“Say Mama…”

Even though this is entirely based in my home in Charlotte, this is still an entry in the annals of “Life On The Road…” although this is a road that traveled only by one, at this point.

Let me begin by saying I’ve been reluctant to acknowledge publicly a situation in straight terms under the garish light of reality… but there is a truth that I’ve been operating under indirectly for the better part of five years, and under my roof for the last one. The truth is that, like a candle wick drawing on its last vestiges of wax, my mother’s memory is slowly exhausting itself. It’s something that has been coming on… but I didn’t really notice until October of 2017 when a tornado struck Spartanburg, less than a mile from her house, knocking out her power.

When that happened, I came down from Charlotte with my generator on my truck… and during that four day stay, I noticed that something was amiss. My mother is a very proud person, and as it goes, she had been hiding the fact that her recollection was diminishing for years before that… but she had relied on the love of friends to keep us in the immediate family from knowing.

And that, to be honest, was pretty easy to do. I never stayed with her more than a day or two, so I wouldn’t notice the little things that should have tipped me off. Now, there were hints. I’d often get a call from her saying someone had changed her computer login, and I’d have to ride from Charlotte to the Burg and figure out how to get her back in. It got to the point that it was taking a trip down every two to three days to get her logged on… a necessity because she was still holding down important functions in her church. Even so, I didn’t realize… or didn’t want to realize what was happening. A friend of hers had called me in June of that year, saying that I needed to look after her because she was forgetting things… but it still hadn’t sunk in, until that stay in October.

I’ll choose not to get into details, for I prefer preserving her dignity. Let me just revisit my early comment about a wick to bring us forward from that time.

Mama came to live with me a year ago, and since then she has maintained her joy for life and her amazing sense of humor even as her memory fades. Anyone who faces the agony of Alzheimer’s can tell you that you get used to things not remembered… but yet and still there remains things that are just about sacred between a loved one and yourself that keep you in the present, in the moment.

It snowed this day, and she was adrift in her own thoughts. Late winter, 2021.

While I was a very young child, before the age of five, my mother was teaching in Rutherfordton and then Spartanburg. She left me in Wadesboro, just east of Charlotte, in the care of my grandmother and grandfather. I loved it when she would come home… but I got confused by the roles my grandparents were playing.

One time when she came home to Wadesboro, my aunt Fannie was there visiting from Fayetteville. When Mama arrived, I was happy to see her, but instead of calling her Mama, I called her “Dorothy” because I was calling my grandmother Mama. So, when I did that, my aunt tried to correct me… and it went kind of like this…

“Dorothy!” “Say Mama!” “Daaaaaaathy!” “Say MAMA!” “DAAAAAAAAATHY!”

They got a big kick out of it, and it became a running family joke, and over the years I’d say “DAAAATHY,” Mama would say “Say Mama!” and the giggling would commence. It never failed to get deep, hearty laughs from the both of us.

This morning, I went down to tell Mama that I was ready to fix breakfast, so I poked my head from behind her bedroom door.

“Daaaathy!” She laughed. “Daaaaathy!” She giggled again, louder and longer. “DAAAAAAAAAATHY!!!!,” I said this time in less of a joke but in a dawning sense of realization, almost desperation. “What’s wrong? You okay?” “Yes, Mama, I’m fine.”

These things are to be expected, and they are milestones along a road that does not beckon with a sign of welcome. Some milestones are occasional… and they may return for a quick flash… a moment in time… and live on until they slip behind the journeyman traveler, never to recur. Indeed, this may revisit, and if it does I’ll smile. But this one was a reminder that this journey is not a sweet one, but inevitable. God bless those who find themselves on this voyage, and God bless us all.

Full Circle

The tragic events of this summer remind one of a tree with roots that run deeply into the soul of the American consciousness… but bring no nourishment, but indeed offer the truffles of modern-day strange fruit.  The senseless tragedy of nine brave souls, struck down in the very essence of living, makes no sense to man.

And yet… there is a reason why.

God showed up at Mother Emanuel on that hot day in June when Dylann Roof did his worst.
He did not reside in the molten rain of hot jacketed lead as it mowed down the hale and hearty like cows under a tree struck by lightning. He wasn’t found in pools of crimson essence on the basement floor. And he wasn’t found in the wails of the living, and the collective gasps as South Carolina and the nation reeled in horror.

God instead, planted himself in a movement. A movement that started with the belief that this horrible massacre needed to result in a sense of purpose. He spirited himself into the acts and action of a governor who never spoke before on matters of diversity and division. He breathed fire into the heart of a Charleston politician, Jenny Horne, who blew warm with her impassioned of her fellow legislators, also not of color, to do the honorable thing. And He resounded in the song of Paul Thurmond. A son of the vintage South, his father Strom may have been hard pressed to believe what came from his lips. Young Thurmond implored the removal of a symbol that, at once personified a system that let one man own another, and glorified the unmitigated hate of groups and factions that believe neither in content nor character.

The day they drove old Dixie down on the State House steps dawned bright and sunny as I made my way from Charlotte to Columbia.

