by Ray Lewis
My mother was fifteen when I was born, on May 15, 1975. She was a runaway—only, she ran no further than my great-grandmother’s house in Mulberry, Florida, about a half hour south of Lakeland, where she’d been living at the time. She ran because she was pregnant and her mother didn’t want her to have the baby—to have me. This right here was one of the great ironies of my life. My grandmother was a God-fearing woman, and she raised her family in a churchgoing household, but she chased after my mother with a coat hanger and tried to pin her down. She believed in the sanctity of life, my grandmother, but she was a full-blooded Indian woman who also believed that her fifteen-year-old daughter was too young to have a child. Guess you could say it was a conflict of blood and faith. My grandmother was a firecracker, with her own principles, and her daughter was not about to have a baby on her watch. No, sir. She did not play, that woman—in fact, this same scene took place a bunch of times, with other members of my family, aunts and nieces and cousins, but my mother was the one who lit out on her own and followed her heart.
My mother knows her mind. I’ll say that. To this day, she expects things done a certain way, likes things just so. As a boy, this was made clear to me. I could not leave a dish in the sink. Everything had to be in the right place—from the rugs to the furniture to the picture frames. I could not go outside to play after supper. I could not have friends over, or leave the house in the morning without tidying my room. As I got older, as my baby sister Kadaja joined the family, and my baby brother Keon soon after that, I helped out around the house more and more. My mother worked three jobs, so a lot of the babysitting, cooking, cleaning was on me. I didn’t complain then and I am not complaining now, because it was a blessing to be able to do for my family in this way. It’s just how it was. Most days, my mother would come home from working the night shift at the hospital at two or three o’clock in the morning, dog tired, hoping to grab a couple hours sleep before heading back out the door. Her feet would be swollen, and it was my job to comfort her, even in some small, little-kid way. We used to keep a beige bucket by the side of her bed, and I would fill it with warm water and pour in some Epsom salts and rub her feet while she went to sleep. Then I’d go back to my own bed and lie down for another while, until it was time to wake my mother so she could get to her next job. I’d have to get my brother and sisters up and ready for school, then get my own behind to the bus stop. I was eight, nine, ten years old. This went on and on, for years and years. End of each day, it was the same deal, in reverse. I’d hurry home before the others, pick them up from school, the nursery, and get everybody started on their homework, on dinner. In between shifts, whenever she could find the time, my mother would prepare meals for us—meals that I could reheat, rework as the week went on. Pork and beans, wings, mashed potatoes, anything that could last us two or three days, until she could get back to it. When I was old enough to work the stove, she had me boiling weenies, making eggs.
I never questioned how things were. They just were, you know? This was how we lived, how we managed. The only piece I ever questioned was my name. My family tree, it was messed up, made no sense to me. There was no way to recognize the different branches, put them in the right spot, find a little piece of shade beneath one of those branches that I could call my own. My twin sisters had my mother’s name—anyway, they had the name Jenkins, which was the name of my blood grandfather on my mother’s side. My mother went by McKinney, which was the name of her stepfather, Gillis McKinney, a man I grew up knowing as my maternal grandfather. My baby sister had another name—my brother, too. We were a mismatched set, and I wanted to know who was who, what was what, who had the same name as me.
One day, my mom took the time to explain it all to me—some of it, at least, and here it helps to know that we never talked about my father. He wasn’t a part of our lives, wasn’t even a part of our thinking, but there was no way to have this conversation without bringing him up. Come to think of it, this was the first conversation I can remember where we talked about him at all. My mother said, “Baby Ray, I will never say one bad thing about your father. Ever. Never. He’s your daddy, after all.”
I said, “Okay, but whose name do I have? We don’t know no Lewises?”
She said, “I’m ’bout to tell you, if you let me finish.”
I didn’t know much, but I knew to stay out of my mother’s way when she got going on a story.
She continued, plain talk: “Your father, he’s chosen not to be in your life, so you’re gonna have to figure that out. There is no one to teach you how to be a man. I can’t teach you to be a man. That one’s on you. But when it comes to your name, that’s a whole other story.”
