by Diamond
Finally, Mother and Father would come down and watch us open our gifts.
Wow. Those were the days. Mother and Father outdid themselves every year.
On days like Christmas and Thanksgiving, food was always plentiful: turkey and dressing, candied yams, ham, chitterlings, collard greens, macaroni and cheese, baked beans, sweet potato pies.
And don’t forget the banana pudding. Just thinking about it right now, makes me want to eat.
Yes. And it was all about family and love. We were a close-knit family because, even at a young age, we knew all we had was each other.
That’s right.
The spirit of believing in Santa also brought in the faith aspect.
The faith, yes…
Because we were preparing for what we wanted, we felt happy. We were feeling as if it was going to happen, as if it had happened. Then when we walked down the stairs with our little selves in the morning, there it was.
Yes. We felt it, we knew it, and it happened.
I can even remember when we were little, in order to complete our chores, we would compartmentalize. If we were doing laundry and putting clothes away, we would play cleaners; when we had to do dishes, we played restaurant; when we had to do homework, we played school. We were the schoolteachers, and we had imaginary students that we had to teach our homework to. We literally wrote on the wall with chalk to teach our imaginary students. One day, Mother told us to stop washing the walls with Ajax. Little did she know, it wasn’t Ajax; we were writing on her walls with chalk!
We also made up imaginary friends who were rich. One of them, Jackie-Ackie-Fackie, was getting married. Silk was the flower shop owner and made the flowers out of toilet tissue. Our job was to bring him these flowers. He lived out of town, so we had to make plane reservations.
We would actually call the airport and make reservations, using our imaginary names.
The upstairs steps served as the airplane taking us to our destination. We would pack our little bags, go sit on the steps, and pretend to travel.
We never realized that was preparing us for what we do today.
* * *
It was in elementary school that I remember getting my feelings badly hurt for the very first time. I was in the second grade, and my favorite teacher, Ms. Jones, yelled at me. I was a very sensitive child and always clung to my mother. Mother babied me, and she never hurt my feelings, so I didn’t understand why Ms. Jones had hurt my feelings.
But why did she yell at you?
She was sore with me because I wasn’t moving fast enough for her. I guess I had worked her last nerve, and she yelled in such a loud tone, “Hurry up, Hardaway.” The pitch of her voice scared me to the point that I became embarrassed.
I call it a defining moment because that was when I learned, in one hard shot, to stay in my place and do what I’m told. If I didn’t, people would get ugly.
Hmm.
Now, in fairness to Ms. Jones, she may have been having a bad day, but as a little girl I didn’t understand that; all I saw was that she didn’t like me anymore because she had yelled at me.
So, now, thinking back to that stage and age in my life, I would say that one of my defining moments was being in class and having to solve math problems.
The teacher’s name was Mr. Williams. He was kind of a heavyset guy, and he didn’t like to stand up a lot. I can see him, always leaning back in his chair.
This one day, he wanted the entire class to play this game. To me, it was more like a challenge. I had to go head to head with another student to see who could give the teacher the correct answer to the math problem first. Mr. Williams was clever in the way he got us to learn. He would pull out money, like pennies, nickels, and dimes…
Wow…
And he would tell us that if we answered the problem right, we would get this nickel or dime.
When the game was over, I was the winner. I won the challenge. Though I was giddy about winning, I was more excited about being able to be in a challenge to see what I could do.
Silk has always been the competitive one.
I don’t know if I want to call it competitiveness. I think that it was just the thrill from the challenge of competing against my own self and saying to myself: I know this; I got this; I can win this.
Today, I really don’t like being in competition with other people because I feel like everybody should have an equal playing field. You do you, and I do me—with the same tools.
But the one thing I notice about you is that if there is a problem, you’re going to get to the very bottom of it, even if it takes you all night.
Oh, yes.
At times, I’ll get annoyed with you, but that’s how you are, and that is the gift that God gave you.
You’re right, because I’ve got to do my research. I’ve got to dig in and see what this is; I’ve got to see what that is; I’ve got to make sure that it’s right. I feel like there is a science to everything, and the challenge is to find the key ingredient that makes everything work.
That’s Silk. You can call her Inspector Gadget and me the Mouth of the South.
Gurl, yes, I’ve got to figure it out.
* * *
By the time I got to the third grade and Silk got to the fourth grade, Mother and Father were on to another venture. The lease was up on the laundromat, and the building owner, a man by the name of Goodson, wanted to raise the rent.
Mother and Father didn’t have a problem with him going up on the lease; they had a problem with him tripling the rent.
Sometimes building owners will raise the rent every year or every two years, but they shouldn’t go up so high that it feels like they are darn near price gouging.
Because Goodson saw a steady flow of customers and that Freeman’s Neighborhood Laundromat was being patronized by the community, he thought that the business must be raking in the money—but that was not the case.
