Tootsie's Chick, Life Without a Mother: Surviving the System Called Family

By Dorothy H Arnold EdD

All the good and bad girls who need to know forgiveness, have you made some shameful choices? See how this chick deals with her shame. And she is that little girl without a home or mother, lost in a system called family.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Feb 13, 2015
• ISBN: 9781503533608

Dorothy H Arnold EdD

Dorothy H. Arnold, EdD, is a retired educator who served thirty-plus years in education as a teacher, leader, and administrator. She resides in metro Atlanta with her husband who takes her cruising every chance he gets. When Dr. D. is not cruising, she is playing with her grandchildren. Dr. D. believes, she was born to minister to hurting women, specifically those with no or low esteem. Dr. D. currently serves as the chairperson over the Women’s Ministry at Union Grove Baptist Church of Union City, Inc. You may contact her by e-mail at [e-mail].

Book preview

TOOTSIE’S CHICK,

LIFE WITHOUT

A MOTHER

Surviving the System Called Family

Dorothy H Arnold, EdD

Copyright © 2015 by Dorothy H Arnold, EdD.

Library of Congress Control Number:

ISBN:      Hardcover      -1-5035-3358-5

            Softcover        -1-5035-3359-2

               eBook             -1-5035-3360-8

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

Scripture quotations marked KJV are from the Holy Bible, King James Version (Authorized Version). First published in 1611. Quoted from the KJV Classic Reference Bible, © 1983 by The Zondervan Corporation.

Rev. date: 02/27/2015

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Contents

Foreword

Obituary

Chapter 1:   Three

Chapter 2:   Without a Mother

Chapter 3:   Grandpa’s X

Chapter 4:   Adoption

Chapter 5:   We Three

Chapter 6:   Mommy and Me

Chapter 7:   Daddy, Me, and Them

Chapter 8:   Just Me

Chapter 9:   The Caged Bird Sings

Chapter 10:   Brick House

Chapter 11:   Just as I Am

Chapter 12:   The Wedding Planner

Epilogue

About the Author

Acknowledgments

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Foreword

by Daniel Harrison Arnold

Mommy’s Boy. I present to you Dr. Dorothy H. Arnold, from out of the backwoods of MISSISSIPPI to the flashing lights of Chicago, now residing in the great state of Georgia. Sometimes we don’t realize what a mother or father have went through because when we were children they try to blind and protect us from the cruelness of the world. It has always brought pleasure to me to know that I’m a mom’s boy. Between the tender age of three and four on field days at Ronald E. McNair Middle School, I found myself with the bigger kids because I always wanted to go to school with my mom. It was always, That’s Mrs. Arnold baby son. Not knowing the fact that my mom was in the form of leadership and stood out among the rest of her coworkers, I was blind.

So let the education begin. My mother was born with all odds against her. But she never wavered in the midst of the storm. At a very young age, my mother was inspired by one of her elementary school teachers to one day have her own classroom. So the mood was set. She saw her dreams and her goal. She knew she didn’t have time to truly enjoy life as a child, but she had to hit the ground running. Which she did so gracefully. She went on to graduate from high school and to attend the University of Dubuque in Iowa, where this smooth brother was mesmerized by this brown-skinned woman attending freshman orientation in the student union. They became love birds that she knew would one day take flight.

She became a mother of three boys, and instant LEADERSHIP kicked in. My mother knew that to lead you must master how to be a good follower first. While raising three active boys and a husband, my mom entered graduate school and completed her master’s at Emory University in Atlanta. My mother didn’t want to be just a leader of students and her department; she wanted to grow into the highest level of leadership in education. She knew the only way to do that is to step out of the shell of safety and protection. She structured her career to blast into the forefront of leadership and lead.

Her first official appointment to leadership was assistant principal at North Spring High School, where her leadership became fine-tuned under the tutelage of Peter F. Zervakos, but she still wasn’t complete. She knew that you have to lead by example. As her career was reaching its peak, she attended Clark Atlanta University in Atlanta for her doctoral degree in education, finishing up her career at Westlake High School. But her race is not yet over: her dreams haven’t stopped, and her goals are still halfway complete. She holds as a blueprint for others to say, I can make a change, I am a change agent, I am able to impact someone’s life.

In closing, I’m always thankful for her leadership and for making a perfect impact in my life. Love, her Baby Boy.

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Thornridge High School Senior Portrait, Class of 1975

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Obituary

I asked. Why did she die? Who caused her to die? When did she die? How did she die? How old was she? Did she go to school? They answered. I don’t know. She just died. In the fall of the year. Before moma died. 3 Weeks before her mother. Birthing your sister. Too young to die. The only one of 11 children. I wrote. She was tired. The yelling was too much. She died in October. Grandma died too. No sister or brother. She lived 24 years. She graduated from Canton Hs. She produced a chick named Dorothy.

