Hero

speech Adelle listened, trying to put her mind around why she was here. She recalled the young limo driver’s words to her on the drive over. You’re my hero, he’d said. And as Brian recounted the long list of accomplishments she’d achieved, the great sacrifices she’d made to the cause, she put the entire Civil Rights movement in perspective and finally saw why people looked at her in that way. Yes, to them she was a hero. But to her she’d never had a choice. She’d had no other option but to fight for her rights and those of her people. It wasn’t in her to sit by and let people walk all over her and mistreat her. She and others who marched and protested with her and staged that sit in at City Hall (which resulted in those bullshit kidnapping charges) were sending a simple message: they were human beings and they were no longer going to stand by and watch their brothers and sisters be beaten, killed, made to feel like second class citizens. They were no longer going to stand for it. They demanded their rights—they weren’t begging for it. In her mind, she couldn’t have done any differently if she’d wanted to. This was simply the way God had made her —a fighter.

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in the early sixties wasn’t the Jim Crow South, but it was too close for comfort with the Mason Dixon line a mere sixty miles away. There’d been segregation in her neighborhood growing up; there’d been police killings and back in the fifties, when she was just a child, there had even been a few lynchings. It wasn’t as prevalent as it was down South, but it existed nonetheless. Hatred like that still existed, although thankfully today it was rare. You still had the occasional idiot like that Michael Richards asshole who went off on some racist tirade that would then spin everything back thirty years, bringing the awful memories of those days back like it was still happening and she sometimes wondered if all she’d fought for was still worth it. But when she saw her daughter, Tonya, and her son-in-law Gerald and granddaughter Tess, she realized that, yes, her struggle had been worth it.

Tonya and Gerald lived in a good neighborhood, had good, professional jobs and sent Tess to a good school. They had friends of all races—Black, Latino, Asian, White—and Adelle liked them; they were good kids. She loved the fact that the younger generations had learned something from the struggles of the past. Maybe that was the result of her work.

Adelle picked up the remote control and turned on the TV. She turned on the news, hoping to get a replay of the ceremony tonight. Tonya told her Gerald was going to tape it and would send her a copy, but Adelle wanted to see if she could catch a glimpse of herself on TV. It’s not everyday one got their fifteen minutes of fame broadcast on CNN!

Sure enough, the segment on the NAACP awards ceremony was just starting and Adelle sat on the edge of the sofa, watching with a smile on her face. She thought she looked pretty good on TV. Maybe a little too heavy, but photos always made her look that way. And she looked nowhere near as old as she felt. Hell, she was only sixty- seven. By today’s standards, that was young.

Adelle sighed and stood up. She looked at the award she’d received that evening. She smiled and walked over to pick it up. She held it reverently in her hands, admiring its beauty. Yes, she was proud alright. She’d made a difference. Of that, she was certain.

She set the award down and headed down the hallway to her bedroom. She was just crossing the room when the headache she’d experienced earlier in the evening came back full force. She stopped in the entryway and blinked several times. Her vision blurred. She reached inside the room and turned on the light.

The room swam.

Adelle took a step toward the bed and it felt like she was walking on a boat in a roiling sea. She almost fell over. She reached for the doorway for support. Her stomach lurched in her belly, her headache worsened. What’s going on? she thought as her vision went blurry.

She waited for it to pass.

She took a step toward her four-poster bed.

And fell onto the floor, her right side already numb and not registering the pain as she hit the floor and blacked out.

* * *

Tears blurred Tonya Brown’s vision as she raced through the parking lot of Philadelphia Memorial Hospital. She’d received the phone call on her morning commute to work and had almost gotten into an accident getting to the hospital. She hadn’t even called her husband yet; the phone call had come fifteen minutes ago, and what she heard had shattered her.

Your mother has been admitted to Philadelphia General in critical condition, the voice on the other end of the phone said. It looks like she’s suffered either a heart attack or a stroke.

That single phone call had sent Tonya racing in the opposite direction, speeding toward Center City. And now, as she entered the hospital lobby, she searched for the directions that would tell her where Intensive Care was.

“Can I help you?”

The young African-American nurse behind the check-in counter was looking at Tonya with concern.

“My mother was just brought here,” Tonya said. “Adelle Smith…they told me she was…”

“She’s on four,” the nurse said. “Intensive care. I’ll have somebody escort you.” And with that another nurse, a middle-aged White woman, came around the check-in counter and escorted Tonya to the elevator.

When Tonya reached the room her mother was in she had to hold back the tears.

Momma was in bed, IVs attached to her, machines monitoring her breathing and heart rate. She looked like she was asleep except for her ashen complexion, which had gone from chocolate to a waxy gray. Tonya approached the side of the bed and looked down at her mother, wanting to cry but knowing she had to be strong.

A doctor entered the room. He was in his fifties, White, with thinning black hair. He was holding a medical chart.

“Ms. Smith?” He asked Tonya politely.

“I’m her daughter, yes,” Tonya said. “How is she? What happened, is she—”

“Your mother’s suffered a stroke,” the doctor said. “Several, in fact. She underwent a CAT scan very early this morning and it was discerned that the first one was very small. She probably wasn’t aware of it.”

“When? How?” Tonya was confused and scared. Momma had been fine last night!

“The first one occurred yesterday afternoon,” the doctor said. “The second one very early that evening, and the third one shortly after she arrived home last night. That was the one that caused her first blackout. When she regained consciousness she was able to crawl to her phone and dial 911. She was experiencing a fourth stroke when rescue units arrived.”

“Oh my God!” Tonya buried her face in her hands and sobbed.

The doctor was genuine, caring, sympathetic. He led her gently toward a chair and she sat down. “Your mother suffered what is called an ischemic stroke, when a blockage occurs in the blood vessels supplying blood to the brain. We immediately put her through Acute Stroke Therapy to dissolve the clots.”

“Will she be okay?”

“Your mother will live through this, yes. We won’t know what kind of neurological damage might have been done until we run some more tests.”

A wave of emotion threatened to overwhelm Tonya, but she fought it down. If there was one thing momma taught her, it was to be strong in the face of adversity. Now was not the time to cry.

She drew herself up, composed herself. “Okay,” she said. She glanced at the clock on the wall; it was eight- thirty. “How long was she unconscious last night?”

“Approximately three hours,” the doctor said. “Paramedics brought her in just before four this morning.”

“And it took four hours for you to call me?”

“When she arrived she came without identification. The police didn’t get that to us until an hour ago.”

“My God,” Tonya said. Now she was growing angry. “What the hell took them so long? What, did they think they were just packing up another poor black woman in an ambulance and sending her on her way to the hospital so she could die?”

“I couldn’t guess, Miss. I can’t presume to understand why the police acted the way they did,” the doctor said. “Needless to say, your mother has received the very best treatment since arriving here and our administrators worked diligently with the police to obtain her identity. I’m sorry we didn’t learn who she was until just a little while