By the time you figured in the lights, water, and gas to heat the place, Mother and Father were barely breaking even. So when the landlord raised the rent so high, Father had no choice but to move out the machines and close down the laundromat. It was a sad day for the community because the laundromat was leaving, and they would have to find somewhere else to do their laundry.
But it was really a good day for Mother and Father. They may have been down, but they weren’t out. When one door closes, a big old window will open, but this time my parents had to leap through it by faith!
Yes. So, one day, Father was driving in the heart of Detroit when he saw a man setting out dry cleaning equipment. He pulled over, got out of the car, and asked the man why he was setting out the equipment.
The gentleman turned to him and said he could not pay his lease, and he had only so many days to move the equipment out.
Mm-hmm.
My father asked if he would like to sell it, and the man said yes. My father offered him $500, and the man accepted. Father gave him $100 down and agreed to pay him $100 a month until it was paid for in full.
The man looked at Father as if he were crazy. The equipment weighed about 3,000 pounds, and he couldn’t figure out how Father was going to move it.
Oh, but what that man didn’t know is that our father had a plan. He called a friend by the name of Elder Vie, an elder at a church we often visited. Elder Vie was experienced in moving heavy equipment. He and Father moved all of that heavy equipment to our garage, where it sat until Mother and Father found a building.
We knew it was just a matter of time before God opened up another door for Mother and Father, and that door was about to swing wide.
Mm-hmm.
It wasn’t long before Father was out riding down Plymouth Road, in Detroit, Michigan, when he saw a building up for sale. He said, “Hmm… that would be a good spot for a dry cleaner.”
He whipped his car around in the middle of the street and landed in front of the building in order to look it over. After giving it a good inspection, he hightailed it home to let Mother
know what he had seen.
Father was so excited. When he walked through the door, he rushed up to Mother to tell her what he had found.
Mother said to him, “How are you going to pay for it?”
When Mother said that, Father was crushed—but his spirit was still intact.
Yes. That’s when he walked upstairs and disappeared into his bedroom. We didn’t know what to think.
Here’s what happened when he locked himself in that room, as he tells the story: He sat on the edge of the bed and began to pray. He said to God, “If this building is for us, touch my wife’s heart and let her see the vision that I see.”
Mother finished cooking dinner, and Father came downstairs to eat. After dinner, Mother looked at my father and said to him, “Let’s go and see that building you were talking about.”
Father says that his heart almost jumped out of his chest. He couldn’t believe his ears. He had just prayed to God, and the sun hadn’t even gone down. Mother was showing some interest in his vision.
They immediately jumped in the car and drove to the building. Thereafter, our parents were the proud owners of Hardaway’s Dry Cleaners.
Diamond and I had an opportunity to visit the building back in 2018. It was abandoned, but here’s the crazy thing: On the sun-damaged, faded-out green awning, you can see remnants of wording from when our parents owned it—and also the word “Silk” left over from the services the next set of tenants had offered.
That felt like a boomerang moment.
* * *
Mother got tired of us being in the public school system. Because she hadn’t been able to finish school, she wanted us to have the best education possible, so she put us in a private Catholic school.
Right!
I was in the fourth grade and Silk was in the fifth grade in our first year at St. Casimir, where Father Gene and Sister Leonard ran the school.
That’s right.
Another significant and defining moment came from my fourth grade teacher, Ms. Jeffries, who was a black teacher. Now, I’m going to be honest, I just was not applying myself. But instead of pulling out what was in there with encouragement and recognition, this teacher’s answer was to divide the class into sections based on how smart we were. The smart kids sat in the front sections; the ones that may have been a little smart were next, in their own section; then came the next group, who were just a tad less smart; and then came the kids who just did not grasp it, and they were put in the back. I was one of the girls that sat in the back.
Hmm.
The teacher may not have thought that I knew how I was being labeled. But I did, and I was an impressionable young person. I may not have caught on to her teaching methods, but I had enough intelligence and instinct to see what she was doing.
This is when I totally checked out of the fourth grade. If I was going to be labeled “dumb” and be put in the back, why should I apply myself?
Mm-hmm.
If she felt like I was not applying myself, then it was her job as the teacher to find out why.
Right.
From that day, all the way through high school, I felt separated from my classmates.
But back to St. Casimir: My second year there brought me to the fifth grade. And it was in that year that there was a defining moment that actually altered me and propelled me into my calling.
My teacher’s name was Ms. Mosley, and her classroom assistant’s name was Ms. Houston. Ms. Mosley was skinny and had a caramel complexion. Every day she wore pantsuits; we never saw her in a dress.
My fifth grade year was great all the way up to the time Ms. Mosley and Ms. Houston decided to have a fruit party for the class.
For reasons of her own, my mom didn’t buy fruit for me to take to school that day. So while the fruit party was going on, one boy and I couldn’t participate because we had not brought any fruit. We were told to put our heads down.
