by Ida Keeling
From her vantage point as mother of a grown man who was the living Son of God, Mary understood that there would come a day and hour when her faith would be tested. For she understood that the world in which she lived could not, and would not, tolerate a message from anyone, especially a lowly Nazarene carpenter’s boy, that the laws of Israel had passed their usefulness, and the new laws were literally wrapped up in him.
Such was the love of Mary for her Son that she could pray and hope for him as he entered into his greatest time of trial. Such was the devotion of Mary to the Christ whom she’d borne that she shadowed his journey on the way to Calvary’s bloodstained hill.
Standing there that day, casting her distraught gaze onto the beaten and battered body of her Son, Mary’s heart must have broken a million, million times, as she recalled the good times when she’d sung him to sleep. The dams holding her tears proved inadequate to the task as she recalled his little boy hugs of adoration. The strength in her legs must’ve fled upon the realization that murderous elements had conspired to take away her precious son, and there was nothing she could do about it.
She’d be left alone without her Jesus. She’d be a woman without her beloved special son, but the bond showed itself forever durable, for Jesus had one more act to perform to assure the healing of his mother’s heart. Looking down from the cross with his life fast ebbing, he looked at Mary, then the disciple named John, and said, “Woman, here is your son,” and to John, “Here is your mother.”
Scripture states with declarative certainty that “from that time on, this disciple [John] took her into his own home.” Mary had cared for him for so long in so many ways. Now that he was leaving her, he suspended the flight of his life to ensure having enough time and energy to guarantee that his beloved mother would not be left alone and destitute.
Then, the Lord Jesus died.
The next phase of the fabulous story of history’s most famous mother and son connection involved the resurrection of Jesus who, with his return to be forever among the living, declared himself King of Kings and Lord of Lords. The salvation that Jesus’ death offered to all of humanity had a special stamp of invitation upon it for Mary, the mother whose love, lessons, and life had been the source of his existence up till the day he’d been moved by the Holy Spirit to fulfill his role as the Son of God.
The mystery of the love that bound Jesus to Mary while she’d carried him in her womb was just as strong as the day she watched him being assassinated upon the cross. That mysterious love simultaneously pulled forth tears of heartbreak while fortifying her with the knowledge that the great crime perpetrated against the Christ was something that had been foretold and now required being endured. And lastly, the mystery of the love between Mary and the Christ which saw her draw strength from him as he drew strength from her in the closing moments of his life, has throughout history served as the finest example of the mysterious love binding mothers to sons and sons to mothers, in the great trials, triumphs, and winding journeys of the great adventure called life.
I don’t know when or how my sons, Donald and Charles, got involved in the world of illegal drugs, but I do know that I warned them to stay away from street life early and often.
Donald, the eldest boy that Rip and I brought into this world, was born on May 15, 1937. Donald had a confusing childhood because Rip’s mother was obsessed with him and determined to turn him against me so that she could convince him to move in with her and Danny, her husband. I’m sure the problem started when she declared him her prince the first time she laid eyes on him as a newborn with his full head of curly, black hair. He went from a cute baby to a truly good-looking boy, who at first looked just like his father.
Since he was my first child, our bond during his childhood could have been stronger. I loved him and I’m sure that he loved me too, but Rip’s mother and father were his babysitters and they talked bad about me to Donald every chance they got. Worse, his paternal grandmother constantly told him that I didn’t love him at all and didn’t want him around. Since regular, reliable childcare was always a challenge and they didn’t charge me any money, I left him with them far more than I would have liked.
Two years after his birth, my second son, Charles, was born which probably created more distance between me and Donald. As a result of all this, he and I sometimes had a difficult relationship. When he was a tiny boy, I could sometimes feel his dislike. I could also tell that he was being told hurtful things to say to me. He was only three years old when he looked me square in the face and said, “I can’t wait until you’re dead so that I can go live with my grandmother.” What small child can put together an idea and a sentence like that? Rip’s mother had to have told him to say that. When he was nine years old, he said something along those same lines. Since he wasn’t a baby anymore, I gave him his wish. I packed a suitcase and took him bag and baggage to Rip’s mother. I hoped that he would see that being a visitor in someone’s home and actually living there were two entirely different things. Unfortunately, it didn’t work out that way. I went and got him after a few weeks, but thereafter, he was always back and forth between us. It was like Rip’s mother and I had joint custody or something.
When Donald became a teenager, he once again made it clear that he preferred to stay with her and not with me. This time he did not come back home.
Donald did not move into the St. Nicholas Houses with me. My poor oldest son had been so messed up. All of his life, his grandmother was telling him one thing, his father was telling him another thing, and I chimed in with a third. Rip’s mother was a horrible woman to disrupt Donald’s life like that. They loved it that Donald looked like Rip when he was a little boy, while Charles looked like me. Once, I said to Rip’s mother, “Eventually both of the boys are going to look like me. Then what you gonna do?”