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Chapter 1

Three

Here I stand at the foot of your grave, Tootsie. It is January 2004. A cold day in Mississippi, not knowing if it is your burial site or another family member’s. No one seems to remember or know which gravesite is yours. We have just buried your sister Dellarene, who died just before Christmas. Mt. Zion AME cemetery is located next to the Ousley family church. This is the necropolis where many of your siblings now reside. Who am I? More than forty years have rolled by me. Tootsie, I am here with your remains now, standing in a space I was once carried to. I am in awe of it all. Can your corpse speak to me? Tootsie?

I must rely on what is being fed to me as I search the memories of yesteryear. Tunnels, avenues, freeways, highways, thoroughfares, turnpikes, and, yes, dirt roads I’ve traveled only to return here, this very place where it all began.

Paying to the Society, a burial club of sorts, ensures a burial plot and $200 toward funeral expenses. Your sisters and brothers, along with their children, are still members of this club. There are several of your siblings laid to rest here. Aunt Pearlene, who is Uncle Willie’s widow, carefully and methodically tells me where your remains lie. She is moving about the final resting places, using her additional four legs that move like galloping horse’s legs.

See, Dot, it make sense, Auntie Pearlene squeals.

Rosie Lee is in an unmarked grave. You see, your sister, who died as a small child, starts the Ousley line. Aunt Pearlene’s infant child is the second unmarked grave. Grave number three is your unmarked grave. Your mother, my grandmother, rests next to you in the fourth grave. A double headstone was erected to mark Grandma and Grandpa’s cemetery plot.

Sista’nem go’t ah mix’d up, Aunt Pearlene interjects. ’Tis here markah has Mista Jim name, yo granddaddy, where Miss Mag, yo grandmomma body ’tis.

The story is that you always said, I want to die before my mother. I cannot live without my mother.

Tootsie, if you felt that way, how could you expect your three-year-old daughter to live without her mother? This would make you the third grave in the line. There was a three-week span between your death and your mother’s death. You see the double tombstone with your parents’ names engraved to indicate that they were buried next to each other.

Sista’nem got it all tangled up, explains Aunt Pearlene. Momma Mag is next to your momma, and Daddy Jim is next to Momma Mag, she goes on as she brings her walker to a standstill beside the plots. I am no longer confused as to what Auntie Pearlene has pointed to as your charnel house. It makes sense to me now after hearing her explanation through broken Southern English.

Your baby sister did not know—nor did she want to know—where each of you lay. I am drawn to the gravesite by Auntie Pearlene’s high-pitched voice as she takes a wire clothes hanger and marks the home of your remains. No marker or stone for you in this little country cemetery. I make a decision in that instant, not realizing the moment will define this journey.

Tootsie, can you see her? Your little three-year-old girl playing in the Mississippi red clay outside the tin-roof shack yards away from a cotton field on a bright October morning? She occasionally looks up from her play to watch her cousins chase the chickens and chunk rocks. All the grown-ups are gathered in this four-room abode with a tin roof, walls of wood and paper, and plank floors—a sharecropper’s house. This structure was a safe haven for you, your dad, your mom, and your ten siblings. You and your family would come to this hut after a long day in the fields. There is a big red barn where Granddaddy hid his treasures. Silver coins, hundreds of dollars—so the tale is told—somewhere up in the loft or tucked away in the earth. Granddaddy’s moolah has never been found.

I love large bodies of water. Tootsie, do you think this is because of the lake (or was it a pond not far from the barn?)? My cousins often carried me down to it on hot summer days. Peter and John L. would pounce in and out of the mucky waters for hours, splashing me on occasion as I sat watching them. Water cascaded from their saturated bodies. I dare not move from the grassy spot where they gently placed me: a cool, green blanket infused with life and God’s goodness.

My cousins are now sending the straight lightning bolt into an earth opening surrounded by stones glued together with cement. When the bolt of lightning comes up from the earth, ice-cold water rushes out for us all to drink. I scurry over to get my share as Peter pulls the streak of lightning over the tin bucket, which resembles a large, precious stone in the sunlight. He sees me and puts the ladle in the pail so that I may take my drink. This is the well water my family dentist later credits for my perfect white teeth.

Tootsie, did you know I didn’t have a cavity until I was well into my forties? I sucked my thumb, though. I was ten or eleven before I let go of it. Even the breaking of my left arm did not keep me from my comfort.

They are in the shanty, their voices floating on the October breeze. Who will she live with? Who will ensure that she matures from this toddler into the first Ousley to march with a sky blue stole, velvet hood, and a gold tassel hanging from her centennial doctor’s cap?

Sista, your baby sister, says, Tootsie’s last words to me were, ‘Take my chile and raise hah as yo’rn. I’ma not gon be back.’

Another voice says, No, let Tee take her and raise her.

Someone retorts, She cannot be raised in a house of boys. She’s a girl.

Jim Ousley is her legal guardian. By rights, she should remain here with him, shouts another.

No! My sister wouldn’t want her to be raised in Mississippi, counters one of your sisters.

Tootsie, do you hear them, discussing your baby girl as if she’s a trophy to win? Or is she really a charity case?

That’s my dead sista’s child, wails Sista as she appears to be losing the fight.

One of your brothers leaves the rickety porch to retrieve your baby girl from her crimson playpen. He chuckles as he searches the yard.

