Yesterday, I Cried

by IYANLA VANZANT

  I decided to take a walk. Walking helps you remember. I got out of the tub, put on my favorite high-water dusty pink sweats, and hit the nature trail. The woods are a beautiful place to go to find yourself. At the beginning of this trail, there are giant weeping willow trees that hang over the path. They sometimes look like people, so I am never alone. I have talked to the weeping willows. I admit it. Thank God, they have never answered me. The willows know all of my secrets, and all of Rhonda’s, too. I have told them about her, and they have helped me remember.

  There are several paths that lead into the woods. The one I chose was not straight. It snaked through the sun-dappled willows and poplars, winding sometimes to the east, then curving off toward the west. Some portions of the path were smooth and flat, offering an easy, casual stroll. Other times the road was rocky, with steep inclines that made your heart race and your breathing deeper. There were places where tall branches seemed to reach for the sky, inviting the bright sunlight to splash through to the wildflowers that bordered the path. Some stretches were thick with foliage that dared the light to pass and made you walk just a little bit faster. Rhonda and I stepped onto the path, took a deep breath, and headed for the clear, blue pond at the end of the trail.

  By the time Rhonda realized that she was pregnant with Gary’s baby, he was trying his best to make himself invisible. Especially to Rhonda. She was only sixteen but had squeezed forty-five years of living into her short life. Rhonda was fragile, needy, and the therapist who treated her after the suicide attempt told her she was also “emotionally damaged.” Sometimes we learn things about ourselves that we would never know unless somebody told us. Sometimes people tell us things about ourselves that we really need to know. Other times, people would serve us better by keeping their thoughts and opinions to themselves. The lesson is in determining which is which. Rhonda had not yet learned that lesson.

  Gary was an attractive, hormone-driven, nineteen-year-old track star. He had a fierce reputation as a ladies’ man. But Rhonda was new to Jefferson High School, and she had no way of knowing that. She had never been on a date, not a real high school date with a real high school boyfriend. Gary was hot stuff. He was from a stable home and destined to go to college. And he was clear. Rhonda was still bouncing around from one relative’s home to another’s, wondering where she could receive her subscription to Teen Life magazine. She felt unwanted and unsettled. She was not clear at all.

  After the suicide attempt, she had stayed with Nett for a while, but the threat of eviction meant that she and Ray had to go live with Beanie. When Beanie’s boyfriend expressed too much interest in Rhonda, she went back to live with Nett. It was at that point that Ray decided to get off the “family-go-round.” He stayed with Beanie and was high most of the time.

  The high school that Rhonda attended was a two-hour commute from Nett’s house, so she transferred to nearby Jefferson High School. Rhonda started dancing again and soon became the captain of the Jefferson High Dance Club. Gary first noticed Rhonda at a school assembly, where the Dance Club performed. Gary was focused on athletics and had not been exposed to African dance. He was intrigued by Rhonda the dancer and by what she could do with her body. Rhonda was flattered to have the attention of a handsome track star. She was easily seduced by his hormone-motivated overtures, the sly winks in the hallway, the late-night telephone calls, the secret meetings. It all happened very quickly. Nett figured it out before Rhonda had the courage to tell her.

  Rhonda and Nett had developed a morning routine. Nett would get up every morning, put on the coffee, and take her shower. When she came out of the bathroom, Rhonda would take her shower. By the time Rhonda was dressed, the coffee would be poured and waiting. She and Nett would sit at the kitchen table and talk and laugh together before they went off to work and school. They used this time to discuss everything and everybody. Nett shared what was going on at her job, and Rhonda told Nett about school. They prepared the grocery list and decided who would pick up what. They talked about boys and clothes and what they’d seen on television.

  One morning over coffee, Nett set her cup down on the table and looked Rhonda squarely in the eyes.

  “You’re pregnant again, aren’t you?” Nett said. “I can see it in your eyes; I can see it all over you.” Rhonda’s eyes started to well up with tears, but she held them back, refusing to cry. “Who is it?” Nett asked. “Is it that guy that calls here so late?”

