How I Became Me Chapter 17

In the limousine ride to Shaw’s Creek Baptist Church in Edgefield South Carolina the silence was powerful. The emotions everyone had felt like thumps in your ear drums from loud bass flowing out of a super speaker. Everyone was full of emotion and mixed feelings about any and everything you could possibly imagine. It felt like our lives were all about departed family members. The rest of our family and our friends were lost to the appropriate response or the appropriate show of support for a family that has buried a father, a brother, and now a mother. I could see in their eyes they were trying to contemplate their state of being if they were hit with such tragedy. It was a feeling that I couldn’t have imagined if it wasn’t happening to us. Once we reached the church which was the church most of us were baptized in, the church I first began singing, the church we had most of our childhood memories. Our sister Brenda was buried there and now we are burying our mother right next to our father. It was a church none of us every wanted to go back to because of the way people were and how horrible they treated our family. Now it would appear that we are bound there for eternity as it is our families resting place. The process to get the funeral together, to get the needed paperwork for the burial, making sure that the plot was prepared took more drama from the church members than the funeral home. It still amazes me how evil people can be in the face of tragedy. Somehow we managed to stay focused long enough to do the wishes of our mother. Everyone started pulling into the grave site, cars behind cars, limos behind limos. Family poured out by what seemed to be hundreds. The friends that shared our mother were equally devastated by her passing. In those darkest moments you can still have happy experiences. I watched so many people crying because of how deeply my mother touched their lives. I felt proud to call myself her child knowing how well missed she would truly be. In those instances you can find great power in the love for someone. You can see that they left a legacy; that they meant something to the world, and life just wouldn’t merely keep going now that she was gone. All of the siblings held each other’s hands as we walked to our seats in front of the casket which seemed to float over the opening in the ground. The entire experience is so daunting that you can’t fathom accepting that they will lower someone you were attached to, the person that gave you life, the person that nourished you, the person that sung you to sleep, the person that knew you better than you knew yourself, the person that could scare away bad dreams, the only person that looked at you and saw you for who you were and was happy that you were born. To see this woman that would be the first and last woman you would ever love being put into a hole just brings you to a point of such agony and unbearable pain. I knew what grieving meant at that moment. We all felt it and for the first time in a very long time we were all connected. It was as if we could read each other’s minds. When one of us took a step we all looked in the direction they were stepping before they actually placed their foot down. When someone was about to cry one of us would have tissue to hand over to them before the tear formed. It was understood that we were blood and that we all came from the vessel of such an amazing person and we were all fighting back the horrible task of saying good-bye. Our family is well known for being social, hardworking, talented, loving, determined, hot tempered, and a level of humor that is only surpassed by the next sibling. When Peggy was being escorted to the burial site we were all prepared for what would be a phenomenal performance and in Peggy style she did not disappoint. Her son Maurice and her husband Hoyte had each hand, as soon as Peggy could see the casket she did exactly what we knew she would…she fainted. The thing about drama is it is only as powerful as the response and reaction you get from your performance. We all knew what to expect so just like our family was known to do at these times, we just proceeded to the seats laid out for us. Hoyte was already emotional so we understood that he wouldn’t ignore his wife fainted even though he was well aware that it wasn’t real. One of our best friends and pretty much a sister to us was in school to be a nurse. Laura walked over and checked Peggy’s vitals and announced that she was fine and just needed some time to rest. Though the moment was dreadfully painful we managed to muster up “The Upson Look” at one another. It is a facial expression that only the family and the people closest to us would understand. You press your lip to one side, dip your to the opposite side, roll your eyes, and smirk. It is a tool that is inherited and no one knows who started it, we just always knew when to use it and when to recognize it. Under the circumstances the funeral was beautiful and we did our mother proud. Of course there was drama before and after but to dwell on the nonsense would over shadow the greatest loss of all time. Even today the loss of my mom is unthinkable. Rationally I understand that she was sick and when she