She Makes Me Feel Loved

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Today was very difficult for me. I recently lost someone I cared for very deeply and I'm allowing myself to feel the pain. I'm usually pretty closed off to emotion and I've been uninterested in opening up to anyone for a long time. But, for this person I opened. And now, I am feeling what people feel when you lose a real connection. Perhaps that's why I need to reconnect with the one woman in my life who has ever really made me feel as if I am loved. My grandmother does that for me.

Love Thy Neighbor

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I'll introduce a cast of characters who play very interesting roles in my grandmother's life, but for now I want to talk about a woman who was her next door neighbor for a very long time: Ms. BD. I've shortened her name, not to protect her but because I really can't figure out what her name is. As we were growing up, she was called one thing, but as I started typing this, I realized that wasn't her name and that southern Black folks really chopped people's names to pieces. For example: I have an aunt named Shirley Ann. Everyone in the family pronounces her name in such a way to where it sounds like ShellAnne. I have an aunt named Vanessa. Everyone in the family calls her Net. No idea where that comes from. My mother's name is Josephine, but everyone called her Jo'phine. So, my point: I really don't know what my grandmother's neighbor's name is so she shall be called BD because I know for a fact there was a B and a D in her name.



So, Ms. BD was an alcoholic who didn't think she was an alcoholic. She was also a nurse's assistant who thought was a nurse. She was also someone who thought she was above all the other people who ran a tab in my grandmother's kitchen. She rarely visited my grandmother's when there was a large crowd. I had many opportunities to sit and listen to Gramps and Ms. BD talk.



Ms. BD would talk while drinking vodka and orange juice; Gramps would listen and drink iced tea. She loved iced tea. Most of the time, the two women discussed the obituaries or the latest hospital admittance (since Ms. BD worked at the hospital and Gramps knew almost everyone in town). The more Ms. BD drank, the louder she became. Gramps had boundaries people just couldn't cross. Once a customer started swearing through their alcohol-induced stupor, it was time to go. Ms. BD always insisted she wasn't drunk and she never took too kindly to being kicked out. She would leave the house calling Gramps all sorts of names. My Gramps was always the perfect picture of patience.

The Man is Coming

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It never really registered that my Gramps was a criminal until one day I heard all the grownups whispering about the man. "The man's coming," they kept saying. It was an unusually quiet day in Gramps' kitchen and my aunt kept turning people away at the door. The only people at the kitchen table that afternoon were children playing a mock game of grownup spades. A few other aunts were placing full bottles of alcohol in the trunks of the cars and deciding amongst themselves who would take what where. I listened, with my head down, because it wasn't good manners for children to be in grown folks' business.



A few days later, as I walked home from school, I saw several police cars leaving my grandmother's house with my grandmother in the back seat of the last car that pulled away. I entered the kitchen as I usually did, but I knew better than to ask any questions. I could always play question-and-answer catch up with the other kids in the family (and listen to the grownups "whisper").



"They didn't find anything, so that's good." one aunt said.
"They're all crooked anyway," another aunt said.

And she was right. I learned much later that the country sheriff had his own bootlegging gig going, but that's another story.



Gramps returned home that evening and the man returned once every couple of years. Gramps would receive a phone call from someone who had inside knowledge that she would receive a visit from the man and I would watch the same ridiculous routine go down.

My Introduction to Psalm 70

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A few days after gramps walked me to the hospital, she annouced I would live with her for a little while until my mother could clear her head. Mama checked herself into a mental hospital long enough to figure out how to manipulate the system -- something I learned quite painfully later on.



My 2 sisters, brother, and myself all moved in with gramps for about 8 weeks. She had a very large old home she shared with no one so there was plenty room. At the end of those 8 weeks, we all returned home and things returned to what they were before, except they were much worse for me. By the time I was 8 years old, I could: cook basic meals (remember, microwaves were pretty non-existant back then), wash and braid my sisters' hair on a regular basis, wash/hang to dry/fold clothes, clean bathrooms throughly (scrubbing toilets included), sweep and mop floors, and answer to bells, whistles, knocks on walls, or "hey you!" on cue. Mama liked showing that off to her friends when they came to visit. She hated my guts.



Mama liked torturing me more than she liked beating me. She would often call the school and pretend there was an emergency that she needed to speak to me about. Once I got to the office and picked up the phone, she would say things like, "You left dirty dishes in the sink this morning. When you get home, I'm kicking your fucking ass." Of course, it was usually 1 cup that a sibling used after I walked out the door. But that didn't matter. She enjoyed torturing me. It was 8:30 am and I had to sit through the entire day worrying about the beating I would receive at the end of the day. So many times I wanted to just leave school and get it over with, then return to school and get on with my day.



Gramps introduced me to Psalm 70 to help me get through the torture:

1 Make haste, O God, to deliver me;

Make haste to help me, O Jehovah.

2 Let them be put to shame and confounded

That seek after my soul:

Let them be turned backward and brought to dishonor

That delight in my hurt.

3 Let them be turned back by reason of their shame

That say, Aha, aha.

4 Let all those that seek thee rejoice and be glad in thee;

And let such as love thy salvation say continually,

Let God be magnified.

5 But I am poor and needy;

Make haste unto me, O God:

Thou art my help and my deliverer;

O Jehovah, make no tarrying.

Rarely did I refer to this Psalm, but I did pray -- in my own way -- often. I have continued to do so, even though I rarely attend church and I don't really consider myself a religious person. Gramps always emphasized the power of prayer. I have great comfort in knowing she prays for me often.

She Carried Me 7 Miles

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It was cold that night. I remember hearing her heart racing. It felt warm being pressed against her chest.



"Lord, why'd this chil' do this to this baby?" she repeated over and over.



She kept walking. Her breathing was heavy.



I tasted blood.

When I was 24 years old I started having this dream once every other night or so. At first, I had this dream only while I slept. And then, the dream started coming to me in the form of flashbacks. The woman was my grandmother.



In speaking with my grandmother about the dream, she said, "I'm surprised you remember that, you couldn't have been anymore than about 5 years old when that happened. Your mama just beat you somethin' bad."



The neighbors heard my screams and thought they were worse than usual. The routine was to call my gramps for help because police didn't care about the black kids who lived behind the train track. We lived in the houses that still had the tin roofs and the outhouses. This was 1977 in southern GA. We were so close to the train track that when the train passed by the house shook. Police, fire trucks, and paramedics did not drive in our area to tend to black children who were beaten by their mothers.



My gramps carried me to the hospital. It was 7 miles from my home. They bandaged my broken arm and sent me on my way.



On the way home, my gramps, I heard my gramps say for the first time, "Don't you worry baby, God will take care of everything." I would hear my gramps say that so many times before I left home in 1991. It wouldn't be the last time she would carry me through a crisis.