There were many women in my life who had loved me unconditionally. They had seen my life go up and down. They knew most, if not all, of the sordid details of my life. No matter where I was, or what I was going through, I could call on these women, and they would be there for me. These were women I told the truth, because I knew no matter what, they would stand by me. I learned that telling the truth was a big part of loving yourself. You must respect and trust yourself enough to know that no matter what you do, you are worthy of love and support. I had been blessed with friends who had loved me in my most insane moments. I needed the blessing, love, and support of these women as I moved forward in my life.
I had once read that life takes place in seven-year cycles. Every seven years, the focus and energy shifts in your life. From birth to seven years, the beginning of life, you are learning how to live. How to breathe on your own, to walk, talk, eat, and essentially, how to take care of your basic needs. From eight years to fourteen years, you are learning what works and what doesn’t work, based on what you have been taught and what you have experienced. Fifteen to twenty-one years is a time of testing. Now that you have some idea of what works, you are testing yourself and your concepts and ideas in order to determine if what you have discovered is true. Twenty-two to twenty-eight years is a time of reevaluation. Now that you know what works and what doesn’t, what is true for you and what is not, you must find new or improved ways of being. You must now break the pattern or remain loyal to it, regardless of the outcome.
Twenty-nine to thirty-five are the hard years. This is when your concepts about yourself, about life, and about how to live are put to the test—again. Life is going to test you to see if you really know and believe what you say you know and believe. Most of us still know only what we have been taught and told. We may think we are doing something else, but what really happens is that our subconscious patterns begin to emerge. Thirty-six to forty-two is the healing cycle. Because we have now seen our patterns and subconscious beliefs come to life, we must decide what we will carry forward and what we will not. At forty-two, I had seen enough! I had seen what the lack of love had done in my life, and I did not want to carry that into the next life cycle. I had seen what fear, confusion, and subconscious patterns had created in my life, and I knew I had to do a new thing.
Six weeks before my forty-second birthday, I went on a three-day fast, asking Spirit to tell me what to do to break the cycle. What to do to create more love in myself, for myself. On the third day of the fast, the answer magically came to mind: Surround yourself with those who love you. Not until that moment did I realize that I had never celebrated myself. I had never had a birthday celebration.
I have a wonderfully diverse circle of friends and comrades. These women, most of them deeply steeped in spiritual practices and knowledge, have taught me a great deal. They have knowledge of everything from Zen Buddhism to Native American lore. Some of these women are ministers in the most traditional sense. Others are priestesses and sacred-pipe carriers. Some have been my students who have now branched off into other areas of study. Some honor the Goddess, while others pursue more esoteric studies. I made a list of forty-two women, most of them older than me. All had two things in common: they led an intensely spiritual life, and they loved me unconditionally. These were the women I chose to participate in my “rites of passage.”
I rented a tent and decorated everything in my backyard in rich purple-and-gold fabric. My daughter Gemmia, another friend who specializes in vegetarian cuisine, and I prepared every morsel of food with our own hands. I had spent the preceding three days in prayer, asking God, the Goddess, the Holy Spirit, my ancestors from all nations and cultures to cleanse me and guide me in a new direction, away from all past errors. When I wasn’t in active prayer, I was silent. It can be pretty challenging to remain silent while preparing for your first birthday party, but I knew it was something I needed to do in order to get centered. To let my past thoughts and feelings rise to the surface.
The women came from all across the country. As they began to arrive, I could feel a sacred energy rising through my home and around me. It was the presence of love, and it was all focused on me. I had asked each of the women if they would conduct a ceremony on my behalf, based on their own spiritual philosophy. I asked that their gifts, if they chose to give one, be something that was sacred or meaningful to them.
We began with an ancient African ceremony, washing of the head. Each woman over forty years old was asked to pray for me while washing my head with clear, cool water. By the time the third woman came to wash me, the entire circle was in tears. They prayed for my safety, clarity, and health. They blessed me with love and claimed abundance for me. When my daughters Gemmia and Nisa knelt before me to wash my head and pray for me, the entire circle fell to pieces. By then, most of the women were wailing. We made it through to the next ceremony, the consecration of my body.
Women have always bathed together and bathed one another. When women enter the water together, it is a very sacred act. Since we were in a backyard, we thought it best not to have forty-two naked women splashing around in a metal washtub. Instead, the women surrounded me, holding up white sheets while the two oldest women in the group stripped me and cleansed my body with herbs. Of course, those in the circle watching made all sorts of jokes about my body—the things that were lying down, the things that were standing out, trying to be noticed. Most of all, we laughed about the neighbors who were undoubtedly peering out of their windows, trying to figure out what the heck we were doing. When the bath was completed, the women dressed me in a white outfit that my elder daughter, Gemmia, had picked out for me.