heard about yet another child passing she lost her strength to fight. Though our father would not have won any rewards for husband or father of the year, he was still our mother’s husband and our father. When he passed she was alone, no matter if she was surrounded by family and friends, her companion was no longer with her. They argued, they fought, but they loved one another. My father always wanted my mom all to his self which sounds silly when they had 11 children. When I became an adult I understood that feeling. As children our mother would always say, “When I’m gone…” but we would never want to hear her speak that aloud. The thought of her leaving us was too great a shock and a dread. I guess most kids that are blessed to have such an amazing woman as a mother would fear losing her though we understand the cycle of life; we still get angry at God for making her suffer and then taking her away from us. Right before she got too sick to do what she normally did, our mother worked until she couldn’t work anymore. She was a strong woman that survived unspeakable abuse from her husband and from other people she tried to protect. She was mistreated and disrespected but she still had love and still represented her belief in God. My mother taught me the value of speaking your mind and not holding back your feelings. She was the first person to bring to my attention that my face tells my story. I would tell her I was fine but being the mom she was, she knew better. She never let me go a day without telling me how proud she was of me. She babied me until she realized that I was mature enough to take care of myself. My baby brother Arnold and I made a vow that we would always take care of her. My dream of stardom was solely because of her. I wanted to become rich so that I could allow her a life of pampering, luxuries that she deserved. My mother was a fighter, a lover, a tough woman that knew struggle and was never afraid to face it head on. We grew up pretty close to poor but you would never know it to look at us. She taught us to never show how much money you had or how much money you wish you had. She is truly the inspiration behind me being who I am and I am becoming. As I get older I see more and more of her in me. I can still remember the phone calls we had when I moved to Atlanta. I could talk to her about anything and she called me all the time to tell me when things were crazy back at home. When I was living with Henry she wrote me a letter and told me how much she loved me and how proud she was that I moved away and didn’t allow all of the negativity that happened to me when I came back home change who I wanted to be. I can remember times when I was sick and calling her always made me feel better. The soothe of her motherly voice telling me I will be all right seemed to cure the flu and the common cold. Every holiday was a day to spend with her. She didn’t care about what the world was doing because when she had all of her kids under one roof she was the richest woman in the world. All she ever said was that she wanted her kids to be happy. It would always make her smile to just see her babies walking the earth as adults, living our own independent lives, coming home to see her and tell her what we were doing out there in the world. She had such shine in her eyes when she spoke of her children. Every visit home you were not a stranger to people you didn’t even know. Everywhere I went with her people knew me and knew everything I was doing in Atlanta. I felt guilt that I didn’t achieve the success in my life to do for her what I’d always dreamed to do. After a short while that guilt changed into determination to still pursue my dreams because I knew that she was watching me and guiding me through. There are those times when I miss talking to her and all of a sudden this calm falls over me and I can feel her presence. I know she sees me and isn’t worried because I have learned her and I walk her every day. I speak my mind, I don’t allow people to walk over me, I still love despite let downs, setbacks, backstabbing, and lies. “I walk this earth a man, a man with virtue and joy. The path ahead of me is truly a dark one but the force that guides me is my light. I can face the power of pain and smile as I slay the obstacles forming around me. I walk this earth a man, a man that knows what it means to love, to hate, to sacrifice, the laugh when I am happy and to cry when I am sad. I hold strong the legacy that is Mother and Father. I am my mother’s child for I am part of the vessel that brought me life. I walk this earth a man, not a man of blind ambition but of sight towards a goal that is obtainable because I claim it to be. No mountain can block my view for my vision comes from what I feel and not what I see. No water is too deep to cross because I am not burdened by nonsense and matters that don’t deserve attention. I float across the ocean with the knowing that I have a destination and my hope allows me the ability to hover. I walk this earth a man, not just a man but a strong man because I was brought to this earth by a woman, not just a woman but by my strong mother.” -Rest in peace my mother, my friend, my angel, and my teacher. You are missed and never forgotten.