The Story of Me

This is my story. My purpose in telling it is to convey the circumstances of my heritage and birth; and to gain an understanding of my family dynamics and show that no matter where you come from you can still find God in you life.

I was born in 1958 the second child and first born daughter of a 15-year-old mother. My own mother her brother and sister, had been left in Memphis Tennessee to live with relatives. My maternal grandmother and grandfather had divorced long before I was born.

My grandmother, whom everyone called Madea, had moved to Detroit without her children to continue a wild and rebellious lifestyle. Lou, enjoyed the many pleasures the carnal world had to offer. Lou was a tiny light-skinned Negro, with a beautiful smile, big eyes and a zest for life. She could out drink and out curse the average man. My beautiful grandmother went through men like most women go through pantyhose. When she got tired of them or wore them out, she simply discarded them and moved on to the next one. On more than one occasion, she would leave broken men and broken lives in her wake.

My mother, Barbara, looked a lot like her mother. She too was light skinned, tiny, with a big beautiful smile. I believe my mother had become promiscuous at such a young age because she was looking for something that she felt was missing in her life; The love and affection of her own parents.

What a burden that must have been for my mother; knowing that both of her parents were alive and feeling that they didn’t want her. Maybe she felt that if her own parents didn’t love her enough to want her, how could God?

Aah, but here are these young men in her life telling her how cute she was, how desirable she was, and how much they wanted her. You see, back in the forties and fifties especially in the south, light skinned Negro women were thought to be more attractive than their dark skinned counterparts.

My mother, a young girl of 13 started being a mother long before her time because she was looking to fill an empty void in her life. I never had an opportunity to talk to my mother about this. Maybe she felt that these men she slept with could replace the love she felt she wasn’t getting from her parents. Maybe she felt that only her children could give her the kind of love she had been missing. Or maybe she just didn’t feel she was worthy of God’s love. Only she can answer that question.

I didn’t meet my birth father until I was 29 years old and had returned to Memphis for the funeral of my beloved Auntie. My grandmother chose this opportunity to introduce us. I asked him why hadn’t he tried to meet me before now? His response was that he was never allowed to contact me when I was a child.

My father stated that it was my mother who never wanted him or his family to have anything to do with me. There I was, standing before this man, the man of whom I am a biological part of, and he is telling me that it’s my mothers fault that he never got to know me. Even though as a child, I along with my other siblings was sent to Memphis each summer to stay. Even though I was now a grown woman, with a family of my own and family still living down the street from him, He was never allowed to contact me.

I was not angry with my biological father just uncaring. How could I care for someone who was a virtual stranger to me? I didn’t feel hatred, anger, sadness, or disappointment. How could I? You only have feelings for those people in your life that you care about. I don’t know anything about my father or if I had any other siblings. I didn’t have a chance to have the grandparents, aunts or uncles that being a part of his family would have provided.

What I do know is that it was he that missed out on being in my life and the lives of my children. He has missed out on seeing my two beautiful sons grow up. He has missed out on the love that only a father and his daughter can share. He has missed out on my joys and accomplishments. But most of all, he has missed out on me.

Psalm 146:9
The LORD protects the strangers; He supports the fatherless and the widow, But He thwarts the way of the wicked.

One thing that I have now come to realize is that my relationship with my birth father was the first of many failed relationships that I would have with the men in my life. My father was the first man in my life who would leave me.