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8. What’s the Lesson When You Don’t Reconcile Your Past Before Moving Ahead?

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

10. What’s the Lesson When You Are a Motherless Child Raising Children?

11. What’s the Lesson When You Learn the Lesson, Then Forget It?

12. What’s the Lesson When You Begin to Recognize Yourself as Who You Really Are?

13. What’s the Lesson When You Lose Someone You Really Love?

14. What’s the Lesson When You Have Mastered All the Wrong Lessons?

15. What’s the Lesson When You Try to Cheat on a Test?

16. What’s the Lesson When You Don’t Love Yourself First?

17. What’s the Lesson When You Get the Lesson but Don’t Know What to Do With It?

18. What’s the Lesson When You Let the Past Pass?

19. What’s the Lesson When You Do It All Wrong and It Turns Out All Right?

Epilogue

Preface

Dear Iya:

Yesterday, I Cried will be a blessing to the world as you have been a blessing to me. I remember when I first heard your voice on tape (the National Black Wholistic Health Retreat tape). I could not sit down. I started pacing. Was this because of the truth you were sharing? I thought so then, and as the years have passed, I know that it really was because I was hearing a member of my “soul’s” family.

When I met you in the flesh, I could see your apprehension, and your love. I remember how much you gave of yourself. Iya, you were so available to the women who were present. I felt very protective of you, then and now. I did not want people to use you up, or burn you out. I also remember how unconcerned you were about the money. It wasn’t because you were financially set, either. You set the basket of money in the sun, telling me it would grow, and the very next day, one of the women we were working with gave you a large sum of money.

I remember all of the little notes to yourself (on the walls, in the bathroom, near your bed) in your house on Pine Street. I remember how thirsty you were for truth and the “clarity” of truth. I remember all of our conversations, processing, laughing, cussing, crying, and laughing some more. I find it absolutely incredible how you have moved through some very serious and heavy stuff with a sense of humor. Your humor is a gift!

I want to say some things to you that you perhaps do not realize about yourself. You have really, really paid your dues. People don’t know the risks you took to be where you are, the “stable” jobs you said no to so that you could remain free enough to walk on nothing, absolutely nothing, but faith. You put your trust in the process. I have been a witness to your “acts of faith.” You are more focused than you realize. People don’t know how you opened your home to everyone and anyone, and how you gave of yourself so unselfishly. People don’t know about the health challenges that presented themselves, or how you said no to them, aligned yourself for healing, and found it. People don’t know the toll and the price you have paid, traveling with the “word” in your belly.

What I have loved about you is your honesty, even about your dishonesty. I love that you have the tenacity to operate effectively in the world. I have enjoyed the process of watching you grow and heal yourself and others. I am so very proud of you. I feel that I am a part of the process and of you. When they speak of you, I feel they’re talking about me too! You have been a sister to me, a friend, a teacher, a student, and my baby. I really believe I came into your life to love you unconditionally.

When you became famous, I really missed our time—you eating coffee ice cream and me subs. But you stayed connected, and I adjusted. I was happy with you, and for you, for the way Spirit was using you. Yet I felt the loss. This was all a part of the process. Your process. My process. Our process. I have watched you reframe your history. I have watched you take leaps. I have watched you, and it has been a joy. I’m loving you, Iya.

Shaheerah (Reverend Linda Stephens)

Detroit, MI

Introduction

I AM NOT THE TYPE OF FATHER FIGURE