Yesterday, I Cried_ Celebrating the Lessons of Living and Loving - Iyanla Vanzant [57]
Three weeks after Martin Luther King was assassinated, Rhonda gave birth to a baby girl. Little Tracey, named after Teddy’s sister, was five pounds thirteen ounces, and seventeen inches long. Tracey looked just like her father. Same eyes, same color, same everything. Tracey went directly from the hospital into foster care. Rhonda went back home to Nett’s disappointed sadness, Ray’s indifference, Grandma’s predictable “I told you sos,” and to begin living with her own shame.
One day, soon after she returned home, Teddy reappeared. She was walking home from the store when she saw him.
“Was it a boy or a girl?” Teddy knew where Rhonda had been because his mother and all the other mothers in the building had been gossiping about why Rhonda had disappeared right in the middle of the school year.
“A girl.” Rhonda said and never stopped walking. She refused to even look at Teddy. When they got to the front of the apartment building, Teddy said a quick “see ya” and ran across the street to the park. For the rest of that day and for several days after that, Rhonda sat in the window and watched Teddy.
The train ride uptown usually took about twenty minutes, but on this day it seemed to take forever. Every time the train stopped, every time the doors opened, every time one person got up and another sat next to her, Rhonda would break down and cry again. By the time the train reached the Seventy-second Street stop, she was weeping inconsolably. Some of the women on the train, sensing her pain, offered her tissues and cough drops. At the Eighty-sixth Street station, one of the women helped Rhonda off the train and asked her what was the matter. Rhonda explained that her six-month-old-baby, who had been in foster care, had died that morning, and she didn’t know why. Her mother was at work and couldn’t leave, and she didn’t know where her father was, and the baby’s father had disappeared—again. The only thing the woman could think of to say was, “You’re so young.” She gave Rhonda some extra tissues, wished her well, and went on her way. Rhonda was alone and on her way to identify her baby’s body.
Reggie and his entire family came to the funeral. The social worker and the foster parents also came. Nett, Daddy, and Ray refused to attend. Surprisingly, Grandma wanted to come, but Nett lied to her about the day and the time. Tracey lay in a small white casket and wore a little white dress. She looked so tiny. Rhonda sat still in the pew and wondered why she felt no grief for her dead child. She felt no sadness, no loss, no pain. She waited all through the funeral, hoping that she’d feel something. She waited as they placed the tiny casket in yet another big black car, and even as Tracey was lowered into the ground. It wasn’t until Rhonda looked up and saw the lady in the white dress standing in front of the grave that she felt anything at all. And what she felt was closure. Finally, it was all over.
With all that behind her, things returned to normal pretty quickly. In a matter of weeks, Rhonda was back to her schoolwork, hanging out with her friends, and her dance classes. It took several months before she got up the courage to share her experience with her dance buddies. And to her surprise, most of them already knew or at least had some idea. Things at home had changed, however. The only time she and Nett talked was when Nett was questioning her about where she was going, where she had been, and whether she was “messing around again.” Whenever Daddy showed up, he looked over her, around her, but never directly at her. At sixteen years old, Ray was becoming a full-fledged alcoholic. He could care less that his sister had been pregnant and buried a baby.
Rhonda had learned a great deal in the past year. Everything had happened so fast that the lessons had come in fragments. One fragment of what she learned led her to believe that when you don’t matter