That whole other story went like this: My mother was a good-looking young woman, stunning—hazel eyes, hair down to her freakin’ butt, a smile to light up the night sky—just crazy beautiful. I look at pictures from when she was thirteen, fourteen years old, and I’m knocked out. My father was, too. That’s why he’d come around in the first place. He was just a couple years older, but he used to babysit my mom when she was little; he knew our family; he took notice as she grew up—kept comin’ round, long past the time she needed minding. Let me tell you, it was hard not to notice my mother. Those pictures don’t lie. She turned heads. Folks around town, they knew who she was just by the way she looked. Folks the next town over, they knew who she was, too. The boys, they lined up just to talk to her, to be near to her. So when she finally got around to telling my father about me on the day I was born, the day he turned tail, there was this other young man next in line, and he stepped up and helped my mother with her hospital bills. Wasn’t like he was fixing to hang around, wasn’t like there was any kind of relationship between them, but the young man had taken a shine to my mother, said it was his privilege to help in this small way. And it was. To him, it was a small kindness; to my mother, it was big beyond big. He was a military man, and here he’d done my mother this great good turn, so she reached out to him a second time. She asked him to sign the hospital paperwork, where it asks for the name of the baby’s father—and happily, mercifully, he agreed.
That young man’s name was Ray Lewis, so my name became Ray Lewis. Just like that. My mother hardly knew this man, but it was a way to honor him.
I was a way to honor him.
I didn’t meet him until many years later, when my own name was becoming well known. I’d been having some success on the football field and on the wrestling mat in high school. And this man, Ray Lewis, found a way to reach out to me, tell me who he was. He’d had no contact with my mother since he’d helped her out just after I was born, but he introduced himself—said, “My name is Ray Lewis, son. I used to know your mama.”
I made the connection right away—said, “Thank you for giving me your name, sir. I will make it great.”
• • •
Wasn’t just Ray Lewis whose name shined down on our household. Wasn’t just Ray Lewis whose name I vowed to uphold.
It was His name, too.
We were a churchgoing family. My mother introduced me to God early on. He was in the air and all around. By the time I was eight or nine, I was a junior deacon at the Greater Faith Missionary Baptist Church. I took my role seriously, felt it in my soul, in my bones. Other folks, they could feel it too—in me. Once, the pastor had me lead devotion, and I’ll never forget, I prayed and prayed so hard that when I got up I could see my great-grandmother in one of the front pews, crying. She came up to me after and said, “God got a calling on your life, Baby Ray.”
God got a calling on your life . . .
I didn’t know what those words meant at the time. I only knew that my great-grandmother believed them, deeply. I only knew that I was moved when I spoke the Word of God. Underneath all of that, I only knew what I was tired of, what I would not let stand—and underneath all of that, I knew He would give me the strength to power through. Whatever it was holding me down, He would lift me up.
Wasn’t just in church that I went look
ing for God. Wasn’t just in church that He found me. I took to praying early on. My mother encouraged me, big-time. She taught me to read the Bible. She taught me the hymns. I learned to pray by watching her. She would drop to her knees and have at it, and when she saw I was a little tentative, a little shy about it, she’d push me toward Him, gently. She’d say, “Talk to Him, Baby Ray. He’ll talk back. Just talk to Him.”
So I did, and as I did I came to understand that there is something else outside of what man says is true. I learned that man is not the only ticket, not the only answer. I learned there is a spirit, a power greater than all of us put together. And He did talk back—He did, and His words were a comfort to me, a shield. In God’s words, I felt this great sense of protection, left me believing that as long as I had my relationship with God, I was good. Didn’t matter what was going on in the rest of my life. Didn’t matter what was missing from the rest of my life, long as I was good with God.
My mother used to always say, “God don’t make no mistakes.” It was her answer to everything. Whenever I was angry or frustrated, she had me think things through—to look at things from God’s perspective, get me to realize there was a plan, a reason.
God don’t make no mistakes—that’s a powerful message for a young boy to take in, but I did just that, in what ways I could.
