“Come on you guys, let’s go see baby Dickerson,” said Delores. They all helped Janice up and she proudly led the way down the hall to the neonatal unit.
“She looks so fragile, but my gosh, that is one beautiful baby,” said Kathy. “What did you two decide to name her?”
With smiles on their faces and arms interlinked, both Jake and Janice answered in unison, “Rose.” What else could it be, but Rose.
The Gift of Sight
We Are Led by Faith, Not by Sight
IT WAS THE SUMMER OF 1976, and I was almost 18 years old.
When I was small, Mama told us, "If you sleep on your stomach a witch will ride your back." Just that simple statement of fact left me feeling scared, queasy, and uneasy. I never fully understood what it meant or exactly how it was supposed to happen, but I was deathly afraid of it happening. I loved nothing better than sleeping on my stomach.
I don't recall how the whole thing came up. I remember my younger sister complaining about the space she was limited to in the bed we shared. It was probably mama's attempt to appease her youngest child, by suggesting something to make me assume a more compact position like the fetal one.
I tried to visualize what the witch would look like, even with my fertile imagination, I had difficulty. But that didn’t stop me from trying.
In the wee dark hours of night as I sprawled across the bed on my stomach; probably snoring lightly, a black clad, wild haired, pointy nosed and hunched-back hag would saddle me up like a horse and run me around the room. She would be poking me with a sharp wand. In some ways the thought was sort of funny, but still definitely unsettling.
Where did the witch come from? How did she know I was sleeping on my stomach, and what did she care? But if mama said it, then it must be something to it. But what difference did it matter if I slept on my stomach, back or side. What was so wrong with sleeping on your stomach?
Did it mean you would have horrifying nightmares with no end? Sleep is supposed to bring you rest and restore your body with energy, I ended up more tense, and weary, thinking of all these terrible possibilities than if I had gotten no sleep at all.
I knew a lot of the stuff was just old Negro folk-tales, something to tell children to scare them into doing what's right, but then again, maybe there was some truth to it.
Mama and daddy both were just full of sayings and quotes they delivered to us with regularity. Daddy's favorite always started off with "a disobedient child" and ended up with "spare not the rod."
I knew mama and daddy were quoting the Bible with most of these bits and pieces of guidance and wisdom, but some were just stuff folks made up when they didn't have any other reason for telling you to stop doing something they didn't want you to do.
Mama told us kids a lot of things, as mothers do. She was very superstitious. She once told us if you took a hand mirror and looked over your shoulder into the wardrobe mirror at midnight on Halloween, you would see your future husband.
Halloween’s eeriness, future husbands, midnight spookiness, all too gothic and scary, something out of a bad movie, right. But I was curious, so this was just too much of a temptation to pass up.
When I was fifteen, I was determined to put mama's words to the test. I had everything already set up before everyone went to bed that night. All I had to do was stay awake long enough to find everything in the dark.
I struggled to stay awake by purposely turning from my back to my side, to my stomach to my side, to my back. Finally, it was 11:55 pm and time to put my plan into motion.
There I was on the most ghostly, scariest night of the year sneaking around in the bedroom I shared with my sisters, trying not to wake anyone else up.
I slid as quietly as I could out of bed and patted the covers back around my little sister. There were two beds in the room, and I moved cautiously between the beds. "Ouch" stumped my toe! I grunted sharply, but luckily caught myself before any further noise could escape my lips.
There were four of us girls still at home. We all shared the old walnut wardrobe in the bedroom. It was the kind that had a mirrored door on the right side that opened and five drawers on the left-hand side. It was taller than I was, five times as wide and took up way too much of the small floor space.
There was a small closet in one wall, but it was full of daddy's shotguns and rifles, winter coats, shoes, extra quilts and sheets and anything else that didn't fit anywhere else.
I continued my hesitant creep silently over to my hiding place, my drawer in the wardrobe, and fished out a small flashlight and the hand mirror.
What was that noise? It almost made me squeal out loud. I realized it was our dog Big Boy, sniffing and scratching around outside the window.
Please Big Boy, don't start barking at something, I don't need you to get in on the act, I silently prayed. I didn't want anyone to wake up and see me being so silly. I heard a few soft sighs and bedcovers rustling, but not much more happened.
I had everything in place, hand mirror up, flashlight positioned just like I practiced, but then I suddenly pictured seeing my once-time boyfriend, Jimmy Johnson in the reflection. He was someone I didn't want to see. We had ended our so-called relationship on a very sour note. So, I hesitated . . . what a chicken.
I didn't know if