Following the bath, one of the women led us in a Native American ceremony called “baking.” I was lying on a sacred blanket on the ground with all of the women around me. Each of the women sat on the ground and placed her feet firmly against my body. After several deep cleansing breaths, the women began to chant the one hundred and nine sacred names for the Mother, the mercy, grace and beauty of God. The energy that poured through the women’s feet into my body felt like electricity. I could feel myself vibrating. I could also feel pain, sadness, and grief leaving my body. When they were finished, I needed support in standing as the women formed a circle around me and began to pray.
It is one thing to think you know what people think and feel about you. It is another thing to hear it said out loud. One by one, each of the women told me how she viewed me, what I meant in her life, and what she wanted for me. Of course, we all cried! We were all holding on to each other as the circle grew smaller and smaller. As the women blessed me, thanked me, and issued decrees for goodness in my future, I realized for the first time in my life that I really did matter, that I wasn’t all bad, and that I was worthy of love. It was just the boost that Iyanla needed.
As I remembered that day, those women, their prayers, and the love I felt in that circle, I began to cry. I knew that I was not and would never again be alone. I knew that there were forty-two magical women who walked beside me, wherever I went and whatever I did. I realized that after all I had experienced in life, I was blessed, and that I could love myself. Recalling that experience gave me the strength I needed in that very moment to go back and lovingly bring Rhonda into alignment with Iyanla. The strength I needed to forgive Rhonda.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
What’s the Lesson When You Try to Cheat on a Test?
Have the courage to admit your mistakes so that you can forgive them and release yourself from pain, struggle and deceit. There is no mistake that cannot be corrected. There is no trespass that cannot be forgiven.
Paul Ferrini, in Love Without Conditions
BALÉ LOOKED GREAT! This was a man who never seemed to age. I had not seen him in fifteen years, and he looked exactly the same. I was looking forward to getting caught up on what had been happening in his life, and I knew he wanted to know about mine. That had been Balé’s job most of my life, making sure I did not go too far off center.
If and when I did, he had a special way of bringing me back.
“How are the children?”
“They are fine. Damon is in the navy. He fell in love with a girl in high school. When she enlisted, he did the same. He’s stationed in Virginia. Gemmia is wonderful. She has learned how to braid hair and is working with a friend of mine. She is so beautiful and smart as a whip. Nisa is having a difficult time. She has been placed in a special education class because of a reading disability. She feels out of place, but she’s a good girl. She’s very athletic, and she’s working with retarded children for extra credit in school. I guess they’re pretty normal teenagers.”
Balé was an excellent cook. He had studied cooking most of his life. For him, cooking was therapy. To help him with his therapy, I was eating as fast as I could, but he kept interrupting to ask questions.
“Where’s Ray?”
“Ray got married a few years ago. He and his wife are living in Jersey.”
“And the drinking?”
“I think he stopped drinking and is doing other things. The last time I heard from him, he was still working and still complaining.”
I told Balé that my brother had a habit of getting drunk or high every holiday, then calling me at one or two o’clock in the morning. It wasn’t the fact that he called so late that bothered me. It was the fact that he always called to complain about how horrible our lives had been. How badly Daddy had treated him, and how stupid I was for refusing to be mad for all of the things we “suffered” as children. After a few years of Ray’s calls, I told him to stop calling me if that was all he had to talk about. He got so mad at me that, unless he needs money, he doesn’t call anymore.
“And whatever happened to your grandmother and Nett?”
“Grandma moved back down South after Daddy died. She was living in the family’s old home, Uncle Jimmy’s house. I don’t keep in touch with her. I think I had about as much of her as I deserve in one lifetime.”
I was too busy eating to tell him about what Grandma had done to me the day after Daddy’s funeral. I had gone by the house to pick up something. Edna let me in. We were standing in the kitchen talking, when all of a sudden Grandma burst through the beaded curtains that hung between the kitchen and the living room and started screaming at me.
“Nobody is going to watch your kids. They’re your damn kids! Take them with you!”
Edna and I looked at each other, and then at Grandma.
“Nobody is keeping anybody’s kids,” Edna said. “Go back and lie down.” It must have been the strain of losing her only son. Or perhaps Grandma knew that I had grown too big for her to intimidate me any longer. Whatever the reason, as I opened the door to leave, Grandma pushed past Edna, lunged at me, and with both hands, shoved me out of the apartment. I went flying out of the door, across the outer hallway, and fell into the door of the apartment across the hall. The children were screaming. Edna was trying to hold onto Grandma so that she would not attack me before I could get to my feet. I stood up and gave Grandma a look that would peel the paint off a wall. In a fierce and hushed whisper, I said to her, “You are a sad and sick old woman. I feel sorry for you.” The last I saw of Grandma, she was struggling with Edna and yelling obscenities at me.
“What about Nett?” Balé asked. I took time to swallow the food in my mouth before answering, because I wasn’t sure what to say. Nett was still a very painful topic for me to discuss.