And so I split my time trying to live up to the good name of Ray Lewis, to the name of God, while at the same time trying to live down the legacy of my father and the troublesome string of men that came in and out of my mother’s life. Sad to say, she didn’t always make the best choices when it came to men. Oh, they had money, some of them. They were good to us, some of them—two of them she even married. They put a roof over our heads, food on the table, maybe even a little stability in our lives. Outwardly, they were generous. One of them gave us my baby brother and my baby sister—another blessing. But none of these men lasted, not a one. It was the five of us who lasted—my brother, my three sisters, me. We were my mother’s family. These men, they were just a means to an end, a necessary evil—and trust me, I don’t choose that word lightly. Evil. Some of these men, they drank, and when they drank, they got physical. They beat my mom. They beat me. My brother and sisters, they were mostly spared; I took their hits, and this too was another blessing, that I was able to carry some of that burden, protect them in this way.
This one guy, he lasted longer than the others, but that just meant he stuck around long enough to cause us the most trouble, inflict the most pain. He used to drink, hard, but only on the weekends. All week long, he’d punch the clock at work, go about his business, sit down to table with us for family dinner. To look on at our put-together family, you’d have thought all was right in our little world. There were times he was actually nice to me. If he felt the need to call me on anything during the week, he’d ride me with his words, never his hands. He’d be on me about this or that, on my mother about this or that. He would raise his voice, but not his hands. Come Friday, he was a totally different person. Every week, it was the same damn deal. He’d cash his paycheck, buy a couple bottles, and get into it, and for the longest time I struggled to figure him out. My sisters, he would never touch. My baby brother, he would never touch. But me and my mother, we were like punching bags to this man. We were there to receive his anger. It’s like it was building up inside him all week long and it came pouring out. On us.
I used to sit in my room and think, Why does this man hate me so? I couldn’t understand why God put us on the receiving end of his blows. Wasn’t until years later that I realized this guy’s hatred wasn’t for me. No, his hatred was for my father—something I couldn’t see when I was but a child.
The way it worked, in our little town, my father’s name went a long way. Lakeland, Florida, wasn’t much—but to me, to my family, it was everything. We lived in a poor part of town, in what was known as the projects, only to call it the projects to someone from the big city, they’d have a different picture in mind. My Lakeland—our Lakeland—wasn’t a place of high-rises and blacktops. It was country. It was simple. A lot of folks on welfare, struggling to get by. Everybody knew everybody’s business. We were rich in tradition in Lakeland. Family histories, they ran deep. It was the kind of place that showed you what life could be, the good and the bad.
Lakeland was small enough that there were lots of folks around who knew my father and would tell me about him. His deceptive charms, his athleticism, his competitive fire. But Lakeland was also plenty big enough that I never accidentally ran into him. He was one of the best athletes that part of Florida had ever seen. He was handsome, smooth, a sharp dresser. He used to have his nails manicured, back when he was chasing after my mother. And he could sing! Oh my goodness, the man had it going on—only, he was nowhere to be found once I came along, once my twin sisters came along. He steered clear, but he didn’t go far. He was around. He ran with this crew of guys who ended up married to some of my aunts, some of my relatives, so our lives were all intertwined. This dude who used to beat my mom? He was a part of all that, and I think he felt like he was living in my father’s shadow. My father never set foot in our house—and, still, his shadow got us beat.
And yet I could not hate this guy—this one man on a long string of many. I wanted to, but I couldn’t. He was an obstacle to get past. That’s all. He was bigger than me, of course. At ten years old, I wasn’t much to look at. I wasn’t big, wasn’t cut, wasn’t strong. I couldn’t fight back for trying, but I could endure the blows. The physical pain, I could deal with that. I got used to it, what it came down to. I found a way to set it aside, wait for it to pass. But seeing my mom hurt—I never got used to that. I’ll never forget this one time, we went to a family barbecue at my grandmother’s house, and this guy had beat her so bad she had to wear these big black sunglasses to cover the bruises around her eyes. Her disguise didn’t fool anyone, but she kept those glasses on all afternoon—inside the house, even. I wanted to help her, but I didn’t know how. I was just a boy.
