Keeping the Faith

by Tavis Smiley

  I too had missed my father’s presence following my parents’ divorce when I was a child. Yet my father’s absence did not ignite in me an allegiance to the importance of fatherhood. Instead, his absence only seemed to strengthen my belief in the power and importance of motherhood. Watching my own mother raise my younger brother and me without my father’s assistance reinforced the notion that mothers are dominant—not by choice, but by necessity.

  For the sake of my daughter, however, I tried to set aside my perceptions of parenting in order to make decisions that were best for her, even if they were difficult for me. With that in mind, I agreed to a one-week stay with her dad when she was six months old. I packed bottles of breast milk, clothes, and diapers, and tried to prepare myself mentally for her departure.

  I contacted her pediatrician to inquire about any health issues that I should be concerned with and was comforted and relieved with her response. “So long as your child receives the same care and love in the alternate environment,” her doctor assured me, “she will be fine.” But before I could feel completely at ease, I called my pastor for spiritual support and was encouraged with a thought that continues to sustain me: “God is a father, and He seeks a loving relationship with His children; your daughter’s father wants nothing less.”

  Three years later, my daughter adores and respects her dad. Well aware of those who love her, she has grown into an inquisitive and energetic child with an intellect well beyond her three-and-a-half years. Her initial one-week stay with her dad began a regimen of one-week stays each month that we adhered to until she reached a year and a half. At that point, given her exceptional development and adaptability to both environments, and in the interest of fairness, we divided our daughter’s time equally: two weeks with Mommy, two weeks with Daddy.

  In accordance with our arrangement, her father drives to pick her up from my home, and I drive to pick her up from his, or we meet at a midpoint and exchange our “little love.” Sometimes when it’s nearly time for her to leave, she’ll place her hands on her imaginary hips, stare from behind her big brown eyes with a frown, and exclaim, “Mommy, can you please tell Saturday to hurry up—my daddy is coming on Saturday!”

  Some say I’m lucky to have a break from being Mommy each month, to have time for myself. But I know that I’m blessed to have a beautiful little girl who is in turn blessed to have the love and presence of both Mommy and Daddy.

  WHAT I NEVER KNEW I ALWAYS NEEDED

  Ebuni McFall-Roberts, M.A., L.P.C.

  During the two years that I was completing my master’s degree in counseling, my idea of the “right man” had undergone a profound transformation. I had decided that I would let God lead my husband to me, instead of me looking for him. I revised my list of “needs” in a mate, shortening it to the following: (1) he had to be a man of God, (2) he had to be a man of integrity, and (3) he had to know that no woman deserved to be beaten, cheated on, or called derogatory names, ever. I had been celibate for many months and was committed to graduating and looking for a job. Dating was not high on my priority list. I realized that I deserved more than I had been receiving. I believe that when you truly “let go and let God,” God will deliver far beyond what you could ever imagine or hope for. I had asked God to send me a good man for many years, and what I found didn’t meet my then-longer list of “needs.” Once I shortened the list to what was truly important, though, God sent him to me.

  Meandering down the hall at the psychiatric hospital where I was completing my internship for my degree, I met my future husband. He was sitting in his office, the office of the director of adolescent services, as I was passing by, looking for his boss, who was also my clinical supervisor. I thought he looked interesting, although “not my type.” I circled back around, though, and said hello. His hello was so engaging that we ended up talking for over two hours. But I was still certain that this was just a chance conversation with a fellow employee. While talking with him and to him was the easiest thing I had ever done, that still did not change the fact that he was not my type.

  Later, it occurred to me that if God was in charge, my type was whomever He wanted for me. We spoke once more, and he asked me out on a date that afternoon. I later learned that he’d wanted to ask me out that first day, but he was in the process of ending a relationship and wanted to “clean house” first, which I deeply respect him for. From our very first date, he impressed me. It was not the car he drove, nor his clothes; it was his attentiveness to me. We went to a restaurant on the south side of Charlotte that had trivia and bingo contests during dinner. When the waitress presented us with the option to play bingo, he declined, saying, “I just want to focus on you.” That evening we talked and laughed for hours. I enjoyed his company. He actually saw me through the attractive exterior. He looked beyond my credentials and got to the heart of me. We went out and shot pool the next night. He knew I was not interested in a sexual relationship until marriage, and he respected that. He didn’t even try to kiss me. I think I finally kissed him on our fifth date, just to get it over with. However, it was on our third date that he began talking about marriage; he told me, “If you’re not the one, you’re pretty close to the one.”

  We became engaged on New Year’s. We faced our first major test the week before our wedding. The hospital where we had met was closing, and he would be unemployed. This did not interfere with our wedding; we simply trusted God that an answer would come. We honeymooned in Florida and took suits for interviews in case calls came in. He already had an interview scheduled in Atlanta, and then I received a request for an interview there as well. We left our honeymoon early so that I could interview. I was given the job, with only two weeks to pack our apartment in Charlotte and move to Atlanta. This time cemented us in many ways, however. We actually had a twenty-one-day honeymoon where neither of us worked, for he received a very generous severance package from the hospital.

