by Gwen Carr
Bernard had been working steadily to bring in some money, which at times was very tough. Plus he had the added responsibility of his other three children, but we were making it work as a family. He suffered from high blood pressure, and all of a sudden, out of the blue, he had a stroke in 1975. He totally lost the ability to talk and was confined to a hospital bed at home. A therapist visited regularly to help restore his speech. As in all times of trouble, family came to our aid and offered any help they could. My parents were even more helpful than usual, taking baby Ellisha and the boys as much as I needed so that I could nurse my husband back to health. I was sure that if we were patient and followed the doctor’s advice carefully, my husband would be back home in no time. The children really missed their daddy.
For a time, things did seem to improve. Bernard was making strides in his speech and gaining some of his strength back, but it just wasn’t God’s plan. He lost his grip on life and slipped away from us in 1976. I was left with Eric at five years old, Emery at almost four, and Ellisha at just four months. Bernard Garner was thirty-three years old when he died.
The funeral took place on a Friday, February 13, and the next day, Valentine’s, I took to my bed. I just couldn’t handle the blanket of sadness. One day, my mother was watching Ellisha while Eric and Emery stayed with me. After my father finished work, he came over to talk to the kids and make sure everything was all right. When the door opened, Eric said, “Hi, Grandpa. Mommy didn’t feed us today.” When I overheard that, I realized that he was right: I hadn’t fed my own children. I was afraid my father would be upset, but he wasn’t. He said, “Oh, you didn’t eat anything?” Eric said, “Well, I made cereal for me and Emery and we had juice, but Mommy didn’t get up and cook our bacon and eggs like usual.”
I just lay there listening in on their conversation, still in disbelief that I had been so consumed by grief that I wasn’t caring for the children properly. My father went into my refrigerator and took out a chicken, cut it up, fried it, and fixed their dinner. “I’m fixing y’all dinner and putting some in the refrigerator so tomorrow y’all will have some too,” I heard him say.
It was at that moment when I realized that I needed to get up out of bed and move on with my life—our lives. I couldn’t have lapses like that with small children to raise. I was going into a depression and hadn’t realized what was happening until Eric’s pronouncement snapped me out of it. My father understood how distraught I was, so without saying much about it he would drop by every day at about the same time to check up on us. He was very calm and supportive, but he was also letting me know that someone needed to be there for the kids. I got the message loud and clear. I needed to be strong for them, and I really appreciated him for making sure I understood that.
Then I started to hear rumors about my husband, and it was disturbing. People in the streets were talking about how he had a drug problem and that’s what eventually caused his heart problems. I was shocked because I had no idea that evil had taken hold of my family. I suppose I was so consumed with raising small children that it never occurred to me that Bernard was under the influence. It was shocking to hear, and I realized that I would probably never know exactly what had happened to him.
With my husband gone, my parents stepped in much more, coming to get the children almost every weekend and taking them to their new home on Coney Island. Then on Sunday, after church, they would deliver them back to my place in Brooklyn. That gave me the time I needed to grieve and get myself together. Bernard’s parents, Ella and Elliott Garner, also helped when they could. The kids understood death to a certain point, but they didn’t really comprehend what had happened. I explained to them, “Your father is gone forever.” After a month or so Eric asked, “Is it forever yet? Is he coming home now?” I told him, “No, he’s never coming home.”
I took them to the cemetery once, and while we were standing around talking I saw Emery out of the corner of my eye. He was trying to pull the plaque off his father’s grave. I said, “What are you doing?” He said, “This is a stone. I think it’s too heavy on my daddy.”
That loss was a lot for our young family to handle. At first, I just didn’t even want to face the world without Bernard by my side, despite the things I had heard about his last days. We had started this journey together, and I felt cheated out of our future. What kept me going was being able to see glimpses of him in the children. As the boys got older, I noticed it more with them. There would be a mannerism or a word that reminded me of Bernard and it would make me smile. I realized that we were all going to make it as long as we had each other.
Chapter 2
Finding Strength
Success is to be measured not so much by the position that one has reached in life as by the obstacles which he has overcome while trying to succeed.
—Booker T. Washington
BY 1977, WE WERE LIVING IN the Gowanus area of Brooklyn where the neighborhood had a remote feel, like we were on our own island within the city. There were modest rowhouses surrounded by large industrial warehouses and a canal that was almost two miles long and at one point was the nation’s busiest. Unfortunately, it was also unregulated, so by the time we lived there, it was very polluted from the area factories and rumored to be a mob dumping ground. The color of the water got so bad that we called it “Lavender Lake.” In the summertime, you could smell it from blocks away.
One of the things I liked about the neighborhood was that, just as when I was growing up, the people were very diverse. There were Blacks, Whites, Asians, all different types of folks. I liked that my kids were exposed to other people and other cultures. My grandmother’s focus on racism always stuck with me. I felt fortunate that we didn’t seem to face that issue nearly as much as she had.