We talked about it, in ways that made sense to a ten-year-old child. We were tight, me and my mom. We were in this muck together—because, hey, ain’t nothing like the love between a boy and his mama beaten by the same man. We were bound together by the force of this guy’s ugliness.
She used to say, “We’re gonna ride this out, Baby Ray. You with me?”
And I would nod and say, “I’m with you.” I could not think what this meant, but I was with her, absolutely. I said, “Just tell me what to do.”
There was nothing to tell me, of course. There was nothing to do. I’d see my mother with the bruises around her eyes, and I would cry for her. She’d see me crying and say, “It’s me and you, Baby Ray. Just me and you. Ain’t nobody’s business but our own.”
Meaning, I wasn’t supposed to talk about this.
There was the pain of a beatdown, and there was the pain of humiliation. It was one thing to get beat; it was another thing to be shamed; and this man, he gave it both ways. Looking back, I believe the shaming was harder to take. To this day, I can close my eyes and picture one night in particular. It was raining. I was sitting by the window, wishing myself away, away, away. This guy was cursing, ranting, going off. His voice was wild, menacing, the way it got whenever he was into the bottle. For the longest time, I just sat there, staring, lost in the slap of the rain against the window. At some point—must’ve been drifting in my own thoughts for a good long while—this man stepped outside, grabbed hold of a garden snake, and returned with it inside. Tossed it right at me—just to mess with me, amuse himself. I couldn’t figure what it was at first, couldn’t make out what was going on, why, but that all came clear. I can’t be sure, but I think I shrieked when I noticed this hissing, slithering snake in my lap. I called to my mother—tried to, anyway. I said, “M-m-m-m-m,” struggling to call out “Mama!” But I was overcome by this sudden stutter—a stutter that stayed with me all the way to college. It would come on when I was stressed or worried, and it all
started with this mean-spirited man standing by the doorway, wet from the rain, laughing at me, mimicking me, humiliating me, saying, “M-m-m-m-m . . .”
It stung, got to admit—damn near killed me, to be reduced in this way in the eyes of this guy. But there it was, and there was no shrinking from it.
Soon as I was old enough, big enough, I vowed to keep my mother safe—to take care of her, the way she’d always taken care of us. Being hurt by this guy, that was one thing. Seeing my mother hurt, that’s a different hurt.
One night, without even thinking about it, I reached for a deck of cards I used to keep by the side of my bed. It was just something to do, a way to kill the time. I turned over the first card—five of clubs. I did five push-ups. I turned over another card—nine of diamonds. I did nine push-ups. I worked my way through the whole damn deck. Picture cards were ten push-ups. Aces were twenty-five. The two jokers, fifty each. There was no plan to it, no method. Like I said, just something to do. And when I flipped the last card in the deck, I shuffled the cards and started right back in again, told myself I would get strong. I would build myself up. I set my mind to it. I would not let this guy beat us down in this way.
Now, it takes a whole lot more than a deck of cards and a mess of push-ups for a little kid to stand up to a grown man, and I knew deep down that I would be on the losing end of these battles for a long, long time. But I wasn’t about to let him have an easy win. He’d still win, but it wouldn’t be an easy win. It would take something out of him—more and more, as I got stronger and stronger. And I did get stronger. Flipping cards like that, doing push-ups—it went from something to do to something I needed to do. Right away, I started adding sit-ups to my routine. I’d go through the deck doing push-ups, then I’d switch. Then I’d go back to push-ups, then switch. Back and forth, up half the night.
• • •
I already understood pain. I try to explain this to people, but there’s something lost in the telling. There’s no way to communicate the doggedness of a small boy beaten down one time too many. I was so tired, so worn out by this guy’s abuse, I could only will myself past it. Over it. Through it. The pain of all these push-ups, all these sit-ups. Hundreds and hundreds of push-ups. Hundreds and hundreds of sit-ups. They were nothing next to the pain this guy put us through.
