My mother’s wish for me was that I would break our family’s generational curse. When I got pregnant, it was a mistake she had seen too many times in our family and that is not what she wanted for me. My grandmother still has hopes that I will finish high school, which is what she wanted for all three of her daughters. My aunts accomplished that goal and so did my grandmother—my mother and I did not. My mother wanted better for me and she knew I was really talented and loved people and she had big dreams for me. But she knows that I need to have an education to really be able to take care of myself and my daughter. She doesn’t want me to focus on the negatives, like the fact that I can’t read very well. She wants me to know that I’m not dumb; I’ve just had some extra challenges in my life that have made me stronger. And I finally believe her. She wanted me to be everything that she didn’t become and I’m working on it. She’s got big dreams for me now—she wants to see me go to the Grammys because she never did. Next year,I will.
My mother says that I have matured a lot over the last few years. She is proud. She says that I matured after Zion was born. She also says that I matured afterAmerican Idol because I never lost myself with all the things that were goin’ on and all the ways I could have fallen into the “Hollywood” trap of drinking and partying—just showing out. She knew the pressure that I was under and was a little worried about whether I could handle it all. But I continue to try and make her proud. Mama says thatAmerican Idol brought a lot of discipline to my life and brought me far enough to have goals and dreams, when before, I had none. She is also proud that I never forget where I came from. She always tells me to keep it real with myself and other people. She wants me to remain grateful for what I have and never forget that I can lose it as quickly as it came.
The torch has now been passed to me to raise my little girl like the women in my life have raised theirs, but hopefully without all of the drama and pain that lack of money causes. I feel scared because I don’t think I’m in any way equal to the women that my mother and grandmother are.
For Zion, I will tell her that God should come first in her life. I will show her how God turned our life around because of the gift that God gave me to sing. I will tell Zion the stories of Montlieu Avenue and how I dropped out of school and what I have had to go through because I made that choice. Zion will know how to pray, like every woman in our family. I just pray that she will be praying for good grades, a good job, and a good man, not praying for bills to be paid or for the lights to stay on. Hopefully our family is through with those types of prayers.
I will teach Zion to forgive. But I hope she will not have to forgive a man for hurting her or stealing from her or leaving her alone with a baby. I hope that she will someday be able to forgive her daddy for abandoning her. I will tell her about disappointments in life and how we set certain expectations for the people we love and sometimes they don’t do what we want them to do.
Zion will know about respecting others, because she will grow up in a world filled with music and cultures and people from all parts of the world. I will teach her to love and respect all people, but she will also learn from me how to respect herself. My hope for Zion is that she won’t be a desperate woman. My prayer is that Zion will build herself up inside, so that there won’t be any holes in her heart, needin’ a man to fill. I will teach her to fill herself with God.
The last thing that I will teach Zion is to have inner strength. I want her to have the kind of strength that Addie and Mama had, and that I have had at times. All of us have had the strength to keep going no matter what happened to us. No matter how cruel life can be, I want Zion to be a survivor.
My mother was excited that I wanted to write a chapter about her. She wanted the chapter to be in my own words like the rest of the book, but she was dyin’ to get in somewhere. So, I told her, Mama, you can put in your moments of faith. Her moments got us to this moment.
DIANE’S MOMENT OF
FAITH:WHAT SHE LEARNED
Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it.
PROVERBS22:6
My prayer was always that this poverty be broken for my family. I believe that God used Fantasia to break the generational barrier of poverty.
When you have children they all have their own personalities. Your children may not be what you want them to be, because they have their own personalities.
God’s favor goes further than