I was twenty-six when my husband passed away, and even with the help of grandparents on both sides and other family, it was not easy for us. The money Bernard brought into the house wasn’t a lot, and it wasn’t always steady income, but it was something. Without him, I felt like I was drowning financially. I didn’t feel right moving our family into Gowanus public housing and living on government assistance, but I realized that I didn’t have any other options. We referred to it as “the luxury projects.” The fact was that I couldn’t earn enough money on my own to support all of us, which included not only my three kids but also my three stepchildren: Lorraine, Ella, and Elliott Bernard.
Taking care of them by myself was beyond difficult, but I was determined to make sure all the children had a fair shot at a good life away from the dangers of the street. Living in that small apartment with my three children was an exercise in patience and organization. In addition, my stepdaughter, Ella (who we called Lynette), lived with us and the other two visited often. I worked hard to keep everyone on their schedule and make sure they got along under the crowded circumstances. Without a lot of money, I did the best I could. Despite the crowded conditions, I didn’t mind it so much. I was raised with so many relatives around all the time that it felt natural. My parents and other family members pitched in often to help. That was one thing I could always count on. We would all come together when one of us needed help.
No matter what struggles we had to overcome, I was very focused on everyone getting a good education and taking school seriously. My stepchildren (whom I just referred to as my kids) were older, so they started school first. Then Eric began public school in 1976, and in 1979 he was bused to PS 27 across town. Emery began school two years later, and then Ellisha. Finally having them all in school allowed me to work and start earning a little money. That gave me hope that one day we would be able to afford a place of our own.
After high school, my first job was with the New York Telephone Company, and then I worked at the New York Stock Exchange and at the World Trade Center. Once Bernard passed, I managed to go back to school to get a degree. I knew I was going to need one to care for the children properly. I finally got a job at the post office and was promoted to account technician. Workin
g there helped me start to get on my feet and provide for my family. Later I was able to get the position with the New York City Transit Authority.
As the years passed, despite the difficulties, one of the true joys for me was watching the children develop and grow. Their personalities really started to come out, and as a mother, it was wonderful to be a part of that. When I had time I dated sporadically, but I didn’t have a serious boyfriend for a while, so it was mostly me and the children.
With the boys being just two years apart in age, as they grew up it was hard to remember who was oldest because Emery saw himself as the man of the house. He had more of a take-charge personality, and he was always getting into something. He would often come home with an animal he had found somewhere. One day he brought a garden snake into the house as a pet. I sometimes gave in to him because he did step up and assume responsibility for the family. He was a very bright child and a natural leader.
Eric was much more laid back; he was not as intense and driven as Emery. With Eric it was more about relationships with others and making friends. As he got older, he was also more politically aware than the rest of us. Eric would watch the news and read the paper, always talking about what the government was up to and keeping us informed.
The one thing that Eric and Emery agreed on was that they needed to watch over their baby sister and help her to make good choices. Ellisha complained that they were overprotective, and I’m sure it felt like that to her, but they did not want her getting mixed up with the wrong crowd. They were strict about when she could go out of the house and always had to know where she was going and who else would be there.
When my stepchildren got older and moved out, I thought things would get easier because there were fewer children to care for, but then my brother passed away. I took in his three children—Stevie, Kimberly, and Lil Joe—because they didn’t have anywhere else to go and I was very close to them. I loved them like my own anyway and wanted to do what I could to help. The other children probably weren’t too happy about having to share their apartment and their mother again, but they realized that was what we had to do to get by. When one of us needed help, everyone pitched in without question.
I did such a good job of shielding the children from our impoverished conditions that they often made comments about how rich we were. I said, “How can we be rich? We live in the projects!” It was true that our Christmas celebrations were a sight to behold. It’s surprising that even without a lot of money, I was able to scrimp and save throughout the year to make sure they had a special day. One time, a friend of mine brought over some money and used them to decorate our Christmas tree. It had a $50 bill on the top and tens, fives, and ones on the lower branches. No one had ever seen anything like it, and the children stared at it for hours, never daring to touch the dollars that tempted them.
Eric was very much into sports as a kid, especially basketball, and when he got older his attention shifted to football. I was always cautious about athletics because of his past health problems, but he could run. Eric wasn’t in the Boy Scouts, but he was in the cadets. He went to a local center where they taught how to march in formation. I was always impressed that he wasn’t afraid to try new things like that.
We were in public housing until Eric was in the ninth grade, and I was excited when he went to the same junior high that I had attended. He had been attending PS 27 on Huntington and Columbia Streets in the Red Hook section of Brooklyn, which is where a lot of kids from the projects went. After he graduated from PS 27, he found out he would be attending MS 51 on Fifth Avenue in Park Slope. He came home and said, “I’m going to be going to 51. Mom, didn’t you say you went to that middle school?” I said, “Yeah I did.”
In fact, I had a great time attending William Alexander Middle School and got good grades. There was a diverse mix of students, and they offered lots of programs to keep the children interested in learning. It was mostly working-class folks when I went there, but today the area has been gentrified and the school is celebrated for its gifted and talented program and its dedication to diversity.