  “If I am, he is,” Rhonda said, the tears beginning to fall.

  Nett took a sip of her coffee and continued.

  “Ronnie, Ronnie. You can’t keep having babies. I know you want a family and somebody to love you. I know how hard it’s been for you growing up, but having a baby is only going to make it harder. You have to finish school. You are going to be somebody one day, and having a baby is going to make that harder, too.”

  This was their private talking time, so Rhonda spoke up. She told Nett that Gary hardly spoke to her anymore, that he was avoiding her at school and not calling her at home anymore. Nett was furious. First with Rhonda, but mostly with Gary.

  “Does he have a father? Does he have a mother? Does he have a telephone number?” Nett took the number and called Gary’s house. When Gary’s father answered, Nett informed him that her daughter was pregnant by his son. She suggested a meeting to discuss plans for support of the child. Gary’s father said he would discuss the matter with his son and get back to her. (It was three weeks after the baby was born when he called back.)

  The next day at school, Gary materialized long enough to tell Rhonda he was mad at her for telling. For the remaining months of her pregnancy, Rhonda was angry. She was angry with herself and angry with Gary. She felt alone, unwanted, and ashamed. Gary would ignore her if their paths crossed at school, but one day when no one was around, he winked at her, then tried to touch her swollen belly. Rhonda spit in his face and ran away.

  Damon was a beautiful baby boy. He had a tendency to choke but was otherwise normal and healthy. He offered Nett and Rhonda a new lease on life. “Babies take your mind off the things that don’t matter,” Nett said. “They give you something more to live for.” Nett liked being called Nana. She was delighted with Damon and overly protective. Rhonda was happy, but confused and afraid. The day that Damon turned three weeks old, Rhonda was standing over the crib, staring at her baby son, trying to figure out whether she was happy, confused, or afraid, when she noticed that Damon’s little body was turning blue. When she touched him, he was cold and rigid. She snatched him out of the crib and held him to her breast. “Please, God!” she screamed. “Not again! Please!” Nett’s reaction to Rhonda’s screaming was to run. She ran out of the apartment, down the stairs, and out onto the street. The superintendent of the apartment building also heard the scream and called an ambulance.

  As Rhonda sat in the emergency room, waiting for Damon’s test results, she had an overwhelming urge to call Gary. She needed to tell him that the son he had never seen had almost died. Damon was fine, but Rhonda felt his father needed to see him anyway. Gary did come to see Damon that day, then again when he was three months old. When Damon was nine months old, Gary came to see him on the eve of his wedding day. After that, the visits virtually stopped.

  Rhonda had to get up at 5:30 in the morning. She’d dress herself, dress the baby, walk five blocks to the subway station, and board the train for a forty-five minute ride with Damon on her hip. She worked from 7:00 A.M. until 7:00 P.M. taking care of other people’s children, and then she’d take the train back home. She’d leave Damon with Nett and take a thirty-minute bus ride to night school. By the time classes were over at 10:00 P.M., Rhonda was exhausted. She’d return home by 11:00, eat dinner, do her housework, wash diapers, and do her homework. If she was lucky, Nett would stay up and help her so she could get to bed by 1:00 A.M. If she wasn’t so lucky, she’d get to bed at 2:00, sleep for a few hours, and then be back up at 5:30 A.M. to do it all over again.

  Rhonda was a teenage unwed
mother. Her weekends did not include parties or dates or hanging out with her girlfriends and shooting the breeze. She spent part of the weekend washing clothes, shopping, and caring for Damon. The other part of the weekend was spent studying at the library, or reading at home so she didn’t fall behind in her schoolwork. Rarely did Rhonda indulge in any luxuries, but occasionally she would squeeze a few dollars out of her paycheck and go to the hairdresser. Her life was difficult, but Rhonda did what she had to do. Nett wouldn’t let her not do it.

