Her story had some overlaps to mine, which I learned gradually as I watched her overhaul her life, not once but several times. A self-help Zen master with lightning wit, book smarts, and a sociology major from Lehman College in the Bronx, Lizette was originally from Atlanta, Georgia, and had been raised by a single mother. Family gatherings included raging fights, lots of alcohol consumption, and the drama of TVs sent flying out of living room windows.
Not too long after we met, at the threshold of rebuilding her life as a single woman, she opened up a nail salon in Beverly Hills, a phenomenal success not only because she was a terrific nail technician but additionally because of the wisdom, humor, empathy, and insight she imparted. I told Lizette that she should be charging everyone double.
Over my nails and her take on my love life, I admitted that I admired that she had gone to college, one of my few regrets.
Lizette was proud that she had opted for higher education instead of the modeling career that had been offered to her when she went to New York. Why hadn’t she been tempted to model? Because, she laughed, “I didn’t want to eat a French fry and a cigarette for lunch every day.”
Her next significant transformation was announced a short while later when I arrived at the salon and before I could say, “Hey, Lizette!” and give her a warm hug, she headed me off at the pass saying, “I need to ask you not to call me Lizette anymore.”
“What do you mean? I love your name, it’s one of the most beautiful names in the world!”
She said, “If you value our friendship, you will call me Madisonn.”
This was not going to be easy. I already had a block against remembering names, and Lizette had rolled off my tongue so melodically for some time. M’s were difficult for me as I was sometimes caught off guard by a childhood stutter. Nonetheless, after several months of practice, I adapted to the musicality of Madisonn McBride.
Besides teaching me how inherently we all have the ability to transform our own lives and names if we so choose, Madisonn delivered to my listening ears the Reader’s Digest abbreviated version of the volumes and volumes of books on self-help and philosophy that she read by the truckloads. She was my very own in-house Deepak Chopra, motivational consultant. It was illuminating to understand why she chose to divorce her husband, because, as she said, trust had been broken and trust was the foundation for all relationships. “You can’t build a house from the second floor up.” The other reason she chose divorce rather than a reconciliation was her sense that she had lost herself in her husband. “I went from loving him to worshiping him. I was no longer me.” The lesson learned: “Overwatering a plant can kill it.”
Madisonn eventually gave up her salon to become a feng shui consultant and to have the time to raise her niece. No matter where she was in her journey of working on herself, she remained devoted spectacularly to exploration, to soul searching and never being satisfied with a pat answer. As Madisonn put it, “You get what you vibrate.”
Along the road to that realization were some profound ruts. Overwhelming sadness altered her body during a mourning period that followed the end of her marriage, despite her efforts to sidestep negativity. Watching Madisonn rapidly gain as much as a hundred pounds, I asked her point-blank, “What are you doing?” As her sister, I couldn’t pretend that this wasn’t happening, that no matter how many fabulous Prada wraps she wore, this was now a health issue.
Instead of being defensive, Madisonn allowed me to work with her, to try to find a release. We went to boot camp together, talked for hours about ex-husbands, significant others, known and unknown fathers we still loved. She came to my workshops, I went to hers. We learned about the second chakra near a woman’s root center and breathed away vulnerabilities that were said to cause fibroids. We talked about the importance of anger and shouting, not holding in the pain, so that we might do everything in our power to keep our breasts. We discussed the false protective shield that extra weight provides. We cried, we laughed, and cried some more.
Madisonn gave me the rare gift of allowing me to be there for her, as she had been there for me when I was in my darkest hour. I was able to witness the pivotal moment in her liberation.
Her epiphany was that there could be no physical change, no matter how many spin classes or boot camp hours she put herself through, without the commitment of a psychological shift. It came to her one day while we were working out when she said, out of the blue, “I’ll never steal second if my foot stays on first.”
That was the start. From there, Madisonn slowly reclaimed her power, slowly losing the weight, which she finally understood was her way of trying to care for herself instead of everyone else. Like relationships, there are no perfect solutions for weight loss, just hard work.
Yet too many women work too hard taking care of everyone but themselves, only to try and give themselves that nurturing and love through quick fixes that are ultimately destructive. Madisonn gained a fondness for saying, “Truth sometimes has no nourishment,” but that we all needed to hear it from our closest friends—the sisters who carried her through her divorce and weight crises. Similarly, when I felt myself slipping down into an episode of depression that I allowed myself to acknowledge, my support system held me closer and I knew I wasn’t alone.
Madisonn’s take-home lesson for avoiding those pitfalls was summed up in a pithy quote she put on her fridge, which read, “Busters, losers and the extremely wounded, please stay away…I’m a goddess not a nurse.”
ELEVEN
DOLORES MARSALIS & LATANYA RICHARDSON JACKSON
We now approach what is without question the hardest passage of my life to revisit, but so necessary for tribute to be fully paid to everyone who raised me over the years—especially two extraordinary women, Dolores Marsalis and LaTanya Richardson Jackson, who rose to the call at this juncture and intervened as angels when my soul lay at its lowest.
Dolores and her New Orleans home had welcomed me open-armed during the seventh month of my pregnancy with Jasper, who would become her sixth grandchild.