  Before marriage, I was wedded to ideas about being married that have not all come to fruition. I didn’t know that it was possible to trust that someone will truly be there for me and love me so completely and unconditionally. My husband has become my rock of Gibraltar, and we have weathered many storms. His consistency and his dedication to our marriage, to God, and to our personal growth have made the journey special. He has taught me so much about stick-to-it-iveness, and about the importance of not giving up.

  We had a baby at the end of last year; the next chapter in our lives is beginning. It is so incredible to see him with our son, to be married to a man who wants to get up with the baby at night. He never just baby-sits his child, he parents.

  Just as children don’t come with instructions, neither does marriage. Sometimes I think back about the first time we met and how just a year earlier I probably wouldn’t have been interested in him. I was still figuring out what I needed from another person. I realize now that God sent him in His time. It is the simple things that keep our love growing, like his waking before me and turning my curling iron on, or his rubbing my shoulders while I feed the baby. My husband is everything I never knew I always needed.

  Love is what keeps us trying every day, and prayer has brought us through what we could not come through on our own. While it has not always been easy, it has always been worth it.

  THESE THREE WORDS

  Cherryl Floyd-Miller

  I had been one of four women selected to appear on the Oprah Winfrey Show for the Heart of a Woman book club episode. It was my fifteen minutes of fame. My friend Enessia had taped the show and was hosting a viewing party at her home. I sat with friends and work colleagues, watching the show intently, when I heard the words I’d said: “I’ve never heard my mother say ‘I love you.’”

  A quickened heartbeat drummed in my ears and throat. My mother was hosting a viewing party for the show at her home too. My God, what did she think of this?

  The sentence that followed what I had said had been edited out. The complete statement—“I’ve never heard my mother say �
�I love you,’ but I know that she does”—had been hacked to suit the clueless tastes of some ratings chaser. I started to write the producers of Oprah a letter. But the truth stopped me, and the truth was that I had never heard my mother say “I love you.” Even if the full statement had been broadcast, the first part of it was still true.

  I was accustomed to being the odd one in my family, frequently misunderstood and likely to bear the brunt of dissent from all the folks who disagreed with my decisions. I am a writer, and that makes me weird to begin with. This new drama, however, lowered me a step down from black sheep squarely into the role of traitor. What I’d said was selfish. I was ungrateful. I had no right. And it was as far from the truth as a lie could get. That’s what the family said about me. Those who didn’t say it thought it.

  For the next year I braved rooms at family gatherings that fell silent when I entered them. I trudged through the slush of double talk and hidden meanings in carefully laid sentences. I waited to be slugged by judgments from the eyes of people with my blood in their veins. I felt alone and small. I began to speak to them only of what was necessary— Hello; Happy birthday; Yes, the kids can come to the cookout; Yes, we’re doing okay. The very thing I’d spoken out against—silence—started to root itself in me.

  It wasn’t that I was a stranger to silence. Growing up in the South among spirits of women who I was convinced could grab misery by its ugly face and sell it back to the devil, I was spoon-fed silence daily. It was how we got by, speaking around the things that ran deep in us like rivers. I was never to let anyone who was against me see me cry. This gave them a victory they didn’t deserve. Some things, like pain or betrayal or agony, were not to be spoken about aloud. Having breath in your body was a blessing; complaining was a blasphemy against the Father and His Son. And what I had done, going on national television and talking about what my mother didn’t do for me, was definitely blasphemous. I had sinned against God and my mother.

  As it always happens when you believe, I was tested. I had resolved that this friction between me and my mother would forever characterize the way we connected. I had accepted that we would never be friends, but I would find a space inside my own dignity to honor my mother as the vessel that gave me life. She was twice my age and less likely to change. I believed I had to be more charitable than the rift between us so far had allowed.

  Then a call came from my aunt in the middle of the night. My mother was scheduled for surgery early the next morning, and she’d been asking for me. Over the past year of not speaking, she’d changed her phone number and didn’t have mine. The doctors were not sure what would happen once the procedure began, but the family planned to be there to support her during the surgery.

  The next day, I entered the waiting room, shocking everyone already there. But I didn’t arrive in time to see my mother before the surgery began. I sat in the sterile hush of the hospital trying to remember how we’d grown so far apart.

  As a girl, I had watched my mother work as a head cashier in a grocery store to make ends meet for herself and us three children. My father repeatedly missed paying the $35 a week he owed for child support for the three of us. I’d seen the look of despair in my mother’s eyes during our weeks of navy bean and grilled cheese dinners. I knew in her quiet dismay what she wanted … hoped for us: better lives. Hard luck filled our house; hard money eluded us all the time.

  I wanted what my mother wanted. The oldest of three children, I bore much of the responsibility for keeping our house clean and in order when my mother worked. I matured quickly, cooking elaborate dishes, changing my baby brother’s diapers, answering calls from bill collectors, all before I was twelve. When I got married at twenty-three, I had only one request of God and my then-husband: I did not want to live my mother’s life.

  She wasn’t a wretched woman by any stretch of the imagination. In fact, she had a quick wit and a youth about her that made her the most trusted mom among all my friends. And I trusted her. Before my teen years, my mother and I carried on like sisters. When she wasn’t working herself into a tired frenzy, she was vibrant and fully engaged with our childhood joys.