Why was this such a significant event? Because as my head was down on the desk, it was down in shame because I didn’t have what was needed to participate. This is why today, as an adult, I’m so passionate about advocating for people that don’t have. During that time when my head was down, though I felt ashamed, I decided—you know what?—I want to advocate for people that don’t have.
I have such a big heart for those in need, and this defining moment is one of the reasons why. I don’t ever want anyone to feel ashamed because they don’t have something. I’ve been in grocery stores and have paid for the person’s groceries in front of me if they didn’t have enough money to pay for them. I’ve helped people that needed to eat who didn’t have the money. I’ve helped people who were homeless to try to give them a fresh start.
If I know of someone in need, I’ll see if I can figure out how to help them. Because I don’t want—now I’m about to cry—that was embarrassing and that was humiliating, and you should never do that to a child.
That was a defining moment.
Wow, sis. That was so profound. As you were telling the story, it was as if you were reliving it all over again, with such emotion. You’re passionate about people who don’t have, and your response is always, “Let me see how I can help you.”
I am like that; I’ll give my last.
Because at times you could be standing in a line, and if somebody has a problem, you would get involved.
Because every time I think about it, I feel that same humiliation I felt back then. No one should ever do that to a child, make them feel like they can’t participate. Because maybe the parent forgot, or maybe the parent couldn’t afford to buy fruit for thirty students.
Right, right, right. Well, unfortunately, that’s how it was back then. It’s important to see how that defining moment prepared you for today.
Right.
Just like that time when we were standing in line at a restaurant waiting to give our order, and a supervisor was scolding his employee in front of everybody. It was you that stepped up and got that supervisor straight. You didn’t know the girl or the supervisor. You just knew that there is a right way and a wrong way to talk to a human being, even if you are their supervisor.
That is why I advocate for people who don’t have and speak for people who can’t speak. They’re telling you that you can’t have; I’m telling you that you can have; I’m telling you that you can come up, and you can be more.
Right. Hmm… that was a huge defining moment, it surely was.
As moments like that go, I vividly remember one time when I was sitting in class, looking at the teacher writing on the chalkboard. The words looked like a lot of letters scrambled together, and none of it made sense to me. I sat there and tried to figure it out because I was too scared to ask questions, in fear that the rest of the class would pick on me.
When we would have to do an assignment, I would just put down any old answer and turn in my paper. Yup, I got my big fat “F,” written in red ink. No worries. I thought the teacher was the one who had the problem.
Now, it’s at the end of the quarter, and it’s time for parent–teacher conferences. No shame in my game; it was the teacher who didn’t know how to figure out a way for me to understand what she was talking about.
Well during the conference the principal of the school told my parents that I would never be able to learn and that it would always be hard for me to comprehend, and that was something they would have to accept. Again, no worries. I let it roll right off of me. I didn’t get offended at all because I knew that something was definitely wrong with the teacher, not me. Hell, I wasn’t getting paid to teach her, she was getting paid to teach me.
As I continued to pass to each next grade by learning how to teach myself, I saw things in a different manner and from a very different perspective. I heard things a particular way that didn’t make sense to anyone else but me. I had to learn how to remember, go and get a book, read it, and compare what I read to things that I could relate to or to things that were very simple.
I had to actually develop
my own system of how to comprehend things myself, especially before I took a test. Now, did I cheat? You bet your bottom dollar I did. It was better to cheat than to repeat.
If I really had to explain my methods to someone else, they wouldn’t get it. I can’t learn it their way, so I’ll learn it my own way because my way is the right way for me.
Here’s an important life lesson from this particular defining moment: I understood that someone was trying to label me, but I didn’t agree with them. The teacher was the adult; I was the child. She was supposed to be there to teach me, and if I wasn’t getting it that meant that she wasn’t doing a very good job at teaching.
To this day I still use all of the skills that I developed for myself. In fact, my dog-on-bone research has become a very important part of what we do. I find it fairly easy to break down the most complex issues by using a level of common sense that resonates with our everyday life.
Now comes our third year at St. Casimir. I move into the sixth grade, and Silk is in the seventh grade. While everyone was going back to school happy about their summer vacation, I was returning with my skin all broke out because I was coming into puberty. I looked like a hot mess; my hair was falling out; I was really stressed out.
So, now, this was the perfect opportunity to get picked on and bullied because my hair was not long enough; my skin was not good enough. So I felt insecure. I didn’t feel confident at all, not in the sixth grade, and this made the bullying all that much worse because I believed the things my tormentors were saying.
Now let me point out one thing: it was not white children bullying me; I was harassed by people with the same skin color as me.
Right!
What my classmates didn’t know was all of the stress we were experiencing at home. Our homelife had become so stressful that my hair started falling out in patches. It got so bad, Mother went and bought me a small wig.
So, after the Easter holiday break, I returned to school wearing a wig, not because I wanted to but because I had no other choice. Of course, the bullying got worse; I was bullied relentlessly.