The crowd there was small at first, but grew to the thousands as they waited, some in patience, some in song of protest, and some in resigned reverence to the setting of a sullied symbol. They looked on as an emissary dressed in white ordered that the Confederate battle flag be removed.

State troopers, in their formal finery, marched to the flagpole, retrieved the flag and removed it forever. Shouts, songs and applause followed from some… while others stood witness of the furling of the flag in silent, palpable pain. Yet, God’s hand was there on those courtyard steps.

Agreeable men and women agreed to disagree on this day, with resolve but no resistance…

as both sides retreated, this battle over.

This left the dead at a place of power in remembrance… and that takes us back to Mother Emanuel.
On a Sunday evening, a couple of months removed from the massacre, I found myself on her steps as the sun dove toward the darkness in Charleston.
As I walked up to the church, I was rendered speechless in the awesome power of tribute.

Flowers, flags, fruit, mobiles of birds in nearby trees, and most poignantly a small Teddy bear on the ground by the fence of the weathered old church spoke to the wishes of the visiting crowds to share their grief and honor the dead. Those visitors that did speak, spoke in hushed, reverent tones much as onlookers at the Tomb of the Unknowns do at Arlington National Cemetery. The solemnity of the visitors spoke much… and yet there was more.
I have never, NEVER felt more of a presence of God’s covering hand of peace over a place in my life. The calmness that emanated from those artifacts spoke to the Creator working through those that sacrificed their being to live on through deeds, words and symbols… removed, and reverently aging on a graying evening in twilight Charleston.

And in this circle of pain around this holy place, the beacon of God’s grace continues to beckon men and women to a better way… a way that came full circle on Statehouse steps as the remnant of a peculiar institution was looked, and locked away to its rightful location. For God has shown up at Mother Emanuel, pulled up nine chairs and vowed to stay awhile.

Full Circle

Patricia and I, summer of ‘94.

I have long been an admirer of the late Paul Harvey. Not of his politics, mind you. It was his writing style that I found a certain similar spirit, and it’s something that I try to embody in my own efforts. Harvey had a way of introducing his listener to a premise or theme, cutting to “meanwhile, back at the ranch,” then bringing it back home with “the rest of the story.”

If I had started this tale, I’d digress… but I haven’t, so I guess I’ll begin with May 6th, 2022. There was a concert in town that night that featured Kem and Babyface, two hot R&B artists. Kem was the headliner of what he had named his “Full Circle Tour.” And as I sat in the audience, listening, clapping along, singing along in an overeager yet unfulfilled baritone, I thought to myself, “how appropriate.”

In 1994, things were in a time of confusion. I had challenges in my work life, was trying to find my personal voice and love was nowhere to be found. In the midst of all that, I decided to lift my spirits by visiting The Comedy Zone here in Charlotte.

I was seated at a table close to a young lady who was alone. The first thing I noticed was her nose. I’ve always had, oddly enough, a thing for noses, and hers was one of the prettiest I’ve ever seen. Being a little on the shy side, it took me a little while to get past the mumblingfumblingstumbling stage and open my mouth to speak, but when I did, I was blessed with a smile that lit up the room. I soon found out that her name was Patricia, she lived in a town close by, and that she was the sister of someone I already knew. Hoping against hope, I asked her for her number and she shared it with me.

Over the next few weeks, we started dating, spending time and things blossomed into a romance. She had two wonderful children, Welton and Sarah, whom I grew to think the world of. I rode them through the neighborhood on my motorcycle, their mother cringing in fear all the while, and we took trips with me as a newly licensed private pilot. She even stayed with my mother and sister when I took her to a family reunion with me in Baltimore, where we took the cover photo. Things were great… but I was not.

Pat, Welton, Sarah, and that “regimented, opinionated and too stupid” guy

She was an elementary school teacher, who worked long hours on the weekend to support her family. I was opinionated, regimented and too stupid to realize the glorious gift that God had bestowed on me.

So I did what most opinionated, regimented and too stupid young men do. I let the best thing that ever happened to me drift away. I’ll come back to that later.

Over the years, I’d see her in social settings, or at her school, and we were always cordial. Meanwhile, I noticed one thing. It would have been easy for her to disparage me to her kids, but she didn’t. They always greeted me with respect, if not downright love.

Time moved on. I married another, she became involved in a long term romance herself, and we grew further apart.

In the spring of 2012, I noticed she was on Facebook and I reached out to friend her. She accepted and we started noticing each other. By this time I was divorced, and had reached out to her some months without telling her so, and was promptly rebuffed. However, we continued to notice each other on good ol’ FB, and time passed on.

Fast forward to May of 2017, and my JCSU class reunion. I’m there in the middle of the dance floor and I hear my name. It was Pat, making her way to me in a walking cast. She came to me and hugged me. Looking around to see her boyfriend headed toward the restrooms, I did what every regimented, opinionated and too stupid guy in life would do. I said “letting you go was the worst mistake I’ve made in my life.”

She said “my life is good, I’m doing well…” and I said, “I just wanted you to know.” By now, Michael Jackson had been singing “I Want You Back” in my ear for many years, quietly but louder as time progressed.