Is that ‘Dahris’ or one of the piglets from the sow in the nearby pen? Nah, that’s my niece. Piglets don’t have three tails coming out of their head. Uncle Versel ponders if this sweet little girl will ever know how much she is loved.

He carries me into the house and plops me on my grandpa’s lap. I grab his face. His briar-patch beard pricks my tiny, fat fingers, and I giggle. Grandpa responds with his leather worms—his work-worn and weathered fingers—all ten of them, up and down my sides. They finally rest on my belly, a job well done. They always eat my belly until I am out of breath. I can hardly blow in or out from laughter with his fingers in sight.

He’s sad, though. His face is sopping wet, but not from a hard day’s work in the cotton field. It is waterlogged from the two rivers running from his eyes down into the valleys of his mahogany skin. My arms mimic a hangman’s loose around his neck. I am only three, but I instinctively know something is terribly wrong. My colossal brown eyes search the room to find the source of Grandpa’s gloomy state.

A hush comes over the chamber as the quiet, gentle man speaks. Who will ever love her like her grandmother and I? She has not suffered or been denied nurturing since her mother left her here with us. This little angel is all I have left of my daughter. Who can I trust with such a precious jewel? A fine ruby to cherish and keep close. An auntie lifts me from his arms. I’ve fallen asleep from the lull of Grandpa’s voice and the beat of his heart.

Tootsie, did you know John felt helpless, without a voice? My stepfather, your husband, has quietly returned to the place for Southern lovers, Chicago Heights, Illinois, without you or his child, burdened with the memories of you and the child that will never be. Forced to live without you or the little girl he had come to love. All of it torn from him. His heart never to see or feel again. John enters the two-bedroom apartment to collect the tangibles, and recollections flood his mind. He falls to his knees with the agony of living in this world without you. Too soon, Sista, husband, and Bad Seed, their almost-two-year-old daughter, will return to the apartment you shared with them as newlyweds.

The next morning I awake to Aunt Pearlene’s and Aunt Dellarene’s cooking of breakfast—fried chicken, red rose sausage, biscuits, eggs, ham, and red-eye gravy to go over the grits. We eat our fill, and the scraps go in the slop jar for the hogs. Everyone but the younger ones go out to the field, covered in white. Small angels sway in the gentle breeze. Your three sisters from up north have gone into town to pick up those southern delicacies: red links, slab bacon, Alaga syrup, and Eatwell sardines. I begin to fret.

Tootsie, can you hear me crying? I am told I cried a lot as a baby and loved my bottles of milk. I have longed to feel your touch. To see pictures of me in your arms. I want you to tell me about my first step, my first word, and my favorite toy. Whenever I asked your sisters about us, they’d say, She loved you very much. Yet you kept my conception a secret, leaving me to guess which aunt’s account of your impregnation is true. I have no photographs or mementos to account for my early years. Your sister Sista briefly showed me a photo of a baby dressed in white in some sort of baby magazine that I was supposed to be in, along with her Bad Seed. Who’s my father? Is it John, Genova, or someone else? Forty-plus years later, I would learn the truth.

Your younger brother Versel tells me of the time Grandma beat him and Uncle Ike, your baby brother, within an inch of their natural lives. The wash tub is filled with warm water for my bath while the other brother prepares a bottle of warm tonic milk mixed with moonshine to ensure a quiet midday slumber. They want to play ball, chunk rocks, or get in a game of spades. No one wants to spend a perfect morning away from the fields rocking a crying baby. It is noon and Grandma and the others have come up from the field for dinner.

Where’s the baby? inquires Grandma.

She’s in the big bed, napping, they answer in unison. Grandma sits down with her biscuit and salmon patty sandwich with a cold glass of lemonade. After checking on me one last time, she returns to the field. I slumber. The pickers have met the quota for the day, and it is time to return again from cotton picking to the sharecropper’s shanty.

Grandma notices that I have not moved from the place where I lay at midday. She picks me up and immediately smells the poignant homebrew as I breathe in and out. As they say, Let the ass whippin’ begin.

Unc says, That never happened again. To this day hard liquor is not my friend.

The sisters from the north are back and itching to hear what Grandpa has to say about where I should live. They know not to ask as they begin to pack their fancy cars to head back to Chicago Heights in the morning. Sister, your sister, shows off this blue corduroy jumper they purchased in town. An effort to show how well they can provide for me in the north. Grandpa was not impressed. He allowed them to get all packed up in their brand-new Chevys and Buicks. The husbands are caring suitcases and boxes like ants preparing for winter. Organizing each item just so to maximize the space in the trunks. The women were in the kitchen packing shoeboxes with fried chicken, cake and pie slices, along with the food purchases from the local Piggly Wiggly. Everyone settled in for a good night of sleep. The northerners will leave early before daybreak to beat the heat of the day.

Grandpa has made up his mind, but he felt it would be best to keep it close to his vest until the morning. There was rustling of everyone rising to a brand-new day before dawn. The baby is safely tucked away in a soft pouch near Grandma. In the darkness of the new day, Grandpa rises to see his daughters