Yesterday, I Cried_ Celebrating the Lessons of Living and Loving - Iyanla Vanzant [98]
Dear Ronnie,
Thank you. If you ever need me, this is for you. 913 319 510 326 306 105 700 976.
Each number represented an address, a birthday or some significant date in her or her father’s life. The 700, for instance, was from the license plate number of the Cadillac Daddy bought after Rhonda had given him the numbers she got from Sarah in her dream. That was the clue that told her exactly what to do with the numbers. Whenever she needed money, Rhonda would go to the Off-Track Betting Office and place a bet on the Exacta, just like Daddy had taught her. It never failed; she always won.
I was ready now to leave the prayer room and get back into a tub of hot water and rose oil. It was just what I needed. Rhonda’s father never gave her roses. He never gave her a compliment. At the time of his death, he had never put his arms around her and told her that he loved her, or that she was his pretty little girl. Rhonda’s father abused and neglected her, and still she loved him unconditionally. Rhonda didn’t know it, but I knew it.
I knew that Rhonda spent so much time being angry with her father for what he had and had not done, she never took the opportunity to appreciate who he was. Daddy was a wounded little boy doing his best to raise his little girl. He could not do for her what had not been done for himself. He had never been taught how to love and therefore did not know how to express love to his children or to himself. I know that he did the best that he could. I could get into a tub of hot water and cry the tears that Rhonda couldn’t shed. She didn’t know about judgment and forgiveness. She didn’t know about unconditional love. Rhonda had spent her life yearning for something she already had: the best her father could give.
Unconditional love does not mean that you accept or condone mistreatment. It does not mean you excuse people their faults and frailties. It does mean you see them, accept them, and love them, despite the things you may not like about them. If Rhonda had known that, she could have learned to laugh with her daddy, to have fun with him when he was available. When he was not available to her, she would not have blamed herself. She would not have believed that she lacked anything she needed to get love.
Rhonda loved her daddy unconditionally. That is why she never talked badly about her father. That is why she kept trying to get his attention. When you give love, you want to feel that it is being reciprocated.
What Rhonda didn’t know was that love does not have to come from the place or in the same manner you give it. Nett was the love Daddy could not give. Ruth, Eddie, and her children were expressions of love. God’s love. Rhonda did not realize that no matter how bad it got, something or someone always came along to lift her up and love her. Not because she was special, but because she was lovable. Love always begets love. After all that she had been through in her life, she was not a violent, vicious, or malicious person. She always found someone to help, someone to love. She was so fixated on getting love in a certain way, from a particular person, she missed the love that was all around her. It was never enough. She could have filled the void by celebrating the love she was, and the love she had.
Rhonda had been taught love and loving require doing and getting. If you do this, you will get love. If you don’t do this, you will lose love. She learned that love was a bargain, when in fact, love is a principle. It is a state of being that we experience as what we do and how we do it. Because most of the people in Rhonda’s life inflicted pain on her, she closely associated love with pain, whether mental, emotional, or physical. Love hurt Rhonda. As a result, when she loved someone, she would hurt herself rather than hurt them.
As the scent of the rose oil filled