His attitude cut me to the quick and I wondered if Rip’s mother really understood that turning a child against his mother does not do anything good for that child’s spirit. She hurt me but she hurt the person she supposedly loved so much a whole lot more.
A bunch of people cannot raise one child unless they’re all using the same methods. I kept saying, “I’m his mother. His best interests come from me and not from you telling him, ‘You don’t have to do this,’ and, ‘Your mother don’t like you’—all these kind of lies.”
The Richardsons deliberately interfered with the relationship between me and my son with disastrous results.
Sometimes she would imply spitefully that I was only so concerned about Donald because he looked like Rip and I still loved the man. Nothing could have been further from the truth. I told her that my boys have the same mother and the same father. I don’t care who they look like. They didn’t like my younger son because he looked like me, not his father. It didn’t matter. In later years, both of my sons stayed more with their grandmother than they stayed with me. She won the battle and my sons paid the emotional price.
When Donald was in the third grade he went to school with sixty-five cents in his pocket and was targeted by people with drugs. Sixty-five cents is not a lot of money now, but you could buy quite a few things with that sum in 1945 when Donald was eight years old. Rip’s parents were always giving him money even though I asked them to stop because a kid with money tends to attract the wrong people. His grandparents would do a lot of things for him, much more than they should have. They loved him and they spoiled him. I guess to them it was like having Little Boy Rip back again. Sometimes when I had to work two jobs, they would take care of Donald for days on end. They would only grudgingly keep Charles as well. I didn’t see how this behavior was good for either of the boys, but there was nothing I could do about it because I needed to earn every penny that came my way.
When he was little, Rip’s mother would say things to Donald like, “Yo mudda no good. She like Charles better.”
I have to say that Donald never completely learned to hate me or totally turn his back on me. As a teenager, he always came around to
spend time with me and the girls.
Donald went into the Navy in the mid-1950s. By then, he was a well-built man, tall at five-foot-ten with a deep chocolate complexion. I am told that the women loved him. Cheryl certainly did. Her eldest brother was her hero. Sometimes he would come home on leave without warning and Cheryl would be ecstatic. He did a three-year term in the Navy. When he got out, he was addicted to heroin.
My Donald was an artist. He could draw anything or anyone. Sometimes he drew pictures in charcoal, other times he created black and white sketches. He could not find an outlet for that talent or for his athletic ability. One of his demons was probably his inability to find a mode of expression. In any case, he married a woman named June when he was in his late twenties. They had one child which he named Darryl, which was Rip’s real name. I could not understand why Donald would name the child after his father after all that Rip had put me through. It hurt my feelings but I kept my mouth shut. I didn’t want to cause a rift in the delicate relationship that we had. In any case, the marriage between Donald and June lasted four years.
After the breakup, he started using heroin more heavily. I tried to talk to him about going to get some kind of help to rid his body of the craving for the dangerous drug. He would always promise to do it but I guess he never followed through. One day he called, and when my girls told him that I was not home, he came to the door with some guy. He told Laura and Cheryl that I had sold our television set to the guy and that they had come to pick it up. Donald and his friend took the TV out of my apartment. Of course, he sold it to buy drugs. I finally got him on the phone and told him, “You cannot ever come back in the house.” He was banned from the house for four years and then I started letting him come around again. Since he was still using drugs, I used to hide my purse whenever he came. On one occasion, he stole Laura’s typewriter. I found it in the local pawn shop and bought it back. That was the last of Donald. He was totally banned.
I knew little to nothing of Donald’s street life—what he did or who he lived with—until he got himself killed. Here is what happened as best my family and I can figure out.
He had a reputation in the street as a mean guy, a man that you did not cross if you had any sense at all. According to my eldest daughter, “Don’t mess with Donald” was a warning to anyone who was just getting to know him. I don’t know what he did to get such a fearsome reputation and I never want to know.
Anyhow, the story goes that he met this woman named Hilda who was a drug dealer in Queens over by Liberty Avenue. She had five children and together they had a sixth, a little girl. There was a number runner in Queens who wanted to get into the drug business. He sent his son to Hilda to say that if she didn’t give her drug business to his father, his father would kill her and her children. This conversation took place in a bar where Donald was present. Since the number runner and his son had to know Donald’s reputation and that he was Hilda’s boyfriend, I can only assume that they wanted to goad Donald into doing something stupid so they could eliminate him. Anyway, Donald tapped the son on the shoulder and told him that he and his father were going to end up in motorized wheelchairs. Then he chased the guy out of the bar and shot him in the spine. The guy was in a motorized wheelchair after that and folks whispered that his father must have put a contract on Donald.
He called Cheryl and told her, “I’m just calling to let you guys know that I have something to do. These young punks want to test you. When you have a reputation, you only can ride so long on it. Twenty years is a long time. I have to do something and I may have to retire.”
Cheryl asked, “Donald are you telling me that you are about to die?”
He said, “Just tell mother I love her.”