  Damon had just turned a year old when Beanie introduced Rhonda to Curtis. He was the cousin of Beanie’s boyfriend. His real cousin. Curtis was handsome, very shy, and on his way to Vietnam. Rhonda thought he was nice enough, and meeting him was the closest thing she’d had to a date in a long time. Nett took one look at him and decided he was a nut. He was looking for someone to correspond with while he was overseas, and as if she didn’t have enough to do, Rhonda agreed to keep in touch.

  He wrote. She wrote. They had been writing back and forth for about a year before Curtis asked Rhonda to marry him. She was flattered, but after Curtis proposed to her, Rhonda stopped writing altogether. He continued to write for a while, but then the letters stopped. Then one beautiful Sunday afternoon, Rhonda was at home reading, and Nett was playing with fifteen-month-old Damon, who was now walking and talking, when the doorbell rang. Nett said it was probably Daddy, who no longer had a key to Nett’s apartment. She had taken it from him the day she discovered he had five children by another woman. Rhonda went to answer the door. A neighbor who was going out had let Curtis in. When Rhonda got downstairs, he was standing there with a bouquet of roses, wearing a big grin on his face.

  Somewhere between dinner and the good-night kiss, Curtis presented Rhonda with an engagement ring. She was stunned. Nett sucked her teeth and stomped out of the room. Yes, Curtis had said, he was very serious about marrying Rhonda. He was ready to settle down. He loved her and was very fond of Damon. He’d always wanted a son. Rhonda said she was sure she could put together the wedding in two months’ time, before Curtis was assigned his next tour of duty. Rhonda was so excited. She started making lists of places, food, and, of course, guests. Curtis immediately called his mother, who had a reaction similar to Nett’s. She was not at all pleased that her only child wanted to marry a girl that he hardly knew.

  Had Rhonda been paying attention, she would have understood what Nett kept telling her: “He must be some kind of nut!” But Rhonda couldn’t see it. She was too busy looking at the fact that a man wanted to marry her. He was willing to take care of her and her child. He was prepared to take her away from the place where she had known so much pain and rejection. He was making a commitment not to leave her, not to disappear, not to break her heart. Once she got married, she would no longer be “an unwed mother,” she would be someone’s wife. Curtis was in the army, and one day he’d have a pension and they could buy a house. He represented an end to the shame, the hard work, an end to being alone.

  I sat down to rest on the granite bench beside the pond and listened to the gentle sound of the water lapping at the shore. It gave me clarity. How long did it take Rhonda to learn that you cannot fix a broken something simply by replacing it with something else? A replaced thing is still a broken thing! When you discover that something is broken, you must determine the cause of the break. In order to do that, you must open the thing, examine it, and find the origin of the break or malfunction. Once that is done, you must make a determination as to whether or not the thing is worth fixing. If you determine that the fixing is worth your effort, it must be done carefully. If, on the other hand, you decide that the thing is not worth fixing, you must get rid of it. You must throw it away, clean the place it once occupied, and when you are ready, find a suitable replacement. This is called “closure.” It is a prerequisite for healing.

  When the thing that is broken is your life or your mind, your heart or your spirit, you must follow the same process. Determine what is broken and how it got broken and decide whether to fix it or not. You must dismantle whatever isn’t working piece by piece, find the broken part, fix it, reassemble the whole thing, and give it a test run. Everything in life must have at least one test run.

  When you decide to fix something, it is important that you fix only what is actually broken. Not what you think is broken. If you fix the top when it is the bottom that is broken, the thing is not going to work. If you fix the left side, and leave the right side hanging and broken, the thing will fall apart again. If you fix the outside when there is something broken on the inside, there is no way the broken thing can work to its full potential. Rhonda was trying to fix the outside. She did not understand the relationship between what was going on inside and what was happening outside.

  The day after the wedding, Rhonda, Curtis, and Damon moved to Fort Benning, Georgia. They rented a house and filled it with rented furniture, using the money they’d received as wedding gifts. While Curtis was in Vietnam, he had started using drugs. Heroin, speed, and psychedelics. Rhonda discovered he was a heroin addict when he started slapping her around and burglarizing their neighbors’ homes. Eventually he was arrested and pled guilty to the burglary charges against him. The army informed Rhonda that she could no longer live in the subsidized housing complex and that she would no longer receive her monthly allotment checks. She called Nett and asked her to send the money for them to fly back home. By the time she got back to Brooklyn, she’d found the courage to tell Nett that she was four months pregnant.