“Nett died about six months after I left New York. Apparently she got sick again and went back into the hospital. No one bothered to call me until she was already dead. When I spoke to Ms. Ethel, her home attendant, she told me that Nett would ask for me every day. Ms. Ethel told Sharon, but Sharon said she did not know how to get in touch with me. That wasn’t true, but I am sure she had her reasons for wanting to keep me away. Anyway, Ms. Ethel said that after about three weeks of being in the hospital, Nett refused to eat. She refused to open her mouth for food. They tried to force-feed her, and when that didn’t work, they fed her intravenously. Her body was weak from being ill for so long. She died in her sleep from starvation. Ms. Ethel told me she knew that Nett would have eaten for me, and she didn’t understand why no one called me.”
I told Balé about the incident with the check. I also told him about my decision to put some distance between Nett and myself. I was afraid that if she had died with our relationship being as close as it was, I would have lost my mind. Talking to Balé reminded me of something I had not thought of until that moment: Nett’s bangles. I had no idea what had happened to the bangles Nett had promised me would be mine once she passed on. The thought made me so sad I had to choke back the tears. Balé must have felt it from across the room.
“You know, her sister probably has most of her things. Have you ever asked her if you could have something special to remember Nett by?”
“No. After I decided not to go clean out Nett’s apartment, her sister kinda stopped talking to me. Damon went with her, and he did get the photo album, but everything else is just gone.”
“Well, you’ve got her in your heart. Even with the difficulties you had at the end, she will always be in your heart, and that’s all that matters.” He was right. Balé was always right.
Over dessert, an apple crumb something, with nuts and raisins, I told Balé that I hated practicing law. I had failed the bar exam twice and didn’t want to take it a third time, but I would have to in order to keep my job. Whenever I said that to people, they told me I was crazy: “You come from a welfare check to a paycheck as a lawyer, and you don’t like it? You are crazy!” Balé didn’t feel that way. He got still and serious. He looked me squarely in the eye and asked a question only a man with his wisdom could ask.
“What were you looking for when you went to law school?”
I wasn’t sure if it was the question or the hot raisin, but I spit the contents of my mouth onto the plate. “What do you mean, looking for?”
“Don’t play with me. You know I already know. The question is, are you ready to tell the truth about it? What were you looking for?” The force of his words made my heart pound and my head feel light.
“I thought I wanted to be a lawyer, to save the world, to do good things for other people.”
He was staring at me. Obviously I had given the wrong answer. The stillness made me nervous. I had to think of something to say. Breathe. Just breathe. I closed my eyes and allowed the words to spill forth truthfully.
“I was looking for a way out. I felt powerless, and I was looking for a way out of pain. A way to feel powerful. I was trying to prove to myself and to other people how smart I was. I thought if I could finish law school and become a lawyer, no one would ever call me stupid again. I was looking for a way to prove to people that I was not stupid.”
The tears running down my face were falling all over the apple crispy thing.
“But you didn’t believe it, did you? You know that’s why you didn’t pass the bar, and that’s why you are so unhappy. Do you want to practice law?”
“No.”
“What do you want to do?”
“I want to make up to my children for all the years I couldn’t give them the things they needed and wanted.”
“What do you want to do?”
“I want to prove to people that I am not a bad mother.”
“What do you want to do? What do you want to do for you?”
“I have no idea. I just don’t know.”
“Good. Now have some more dessert.” Balé got up and left the room. I wiped my face and stared at the apple stuff. I felt sick to my stomach.
The rest of the evening went pretty well. I was shaken by Balé’s words and by my own. How did he do that? What did he do? I wanted so badly to ask him, but I knew my godfather. He would tell me in his own time and in his own way. We talked about his family, what he had been doing, where he had been. His mother and sister were still in Florida. His father had died. His son was still in New York. I told him what I knew a
bout all the girls from the dance club. I did not tell him that I was sneaking around seeing Adeyemi behind his wife’s back. I was too embarrassed.
As I was preparing to leave, Balé gave me a box. It weighed about twenty pounds.
“What’s this?”
“These are books. I want you to tell me the major differences between them.”
“That will probably take me about a year.”
“No. It will take you until Saturday. When you come back next Saturday, I want you to tell me what each book reveals and the major difference between the books.”
The box contained the Holy Bible; The I Ching, or Book of Changes, translated by Baynes and Wilhelm; The I Am Discourses, by Saint Germain; The Autobiography of a Yogi, by Paramahansa Yogananda; Essays, by Ralph Waldo Emerson; Esoteric Astrology, by Alice Bailey; and the Holy Qur’an. Each book looked to contain between three and six hundred pages.
“I can’t read all of this by Saturday! I’ve got cases. I have to be in court.”
“Well, call me when you are finished.”
I loved Balé, but he could be a bit weird and a bit demanding at times. On the way home, I tried to peek into the books while I drove. It was very frustrating. After I got home and had a chance to review each book, I was even more frustrated. Three weeks later, I was only sixty pages into the first book, The Autobiography of a Yogi. I called Balé.
Yesterday, I Cried Page 24