Exuding formidable strength and wisdom, the remarkably youthful-looking Dolores Ferdinand Marsalis reminded me in many ways of Agatha Armstead, with her abundance of maternal warmth, a similarly determined gait, and an ability to do many things exceedingly well all at the same time. Dolores graduated from Grambling State University where she flourished in home economics and journalism, writing for the school paper.
After marrying Ellis, she became a volunteer in social work and a substitute teacher. She returned to college after raising her six children, attending Virginia Commonwealth University, working on her master’s in social work.
Her culinary gifts were amazing. Everything was farm fresh, from the crawfish to the vegetables, even the seasonings. The étouffée was made to perfection—Dolores cooked with love and I could taste every bit of it. She had that Wooten-esque flair about her, reminding me of those remarkable women.
Though she was reminiscent of many of the women who were part of the lineage of women who raised me, Dolores Marsalis was very much one of a kind, with a signature brand of honesty that I respected. Speaking her mind bluntly, whether it was about politics, art, or religion, she did not hold back her opinion. If you asked her a question, she would give you an answer and not always the one you wanted to hear.
Those were only some of the qualities she employed to retain her confidence and power as a woman surrounded by such strong, sometimes demanding, distinctive men—her husband, Ellis, and their six sons.
While Ellis, one of New Orleans’s most revered jazz pianists and teachers, would be given credit for instilling music fundamentals into the Marsalis boys, Delores was undoubtedly the reason they were so prolific. She did more in one day than some people do in a month. If she wasn’t spearheading support appeals for the New Orleans College for the Arts, she was working on a fund-raiser with the Sisters of Charity-Sisters of the Holy Family, the second community of African American religious Catholic women in the United Sta
tes, founded by Henriette Delille, taking her vows in 1851. Dolores went on to tell me how many black nuns were not allowed in the church or to receive communion, pre-civil rights; instead, they would stand outside the church to hear the service.
Family trumped all. Celebrity was the least important of attainments in a household that reflected how much everyone counted in her sphere. Presented in photography and keepsakes everywhere I looked was a chronicle of the past, of this exceptional woman and her family. Everyone was represented equally in her collections, regardless of whether Wynton and Branford may have earned more public name recognition. Several lifetimes of sheet music were a reminder of the years of music lessons that were a Marsalis mainstay. Rites of passage were celebrated with everything from Boy Scout badges to a Grammy award that sat next to photographs of her grandchildren. Stories abounded over hearty meals prepared at the drop of a hat for bands rolling into town, giggin’ and showing up late for Dolores’s gumbo.
On my first visit, as I was ushered into her kitchen, Dolores’s mother, Leona Learson, a Creole beauty in her nineties, nodded in welcome, and Dolores’s fifth son, Mboya, greeted me with a quick smile. Dolores never complained about caring for her aging mother or the demands of raising a severely autistic adult son. Her attitude was that rising to the call of caring for loved ones was a blessing.
When the question arose about which bedroom was for guests, Dolores asserted, “Your bags are already in the master bedroom, you’ll sleep more comfortably in there.”
Before I could argue that I couldn’t possibly take her bedroom, she gave me a look that was everything I needed to hear. There was no arguing with this powerhouse. The rush of emotion that I felt being treated as a member of the family was only exceeded by the surprise that awaited me in the bedroom. It was the sweetest baby crib, adorned with every conceivable infant-friendly accoutrement, made up and waiting for her future grandson’s arrival.
It must have occurred to Dolores that there was no maternal grandmother to welcome my children into the world and why her gift meant so much. Though I again tried to tell her that she was much too generous, Dolores stopped me to say, “I have done this for every one of my daughters-in-law and I consider you to be the same.”
How could I not adore her from that moment on? The first eighteen years of my life I had come with that word foster attached to me like a shadow, a qualification that described my legal status and restricted my relationships to others. I was a divorcée with one child and another on the way, with no plans of marrying. Yet Dolores Marsalis, staunch Catholic that she was, was not going to dismiss or diminish my worth based on legal standing.
As night fell, I readied myself for bed. Through an ajar door that opened to a dimly lit hallway, I saw Dolores leading her son Mboya, on demi-pointe, toward his bedroom. She tucked him into bed, as she had every night for the past twenty-seven years, and moments later I heard her toss a “Good night, sugar, everything’s going to be fine” over her shoulder, which made its familiar way to me as well.
As time and other visits went on, I learned that Dolores and I had more in common than first suspected, at times making us feel like sisters and kindred spirits. We talked about the pressures of wearing different hats, about family, about the rewards of activism on behalf of causes we championed, and about the men who were and weren’t in our lives. Born and bred right there in New Orleans, Dolores was a little girl who grew up fatherless.
We both acknowledged that the pain of the fatherless void was not a figment of imagination. Despite not having a father figure, she had found and held on to love in a marriage that would last fifty years and counting.
“The secret? Give and take,” she said. Being flexible and having forgiveness weren’t easy and could require colossal strength.
As if a part of me knew that I was readying to go through another rite of passage toward a fuller emancipation, I kept that advice close to my heart. What stayed with me like a grounding wire, most importantly, was the vibration and steadiness of her voice, a reminder that “Everything was going to be fine.”