  I do not know anyone as strong as my mother. She has survived a horrific divorce, an inner-ear infection that mysteriously caused blackouts and stole her balance, bleeding ulcers, a stroke, and for nearly fifteen years a brain tumor. She ignored the gloomy prognoses of doctors who gave her a virtual death date on each successive visit. Only she could look death squarely in the eyes and laugh at it.

  So, what right did I have to complain? My mother had made the most incredible sacrifices. Without them, my life could have taken so many more fatal turns. I had gratefully embraced my mother’s willingness to forfeit herself for her children. It’s what mothers do.

  But while I had learned the language of need, of uttering what is essential for your survival, I missed hearing my mother say she loved me. I have forever craved the sound of it in my ear. As music legend Carlos Santana says, sound alters the molecular structure of the listener. In my case, the sound of those words, I believed, would have configured every cell in my body into an anatomy that was whole and not fragmented with doubt. These three words, to me, are the most eloquent of any in human language, because they have the capacity to change our marrow and not merely our flesh.

  My mother survived the surgery. Over the next two years, we spent a lot of time getting to know each other. Part of our difficulty was that neither of us truly knew who the other was outside the scope of our pain. I got to see my mother war against the ravishes of disease … and win. She got to see me mother my children and give birth to my art.

  Last summer, I got a call from her when I was in the middle of a difficult time. I gave her an update on what was going on in my life and she listened. Just before I was ready to replace the phone in its cradle, the words I’d long been waiting for came crackling through the receiver: “I love you,” she said. Somewhere deep in my bones, the marrow shifted at the sound of it, and we both were significantly altered.

  A SUPPORT GROUP BASED ON BLACK LOVE

  Gay Wheeler-Smith

  Black love is phenomenal on every level. It has been the social fabric of our existence and survival for hundreds of years. It is unconditional, quiet, patient, sweet, and genuine. Black love is a pot of collard greens with smoked neck bones and corn bread on a cold winter night. Black love comes from our parents, siblings, cousins, and many, many, many great friends. I mean real good sistah-inspirin’, sistah-supportin’, sistah-cryin’, sistah-laughin’, sistah-understandin’, and sistah-feelin’ friends! Sisterhood is something—it’s one of a kind.

  I left my husband when my daughter was eighteen months old. I packed my clothes, my baby’s clothes, some furniture, and left the Big Apple, headed for Atlanta, Georgia.

  I started working immediately as a community health nurse. I traveled approximately eighty to a hundred miles a day into unknown territory and was generally greeted by southerners whose belief system was very different from mine. I began to feel a bit frightened—alone, unworthy, inadequate, and depressed due to my failed marriage and my new status as a single mom.

  Believe me, this was not my original plan. My mother came to Atlanta with me and was as supportive as a mom could be. I am forever grateful to her. Later I met some sistahs in Georgia who helped pull me out of my slump. Joy, Gay-lynn, Sherry, and Maritza gave me strength, energy, courage, laughter, love, and much-needed healing. They did it not by gossiping, judging, demeaning, or humiliating me. With open, loving hearts, they allowed me to experience the grieving process, cry, be angry, and ventilate my pain and anguish. I was allowed silent moments; while few words were spoken, their actions were crucial.

  Joy demonstrated for me how to be a single mom. She had driven alone from New York to Atlanta with a two-month-old, bought a house, painted it herself, and mowed the lawn. Joy did this single-mommyhood thing with energy, grace, style, charm, and much wisdom. She taught me how not to be afraid of parenting alone,
and how to travel and engage in activities with my daughter solo.

  Slowly, Joy broke through my anger and hopelessness. She made single parenting look so easy. I was fortunate because she and I worked together. As health care professionals, we often worked in the same geographical location. I can remember many hot, sunny days we would see each other unexpectedly and begin to talk. Joy inspired me and taught me how to empower myself.

  Joy would often say you cannot control other people, but you can control how you respond to a situation and what you will and will not engage in. She also said you could dictate how a person will treat you. Ultimately, you learn the ability to empower yourself and teach your daughter to do the same. Moreover, she taught me that what you put into the universe is what you receive in return. I began living life more lovingly and openly. Joy gave me the courage I needed to return to New York, take the bull by the horns, and win!

  It has now been eight years, and I love being a single mom! Great children come from single-parent households! My daughter and I engage in empowering activities all of the time. Joh’vonni, now ten years old, purchases stock on the Internet and runs a small chocolate lollipop business. She is a mean backstroke swimmer, participates in Girl Scouts, plays the flute, writes poetry, rides a ten-speed bike, and is a B+/A student in school. And I am now the president of an investment club and conduct financial seminars and workshops for parents and children. My daughter and I were featured on the cover of Black Enterprise and are currently writing a book together. I say, hats off to single moms and dads. Now I wear the brand proudly!

  Although Joy is married now, she understood my turmoil then and took the time to show me Black love. More now than ever, I pay tribute to her because she recently underwent brain surgery to remove a tumor that was pressing on her spine. I want everyone who reads this story to send light, energy, love, and prayers to this beautiful sister.