I wondered whether any of my old teachers were still there. When I went back to visit, I found out my vice principal had a new title: “Dean of the Boys.” He had the thankless job of chasing us kids off school grounds if we were out there goofing off or playing punchball. When I saw him, I said, “You may not remember me, but my son will be coming here, and you will be his dean.” He said, “Oh, yeah, I remember you.” I asked where all the teachers were, and most had moved on or retired. We had a nice conversation, and I felt very comfortable with Eric going to the school. I was especially excited when I found out that Eric loved junior high. One of his favorite classes was home economics, where the students learned basic skills like how to cook. The teacher said that any time they were going to cook, Eric would volunteer to help out whenever he was needed. He really flourished in that school.
Don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying my son was perfect. Well, he was in my eyes, but I knew that there might be problems in school. In fact, one day he came home and said, “Ma, you gotta come up to the school.”
Oh, no , I thought, here it comes. He has gotten into some real trouble. I remembered some of my classmates who were always acting up, and I hoped Eric would not take that path. I asked, “What did you do?”
He said, “The teacher will tell you, but it wasn’t my fault.”
“Have you been disrespectful? What is it?”
He said,
“No, it wasn’t me.”
I was not in the mood for any foolishness, and I didn’t want to find out that Eric was playing around in class. When I got over to the school, the first thing the teacher said was “It wasn’t Eric’s fault.” I guess she could see that I was a little upset. I did not want to get into the habit of having to take off work for a school visit. Eric’s teacher was quick to calm me down. “We were in the cooking class, and we were going to bake cakes. I told all the boys to write down the recipe. Eric was sitting at his desk and writing as he was instructed. I think he had just gotten a haircut.” I nodded yes. “Well, this boy came by and popped him in the back of the head. Eric turned around and yelled at the boy. I told them that if anyone throws a lick, they are suspended. Eric looked over at the other boy and then took the cake mix off the table and slung it out of the window. That was his way of getting out his frustration without getting in a fight, but I still had to let you know what happened.”
I was relieved that he never really had any trouble in school. Eric would always do his homework; in fact, he would even do it in other classes. In math class, he would do his science homework. In science, he would do his English homework. The teachers would constantly tell him that they appreciated that he kept up with his studies, but he needed to do that at home. When I would ask him if he’d done his homework, he would always say yes, and he would show it to me. Here’s what one teacher wrote in his yearbook: Eric, good luck in high school, work hard, and you will succeed. Remember, if you want to get that piece of paper (diploma) you’re going to have to make some changes. You can do it! Remember the T.H.S. code you recited at graduation, it will help you in high school. Mr. Russel.
In the summer, Eric loved swimming. “Mama, are we going to the pool?” I wasn’t crazy about those pools because as a mother I always felt they were dirty, but of course the children did not care. As a compromise, I would let them go once in a while. My mother lived across the street from the beach, so in the summer they went there a lot. They got to visit the beach, and my father took them fishing. They loved experiencing such a different way of life when they visited their grandparents.
While Eric was easygoing and Emery was always looking for a way to begin a career in business, Ellisha was my activist. When she was barely a teenager, she developed a strong interest in justice and the fair treatment of others, especially Black folks. When she was only around twelve years old, she even convinced me to let her go with a friend to march through the streets o
f Howard Beach to protest the treatment of the White defendants in Michael Griffith’s death. I admired her drive and commitment. I was much too reserved to even think about getting involved in something like that. It just wasn’t on my radar, but I learned a lot from watching Ellisha.
In 1987 when Eric was seventeen, he graduated from my high school exactly twenty years after I had graduated from there. I was very proud that he chose to attend Ohio Auto Diesel Technical School after high school to learn a trade. My firstborn was going to college! In preparation, I shopped every day leading up to the time for him to leave. I was going back and forth to the store buying pillows, sheets, and even raincoats.
“Ma, why are you buying all this stuff? I don’t need no raincoat,” Eric said.
“Yes, you do,” I insisted.
We were equally excited when it was time to visit the school and see the room he would stay in. I had a cousin in Cleveland who said she would take us over there. We went and stayed at her house, and she drove us to the school the next day. It was a beautiful place, and I couldn’t have been more excited for my college student. It was a four-year program, and I was sure he could do it since he had always enjoyed school.
He was studying car mechanics, and when he came home over Christmas break, of course I went overboard to celebrate the holiday with our new college student. He spent the next summer at home and then went back in the fall, but when he returned the next Christmas, he told me he was quitting. We had never imagined that there would be issues with his breathing, but when he worked on cars during the program, the fumes and smells severely triggered his asthma. Unfortunately, he would not be able to follow his dream. I respected his decision, but inside I was crushed. I wanted the best for my children, and that meant a solid education. One thing I do know is that the world is wide, and the world is tough. As young Black adults, they would need every possible advantage to have a fighting chance at a good life. I just hoped his asthma would finally get under control and he could get “off the pump” at some point. I know he didn’t like using those inhalers.