Yesterday, I Cried_ Celebrating the Lessons of Living and Loving - Iyanla Vanzant [30]
“Listen, baby,” she loved it when he called her baby, even if it was only once in a while. “If you and I are going to hell, believe me, Grandma will be there when we get there.” Daddy would wipe away Rhonda’s tears and send her off to play. She wanted to believe him, but she had heard a lot more of Grandma’s side of the story than she had her daddy’s.
Daddy taught Rhonda that money is more important than personal honor, and that it is okay to do whatever is required of you to get the money you need to live. He taught her that family is nowhere near as important as your reputation among your peers. He also taught her that making do with what you have is more important than asking for what you want. More important still, he taught her never to tell the truth if it will make trouble, or get you in trouble. He taught these things to Rhonda in all that he said and did. He passed it on to her brother as well, by word and by deed.
Rhonda often wondered how her daddy felt. How he felt about her, how he felt about his mother, and most important, how he felt about himself. Perhaps, she thought, if someone knew how he really felt, they could help him. Perhaps if his mother knew how he felt, she would not have stomped all over his heart. It wasn’t personal. It was about survival. Grandma was doing what she felt she needed to do to survive, and Daddy was doing the same thing. Rhonda was just trying to survive, too. Daddy and Grandma taught her to do whatever is necessary to get through the hard times, the difficult days, in order to survive.
Unfortunately, when you have a survivalist mentality, you become so caught up in surviving, you forget that there is another way of living. You forget about the joy and the gentleness and the softness. You forget about communication and intimacy. You forget that in the process of living you must remember to be gentle and kind. When you are a daddy, you may even forget that your little girl is watching you, waiting for you to make things better. Rhonda had a hard time learning all of the things that her daddy and the other adults in her life forgot.
CHAPTER FOUR
What’s the Lesson When You Don’t Realize That Life Is a School?
Today I am canceling mess! Getting rid of confusion that’s been hanging around like cobwebs on my ceiling. I am releasing my soul from tiredness and antiquated, meaningless crap! Stepping out of traps that have long been rusted. I’m doing like some companies do when they reorganize, forgiving debts, writing off losses, and establishing good credit for myself. There are simply some things that need to be written off. Some people, too!
Reverend June Gatlin, from Spirit Speaks to Sisters
I’M CONVINCED THAT expensive dogs are dumb. Mutts have good sense. They understand that they have to be good. They have to poop in appropriate places, they have to eat whatever they get, and they can’t chase the resident seventeen-year-old cat. Unfortunately, I didn’t have a mutt; I had an expensive dog. I could hear it outside the bathroom door, chasing and harassing the slow-moving cat. The fact that the water was cold and I had to rescue the old cat from the new dog provided an excellent opportunity to empty the cold, crappy water out of the Jacuzzi so that I could fill it up again. This time I would add a little peppermint and some rose oil to the water, a stimulating combination that takes the mind to the heart of the matter. After putting the dog in the basement and offering the stressed-out cat some Tender Vittles, I slipped back into the bathtub to continue my healing process.
Rhonda’s father had a girlfriend and he also had a wife. His girlfriend, with whom he had two children, Rhonda and Ray, had died of breast cancer and leukemia. He married