“Tell Mother I love her.” That part of this whole thing never fails to bring me to my knees in sorrow and gratitude. What it says to me is that despite everything that the Richardsons did to try and make my eldest child detest me, I was the one he thought about when he saw death coming. I was the only person that it appeared he left a message for. Oh! What I wouldn’t give to let him know just what a heavy load that one sentence lifted from my heart. I wish that Donald had said that to me directly. It would have meant the world to me, and maybe with the air all cleaned up between us, we could have actually given each other a great big hug.
Was Donald afraid to tell me that he loved me? If so, what was he afraid of? Rejection from me would have meant that his grandparents were right all along. Maybe he was afraid of that.
I will never know.
The police arrested Hilda for something and she was not able to deal with being in jail. She was claustrophobic, had six kids, and wanted to get out in the worst way. While she was trying to find a way out of her troubles, Donald was found hanging in the basement of her house with no shoes on. It happened in July of 1978. His hands were tied behind his back and someone had given him a shot of heroin. A suicide note was found. In the note, he spelled his last name Richardsen which was the wrong spelling and could have been a signal that the note was written under duress.
An anonymous tip to the police led them to Donald’s body.
Who made that call to the police and why? Whoever did it had to either have seen him die or heard about the murder from someone who saw him die. These were the thoughts that swirled around and around in my head. It almost drove me crazy. Donald had only one child with Hilda, and when he died, that little girl was not even two years old. Hilda kept in touch with me until the child was about five or six and then she moved away. I don’t know what became of my granddaughter.
Two years passed and eight months passed and I was still not over the grief and pain caused by Donald’s violent death and the fact that no one had ever been arrested for it. Then, the unthinkable happened.
Charles, my only remaining son, died violently as well.
Charles Richardson was born on May 6, 1939, the youngest boy born to me and Rip. He was a gentle boy who adored me so much that he called me Mother Dear instead of Mommy. He had a great sense of humor, and because of that, it was hard for me to get mad at him even when he was doing wrong. He was just so funny and loving that I always ended up laughing along with him. He was my baby boy and he never said cruel things to me like Donald did. I think that Charles was the gentler of the two because he had not been taught to dislike me as Donald had been.
He did okay in school until he became a teenager and the girls started chasing him. One girl named Betty was relentless. She was a pretty girl with clear skin, even features, pretty hair, and a shapely figure. He actually liked Betty a lot and she was always up in his face. She chased Charles so hard that he eventually became her boyfriend.
Like most teenage boys, Charles liked to dance, chase the girls, and have a good time. The only thing is that he started playing hooky to do these things and that just could not turn out well.
One day, Cheryl had stayed home from school because she was sick with the mumps. I was at work. Charles stopped by with ten or more teenagers. They put records on and danced. Cheryl watched as they started grinding, dancing very close together in a way that could easily become sexually suggestive. Nobody drank or smoked or used drugs. In fact, Charles and Betty were so wholesome, I used to call them “soda pop kids.”
Anyway, when I got home, Cheryl told me all about it. “Mommy, Charles came today with a lot of friends.
I replied, “Oh, really? What did they do?”
“The girls were on the wall.”
“Show me where.”
There on the wall were stains from the grease on the girls’ heads. Right above the grease marks were handprints. That meant that the boys had been leaning against the wall while pressing up close on the girls. That was one time where I was really angry and disappointed with Charles. He promised to never do that again, and, as far as I know he never did.
I was upset a while later when he decided that he’d had enough of school. I wouldn’t sign him out, so he went to his father. Rip signed the papers and Char
les was free from school at the age of sixteen. When I learned about this, I was very upset for two reasons. First of all, I did not know that Charles even had any relationship with Rip. It was the first time I had to actually sit back and think about it. Of course he and Donald both probably had a relationship with their father. After all, they had spent most of their time with their father’s mother. Why was I so surprised? I guess it was because neither of them ever mentioned it.
The second reason I was upset was because Rip should have done everything he could to force Charles to stay in school. There were no decent jobs out there for kids without a high school diploma. No one knew that better than Rip and me. Instead of doing the hard work of helping Charles change his mind, Rip had taken the easy way out. Again. It made me sick.
Charles started seeing Betty again and she gave birth to three of his children, though they never married. He married a woman named Lucretia and they also had a son. Then he went into the service. When Charles was in the Army on the second tour, he was in Okinawa which was a shipping point for Vietnam. He refused to go and went AWOL. He spent a lot of time overseas, ducking the military police which strained his marriage to Lucretia. The military police caught up with him and he was sent to a place called Watertown. While he was at Watertown, a dance troupe came through and he fell in love with a dancer called Mikki. Charles really loved her. When he was released from Watertown, they stayed together for seven or eight years.
These days I watch psychologists on TV talk about how important it is for boys to have their father in their lives to teach them how to be men. I don’t know how living under the same roof with Rip, a lying adulterer with a gambling problem who never fought to keep in touch with them, could have saved my boys, but the thought has crossed my mind. I truly don’t know what happened to Charles after that. I mean, how he got caught up in anything to do with drugs. Some have told me that he started hanging out with Donald and started going downhill from there. I just don’t know.