Meanwhile, all my children is looking for the guiding light
before the edge of night.
CHAPTER 13
A LANE OF MY OWN
Do not cast me away when I am old.
–PSALM 71: 9
At one hundred and two, I have more than earned the right to walk wherever I want, but I choose to run. For me, life’s still a sprint. At the start of a February 2011 race, I stood sixty meters from my destination, clasped my hands over my head when I was introduced on the PA, then leaned forward with my right hand on my knee when the runners were told to get set.
The gun sounded, and I was off, putting to shame younger couch potatoes, excuse givers, or plain old slackers who might’ve been well accustomed to convincing themselves that they were too over the hill to compete. That’s the thing about feeding yourself negative information. It always slows you down. I surged forward in my yellow shoes, salmon-colored shirt, and matching earrings.
Masters’ Spring Night at the armory in Washington Heights was the place I most wanted to be as I ran again, proving that no amount of horrific loss in life was going to keep me isolated and in despair.
Loss in life is certainly not new. Loss as human beings age goes with the territory of traveling life’s journey. Still, there are some losses that can break the spirit. There are losses that rob one of the will to live, scramble the mind and emotions, or produce a depressed stupor that becomes a safe haven for enduring grief.
For me, my tremendous faith in God and running, running, and more running keeps me connected, active, and, I hope, serves as a foundation to inspire others. I find running a very enjoyable thing.
Life can force you to become tough, durable, and determined. My memories of growing up in Harlem are fresh and clear and still shape my view of the world. I know that the world has kind, mean, nice, selfish, black, white, Asian, young, old, and every other kind of person you can think of. The key to happiness is to forget what folks look like. Just find the nice, kind, supportive people and bring them into your circle. Let the others find God in their own way and in their own time.
Back when I was young, many decades ago, life was generally hard for everyone who wasn’t of means. For black people who were trying to survive the Great Depression, life was especially hard. However, I didn’t let hardship change the way that I treated people, and I hope that you, the reader, will never disrespect your fellow men and women either. There is never an excuse for meanness.
I am healthy and strong. I can’t remember the last time I was sick. There is more to me than meets the eye when you look at my eighty-three pound, four foot, six inch frame. Yes, I am very small. My running shoe size is only five and a half.
Tragedy is a friend to no one, but it was through tragedy that I, urged on by my devoted daughter, changed my life and stunned the world by literally running through my pain. Running in the hallways of my Bronx apartment, running on treadmills, lifting weights, and riding exercise bikes all have become part of the regimen that I use to keep myself in shape and my mind sharp.
Cheryl is a law-school graduate, businesswoman, and track coach. She has told reporters that I don’t let anything keep me down. “It’s so uplifting,” Cheryl has said.
Reporters want to know what someone over one hundred years old does and eats to stay so active.
For me, it’s quite simple. I drink a lot of orange juice.
My day-to-day routine follows a pattern that could help young people get healthier too. I’m in bed at nine and get up promptly at six. Before getting out of bed, I exercise because it makes me happy to be moving flat on my back. I move my arms and pull my knees clear up to my chest. Then I get up lickety-split, put on my slippers, and go to the bathroom for my morning ablutions. From the bathroom, I start my next set of exercises which includes squats, twists, turns, and toe touching. Afterward I ride a bike.
A US Army recruiting commercial from the 1980s proudly boasted when it came to soldiers in the Army, “We do more before nine a.m. than most people do all day.” Clearly, the brass of the US Army has never met anyone like me.
Staying in the right lane and staying healthy for me means not only exercising regularly and the right way, but eating the right foods. I like a heavy breakfast because I’m rested. My mind is at ease, I’m relaxed, and it makes me feel good. My preferred breakfast is not for wimps. It could be the leftovers from a previous day’s dinner or chops, bacon, eggs, beans, and rice. I think my Caribbean heritage comes through in my choice of breakfast food.
Once breakfast is over, I might have tea, cocoa, or just one cup of coffee. Back in 1972, a doctor told me that a drop of Hennessy is good for poor circulation. He said that if Hennessey is not available, then port wine will do. Hooray for that doctor!
At dinnertime, I might have cereal, wheat products with hard-boiled eggs, and orange juice. I also like carrots, beets, celery, cucumber, and lots of other vegetables.
My health regimen is not unusual and it’s not new. Personal trainers, fitness experts, and health coaches all say that good nutrition, exercise, and lots of sleep are necessary for good health. I also stamp my feet a lot to ensure good circulation. I used to drink milk because it’s good for muscle and system recovery after a workout, but I’m allergic to milk now. I don’t eat my food with any sauces or seasonings, but ol
ive oil and lemons are most welcome.
But my most important health tip that I can give anyone is this: Do not let anyone aggravate you to the point where you cannot eat.
Like President Barack Obama, I absolutely refuse to tolerate drama. I’m that way because without good health and a clear mind, you don’t have anything.
I just don’t have time for people who live only to cause trouble. I don’t like to ask anyone for anything either. I wash, cook, iron, scrub, clean, mop, and shop. I don’t want nobody helping me do nothing if I can do it myself.
I’ve run in short races. I’ve run in distance races. I’m a sprinter and world record holder in the ninety-and-over age group. I set a record of 31.80 seconds in the 60-meter run, but it was later broken. No matter, I just keep running.
Back when I was ninety-two, Cheryl and I went to France. I was competing in the World Athletic Veteran Games. (It’s now called the World Masters Games.) We got there two days before the race and the hotels in the city of Clermont-Ferrand were all booked up. No problem. We flew into Paris and went to Lyon by car. It cost a lot of money but I was determined to compete in the race.
The hotel where we stayed was breathtaking. It was truly beautiful but I had to concentrate on my running, which was business. On the morning of the race, I woke up early, ate a big champion’s breakfast, then took the train to Clermont-Ferrand. It was a four-hour journey, and I spent the time getting myself psychologically and emotionally prepared to give my all.
Finally, I arrived. An escort took us to the pre-race tent, and I started getting my mind and spirit ready for a great race. Then I heard the voice of the announcer. It was time for me to race. I was escorted out onto the track and into my lane for the lineup. All the runners were out there, looking intense, ready and anxious to get started. I was scheduled to run in the group for women who were 90–94 years old.