As I entered my forties, on the whole I felt plain, grateful for work, for motherhood, sisterhood, for sanity to have a means of serving through my own charity and in collaboration with others. But in the summer of my forty-second year, an overly active sympathy nerve started twitching, not with hyperhidrosis but with a sense of powerlessness at preventing the hurt that was out there.
Passing thousands of cars every day on the freeway, with every slow roll soon followed by an unwelcome stop, I invariably caught an image of someone in my rearview mirror or my periphery and sensed danger. In each instance, I wondered who was hidden in the back of that car, what child was being left behind or taken against his or her will. I couldn’t stop thinking of unprotected children, seeing them buried in dirt holes, tied up, stolen as sex slaves, or stuffed into youth correctional facilities, beings forgotten. To escape a child predator, for any child, would be to run for the rest of his or her life toward safety.
I never stopped thinking about those children and never stopped wanting to do more. My own children and my role as their mother continued to stabilize me, as did the work of my charity, which had grown phenomenally with the support of national sponsors, major media campaigns, and leading philanthropists who championed for foster care and adoption. But the ever-growing pandemic of foster care made me feel like I wasn’t doing enough. It shouldn’t have surprised me that the more influential I became as a national spokesperson for foster care and adoption, the more opposition I earned from entrenched nonprofits who did things differently and who obviously saw me as an intruder on their political turf.
There was no more apparent display of this sentiment than when I received a call from my RFCPP office informing me that I was not needed for National Adoption Day in Washington, D.C., on September 10, 2001. This made absolutely no sense as my travel arrangements had already been discussed before I had left for travel abroad.
Upon my return, I received another call, this time by way of a folded piece of paper I found with no name on it. I called the unfamiliar number and a young adoptee living in New Hampshire answered the phone. She said excitedly, “Do you remember me? We met on a talk show in New York.” Indeed I did remember her. She wanted to make sure that I would be in the capital for the festivities as she would be singing. I assured her that wild horses couldn’t keep me away. Immediately following, I began to wonder who these people were who didn’t want me there and why. Upon further inquiry I was told that the nonprofit in charge chose its own celebrity. I was aghast and replied, “I am not driven by celebrity; this is my life.” The next thing that was said trumped the first: “But, Vicki, you were never adopted.”
Was that to say that if you didn’t get adopted, you didn’t count? Was that to say that the same children these society ladies were professing pride for would one day be punished for exceeding preconceived expectations, the way they attempted to exclude me? This was beyond comprehension. If only I could describe the looks of consternation on their faces when I showed up on the steps of the Capitol. Undeterred, I sat on the dais in a diminutive chair not matching the others and was forbidden to speak by the celebrity of the day, a politician’s wife. Was my truth that threatening? Was it my pearls that Agatha taught me to wear or was it my hat and dress? Was it the diction I used that threw you? That I didn’t look down at the ground when I spoke to you but looked directly in your eyes? Did you find my sheer will insubordinate, standing up to you and being counted with or without your approval? I couldn’t begin to answer these questions. All I could do was forgive and hope they could forgive themselves.
I showed up on the Capitol steps the same way I showed up at Dorothy’s funeral when I was not invited, with purpose. I honestly didn’t care what others thought. Showing up was what you do because it’s who you are and all you are. The same way I showed up at ballet class in Cambridge after being jumped and beaten up in the ’hood. The same as showing up in my own way by
standing on my toes in a barn in my red Keds, one hand on a broken-down organ, the other holding a grain pail. That’s what the women who raised me taught me to do…show up. That wealth cannot deny a person’s truth.
The next morning I awoke to a national tragedy. On September 11, 2001, I was ordered into a hotel ballroom, where we were advised of the situation and presented options for travel. With all flights suspended I opted for Amtrak back to California. All that could be offered were the staff’s quarters. I took it!
As I looked out across a beleaguered America I strung a flag I bought at Union Station across my bunk in a show of solidarity. I felt the same common bond I felt during the blizzard of 1978 in New York City. The phenomenon of strangers, kinder in crisis, helping one another. I wondered about those icy society ladies on that day; what were they doing?
In the months that followed, I soldiered on in my world, as mother, actress, and activist, but none of my old attempts at making everything fine seemed to work.
The controlled creative chaos of my overly busy life fell into chaos. I wanted off the ride. I was tired of being my own daddy. Tired of having to be the provider and strong leader. Tired of not having a mother.
I simply stopped. The phone rang. I was immobile. The weight of everything had caught up with me. I could not lift my head. For hours I lay in bed listening to my heartbeat and the pulsing truth of unnourished needs.
In that moment, it would have been effortless to morph into Dorothy; after all, I was an extension of her. Everyone would understand. All I had to do was declare my willingness to step over that fine line into her fragmented world.
In stillness, I repeated my childhood mantra: I must never have six different children by six different men; I must never reveal Dorothy’s secret. Days went by, and I decided that the job of trying to cure my mother posthumously simply was not an option. I was dying in the process. I called for help.
The Women Who Raised Me Page 32