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By Root 839 0

During this time, Rhonda was occupied with ritual bathing and praying. If someone wasn’t washing her, they were praying over her. If they weren’t praying, they were giving her something to eat, drink, or wear on her neck, wrists, or ankles. She was a yawo, a baby. It was a time when the elder priests were glad for her and with her and waited on her hand and foot. Rhonda had never seen so many people willing to serve her and happy that she was alive. When the seven days were over, she went home dressed in white from head to toe. She would wear white every day for the next year. It was after she got home that the dreams and the voices resumed.

Rhonda’s dreams became clearer and more exciting each night. She remembered most of them, but some of her dreams moved so fast she couldn’t remember anything when she woke up exhausted. Three months after the initiation, Rhonda had a series of dreams that were of great significance.

In the first dream, the doorbell rang, and Rhonda went downstairs to answer the door. Standing outside was the image of death. It was a tall figure, dressed in a hooded black cape. It had no face. When Rhonda slammed the door on the image and turned to walk back up the stairs to her apartment, the figure was standing at the top of the stairs. It walked into her apartment and closed the door. Rhonda sat straight up in bed; she was wide-awake. She jumped out of bed and ran through the house, looking for the image. She was standing in the kitchen when she realized she’d been dreaming. Her heart was beating wildly, her mouth was dry, and she was shaking like a leaf.

The next night she had a similar dream. This time, the figure was standing at her apartment door when she opened it. Startled, she stepped back. The figure moved through her body, down the hall, and into the children’s room. Again, Rhonda awoke in a panic. She ran to check on the children. The children were fine. She left the light on in their room, and instead of going back to bed, she prayed. Rhonda prayed in every language and faith she knew. She asked Daddy’s Yogananda to help her. She asked Grandma’s Jesus to help her. She prayed at her altar and asked the ancestors to help her. Someone, she knew, was getting ready to die. It couldn’t be Nett, who was now eating on her own and walking and talking. It’s Damon, she thought. Something is going to happen to Damon. Rhonda promised God that she would pray and fast for three days in order to receive a message. She needed to know what to do to save her son. She never went back to bed, and she refused to let Damon out of the house all day.

The next night, Rhonda had the most frightening dream of all. This time when the doorbell rang, the image of death was standing over her bed, staring at her. She was paralyzed with fear. “Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death. Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death.” Rhonda was screaming and crying in her sleep; tears were streaming down her face. The ringing bedside phone woke her up. “Hello!” she screamed into the receiver.

“Ronnie?” It was Edna, Daddy’s wife.

“Sorry for yelling,” Rhonda said weakly. “I was having a bad dream.” She tried to calm herself down, but the image was still vivid.

“I’ve got some bad news. Your daddy is dead.”

Without waking her children, Rhonda dressed herself in her white clothes, jumped in her green car with the one brown door, and made it to Daddy’s house in record time.

He looked like he was asleep. Daddy was lying on the bed, his arms folded across his chest. Edna said she had gone to temple, and when she returned, she had found him just as he was. She tried to wake him, and when she couldn’t, she went in the kitchen and made herself a cup of tea. When she returned to the bedroom, she found the note:

Dear Ed,

Please tell Ma I’m sorry. I am sorry.

Harry

That’s when she realized he was dead.

Edna was pretty calm, and so was Rhonda. But Daddy’s five children were anything but calm. As soon as Rhonda would get one quieted down, another one would start up. When the children