  Rhonda named her baby daughter Gemmia. Damon was thrilled to have a baby sister and fascinated that something so tiny could make so much noise. Gemmia would cry all night. The walls in the two-bedroom apartment were thin, and neither Rhonda nor Nett was getting much sleep. It made Rhonda so nervous, she was down to wearing a size 8. The crying drove Nett absolutely crazy, and it made her uncharacteristically evil.

  Being a young mother with one child and working and going to school was hard. But being a young mother with two children and frazzled nerves made work an impossibility for Rhonda. She was forced to go on public assistance. Nett went from being evil, to being disgraced and ashamed.

  “I never thought I would live to see the day when my own child would stand in line for peanut butter and cheese!”

  “I won’t go get the cheese,” Rhonda said. “I hate the cheese.”

  “Well, you still have to stand in line with the rest of the trash to cash your check. Your welfare check!” Nett said.

  “People don’t know what kind of check I’m cashing, Nett. They just know I’m standing in line at the bank.”

  “They can figure it out. They’ll assume you are just like the rest of the trash in line.”

  Rhonda admitted she was a very young, very nervous wife and mother with a husband who was in jail. She refused to add “trash” to the list. To avoid being mistaken for such, Rhonda would wait a day or two after she got her check before she went to the bank.

  Curtis came home nine months after he went to jail and went to live in his mother’s house in an upscale neighborhood. Rhonda and the children stayed with Nett. It took Rhonda five months to find an apartment that she could afford. Curtis still had a flaming addiction to heroin and couldn’t work. She and the children were only in their new home six weeks when Curtis burglarized his own mother’s house. He took her silverware, television, cameras, and her jewelry. He ransacked the house to make it look like a stranger had committed the burglary. Curtis was not a rocket scientist. He was arrested when he tried to pawn his mother’s diamond earrings.

  Rhonda was devastated, but Curtis was her husband. She and a girlfriend pawned their engagement and wedding rings to bail him out of jail. On Tuesday, he was out. On Thursday, the day before he was scheduled to appear in court, Curtis disappeared.

  Nothing and no one in Rhonda’s life seemed to work well for any length of time. She had wanted so much for her marriage—and her life—to work out. Ray had gotten married, had a son, sepa
rated from his wife, and was now drunk or high most of the time. Ray couldn’t work. The State of New York had legalized off-track betting, which had seriously infringed on Daddy’s street gambling operation. So Daddy wasn’t working. Grandma had gotten old. She was still mean as hell, but she could no longer work. Nett had a new boyfriend, and their relationship was working, but her relationship with Rhonda had gone downhill.

  Rhonda was thin, she had hair, but nothing else in her life was working. She started going to dance classes at the community center to make herself feel better and met a new friend, Charlene. Charlene offered her a job teaching dance and told her about another job, working as a counselor for young women in a twenty-four hour rehabilitation center. That’s where Rhonda met John.

  CHAPTER NINE

  What’s the Lesson When You Engage in Self-Destructive Behavior?

  You are free to believe what you choose, and what you do attests to what you believe. Let us be glad that you will see what you believe and that it has been given to you to change what you believe.

  A Course in Miracles

  I KNEELED DOWN AT THE EDGE of the pond and dipped my hands into the cool, swirling water, letting it flow through my fingers. Though the water was clear, my reflection was distorted. It was Rhonda’s shadow. There was still so much of Rhonda in me and around me. What she did and how she did it. What she felt and how I responded. The branches of the weeping willows that encircled the pond seemed to hang a little lower, to bend a bit more. Still, they were beautiful and very soothing. Nestled among the poplars, surrounded by the summer flowers that were dying to make room for the fall blossoms, they formed a type of symmetry that was not present in Rhonda’s life, but which Iyanla desperately needed to see.