Later that year her sister died, and I debated going to her funeral about 60 miles or so out of town in Chesterfield. Thought about it. Studied about it. Prayed about it. Knew I shouldn’t, for I knew her friend would be there.

I went anyway, saw her and paid my respects. On the way home Michael and the boys were in the vamp… (it’s a musical term at the end of a song meaning repeat with intensity)

Meanwhile, life moved on. My personal relationship, that started a few years earlier, had its ups and downs in the summer and fall of ‘21… while Pat’s boyfriend developed a debilitating disease and passed away a year earlier.

Then my mother died in November. She reached out to me, and paid a visit a couple of days afterwards. We had a couple of phone conversations afterwards, and then I wrecked my motorcycle six days after her transition.

For the sake of people that don’t need to be included here, I’ll advance this story to January. By then, after six days in the hospital, seven broken bones and no longer in a relationship, Pat and I had begun to have conversations… but, because at no time in our earlier meetings had I let her know I was no longer married, she looked at me as a brother figure, and she let me know. On the mend at that point, and with no possibility with Pat in sight, I decided to try Facebook Dating.

The FIRST woman that popped up… was Pat.

So, we had a long, interesting text conversation in which she reiterated wanting me to be a brother to her. Well, when MJ has thrown down the mike, jumped on your shoulder and started screaming in your ear, you find yourself doing what most regimented, opinionated and too stupid men do.

I told her “I want to be your man, or nothing” and “what you’re looking for could be right here under your face.” I got a most unexpected response in return.

“Bye.”

Three days later, Pat called. It seemed she was taking part in a church fast and needed a strong back and weak mind to participate. I said “what do we not eat” and she said “what you fast is your choice.”

After I hung up, I said to myself, “okay… I know what I’m going to give up. I’m going to give up you, and if you come back it’ll be because God sent you.”

It was past the ides of January before the phone rang. It was Pat, checking on me. I had a hard time understanding why someone who told me bye was reaching out, but I went with it.

Two days later, she reached out again. Then, a day later she called again, and said “you can call me if you like.” Thank you God.

We started dating, then on February 11th I received the strangest request I’ve heard in life. “Do you want to ask me to be your lady?” I said “of course” and we became an item.

I asked her to marry me on March 20th, and she accepted.

“I love it when a plan comes together…”

The brevity in which I described the last few months rivals the whirlwind courtship, but when I say that I was right when I said I’d made the worst mistake in life… it’s true… and I plan to spend the rest of my life making it up.

Thank you, God, for bringing us full circle.

And now, you know… the REST of the story.

For now.

“Good… day!”

An Amazingly Beautiful Legacy OR “We’re Making A Break For It!”

My mother, Dorothy Byrd, has joined the ancestors. There’s a lot I could say here about her. Things like how she inspired dozens, if not hundreds, of young women to rise above their surroundings during more than 60 years as a Girl Scout leader… or things like how she taught adults how to read in night school… or how she was a tireless worker and advocate for her church, Mount Moriah Baptist in Spartanburg. But I won’t start there. I’ll start by picking up from my last blog entry and moving forward from there.

In 2019, even as memory faded, she remained a strong advocate for elementary education. Photo by Gerald Jackson.

The muddy waters of memory continued to get more occluded as the summer wore on. She fought against the darkening of the light with the same dogged determination that she has shown throughout all of her life. There was something else I started to notice at the same time. I had enrolled her in what I euphemistically called “The Center,” an adult daycare facility. She said she liked it, but it took longer and longer to get her ready to go in the mornings. Then, one day in July, while I was attempting to get her dressed, she passed out. I called EMS and they took her to the hospital. At first they diagnosed her with an urinary tract infection, but followed that diagnosis with one of Afib… a condition where the heart beats out of sync and can cause blood clots leading to stroke. She spent 3 days in the emergency room, being treated for this because there were, because of COVID, no beds available. She had one day in a regular room before being released.

Coming home from this, she spent time with physical therapists and occupational therapists that became more and more necessary because she was lacking the energy to even stand up while getting dressed… let alone go somewhere.

She went back to the hospital in September, shortly after her 89th birthday. She was in the hospital for four days then, and then she was off for three weeks of rehab at what has to be at that time the worst facility for rehab in Mecklenburg County, Autumn Care of Cornelius. Despite the obvious professionalism of many on staff, there was one person in particular that I documented in a letter to the facility to be, in an understatement, horrible.

Both she and I were happy for her to leave there and return home… so much so that the picture above hints at, but doesn’t cover, her elation… and why this blog entry has two titles. She was home for a week before her condition worsened, she left home for the last time in an ambulance and spent two weeks in the ICU before being called home.

I’ve purposefully left out a lot. I started this blog entry on November 5th, one day after her passing. When it was started, my efforts were full of pain, but on Mother’s Day morning as I’m finishing it, what I’m feeling is a sense of gratitude. Thank God for her life and the indeed amazing legacy she left behind. Thank God for the lives she touched. And thank you Heavenly Father for blessing me with the fruits of her life well lived.

Happy Mother’s Day, Mama. Your son’s doing great… and in the words of “Conan the Barbarian’s” storyteller, “but THAT… is another story…”