My Amazing Journey: A Celebration of Seasons and Travelers along the Way

By Lynda R. Byrd

Youth and coming of age in the latter half of the twentieth century offered countless challenges, exposures, and opportunities. For an African American female born and living in the South, challenges, exposures, and opportunities had a decidedly different perspective than the realities of White contemporaries. Understanding quite early that the playing field was far from level, finding ways to discover one’s gifts and abilities, to have ones worth validated became a lifelong quest. And to learn that the validation of ones worth when personally discovered is a liberating reality.

Meeting a litany of hurdles, some self-imposed and a great many incited by the indelible elements of the times, finding ways to circumvent and overcome challenges were integral necessities. Learning to see, absorb, and advance beyond obstacles became lifelong strategies, while finding strength and even joy in the ultimate process.

My Amazing Journey: A Celebration of Seasons and Travelers Along the Way captures the impact that everyday individuals make helping to weave the tapestry of a single life. Gratefully, all along the way were balcony people making seismic contributions, often persons with no point of reference or hope for what could actually be attained. These contributors to activities and experiences that in themselves seemed inconsequential shaped a life to not just survive, but to thrive against the ceaseless barrage of insurmountable odds. In spite of the ever-present realities of injustice, inequity, and racism, hope burst through in unsuspecting ways again and again, daring failure to win.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Covenant Books, Inc.
• Release date: Apr 6, 2023
• ISBN: 9781685265229

Book preview

Table of Contents

Title

Copyright

Prologue

From My Balcony

Becoming

The Formative Years

Adulthood: The Early Years

Friends

DNA Matters

Adulthood for Real: Ready or Not

People and Places: Contributors along the Way

The Church / My Faith

Parenting

Family

Significant Others

Alternate Routes

Epilogue

About the Author

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My Amazing Journey

A Celebration of Seasons and Travelers along the Way

Lynda R. Byrd

ISBN 978-1-68526-521-2 (Paperback)

ISBN 978-1-68526-522-9 (Digital)

Copyright © 2023 Lynda R. Byrd

All rights reserved

First Edition

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods without the prior written permission of the publisher. For permission requests, solicit the publisher via the address below.

Covenant Books

11661 Hwy 707

Murrells Inlet, SC 29576

www.covenantbooks.com

To Jolanda

always my inspiration

Prologue

Titles are a primary incentive for picking up a book or an article to read. There is something in the title that pricked an interest. Finding an appropriate title for this work has been a struggle. Its content spans a considerable part of my life—from my earliest years beginning elementary school through these seasoned years of my seventies.

Reflecting across the span of my life, this memoir doesn't apologize for weakness, inappropriate behavior, or the litany of missteps integral to self-discovery. Nor does it laud achievements as any special consideration. It is simply a compilation of choices made in seeking to become my best self.

At its inception several years ago, Memoirs of a Successful Black Woman was my title of choice. I have mellowed some since those preliminary days, with less self-adulation. Successful is such a loaded term, lending itself to different perspectives. Naturally, I thought about using Black as a part of the title. Black is who I am. Successful? That's debatable.

Journeying across the spectrum of this country, African Americans have experienced so many twists, turns, and labels. From being called nigger to colored, to Negro, to Black, and now African American. African American is by far the more acceptable reference and, for this time in history, more appropriate and politically correct. Initially, it seemed imperative that my race should be a part of the title. My birth reality has shaped me. No other element of my life has had greater influence. Nonetheless, I am more than being Black.

A series of reflections are here. The honesty, and sometimes raw disclosure of events and choices, lend influential ingredients to the overall landscape. Along the way, would I have made some different choices? Perhaps. In all honesty, probably not. I am who I am—a product of a turbulent America, especially to people of color. Notwithstanding, my journey has been filled with the most amazing experiences, people, and timing.

II

There has been a continuing odyssey in the experiences of Black women in America. To authentically share some of my own, reflections must span most of my life as the lessons have been amply sprinkled and, in a few instances, splashed along the way. I am a product of Black America. My essence was seeded in the culture that called itself Black. And while my blackness does not define me, it would be blatantly disingenuous to in anyway diminish its impact. Its reality is an irrefutable boundary of reference.

My story is a simple one, by some measure. And yet it is equally, if not more, complex on some levels. It is a story of resilience; a story of faith; a story of pure, unmitigated guts; a story of unfailing hope; a story of peace. Mine is a story about overcoming odds, not with any massive strides of profundity but the day-to-day exhausting challenges of inequity, prejudice, and the endless intentionally devised obstacles.

This is my story, not unique or unlike hundreds of thousands of others. It is my story, a Black female whose eyes have seen, heart has felt, soul has known the depths of humanity's depravity and the heights of humanity's goodness.

I say that the story is simple because I believe that the world's simplicity far outweighs it complexity, as much as it postures itself otherwise. More than any other reason, I take this opportunity to honor some relationships that, heretofore, I've only told I love you. Some I've not told, and some I cannot tell.

This is a cathartic venture. It's a chance to resurrect some experiences that are without closure. More than anything, this is an opportunity to laugh at so much of the wonder of life, a chance to cry, gaining a cleansing that only tears can offer. A chance to reflect.

III

Born in the mid-1940s, my formative years were lived in the South. My story embodies similarities with hundreds of thousands of African American women whose lives have been shaped by a time, culture, and society that on many fronts was unwelcoming and strewn with roadblocks to impede any semblance of unscarred survival.

History abounds with the stories of conditions that thwarted the development of healthy, productive, and affirmed lives of many whose birthright did not align with those whose advantages were defined by power and privilege. Nonetheless, survival is imperative in the cultures of those who are denied a level playing field. The wounds are often so deeply impaled that healing is only partial. The surface seems smooth and absent of trauma, but the extent of the wound is borne for a lifetime. Underneath, there remains a soft vulnerability, always subject to pain, instability, and fear.

Nonetheless, this is not a gloom and doom account of a life infected by society's countless maladies. It is the account of a grateful life, in spite of the inequities and injustices, perhaps even, because of these inhibitors. It is a story about the invaluable contribution of the village from the African adage It takes a village to raise a child. It is a story steeped in hope, a story about the power of resilience. It is a story of faith and its slow but steady maturation in God and self.

The village is densely populated. Contributions come in small, sometimes miniscule, actions that may go unnoticed but are assimilated into a broader framework. And if attentive, there might be a chance to express appreciation at some later juncture. The contributions are also large. These involve the teachers at every level: the mail carrier, the grocery store owner, the Sunday school teachers, the short-term and lifelong friends and acquaintances. The list is endless. And how grateful I am!

IV

Some years ago, I discovered a book titled Balcony People, by Joyce Landorf Heatherley. The book helped me to gain a clear identification of those who, in great and small ways, have cheered me on, sometimes from a great distance as well as from up close. The luckier among us are those who recognize the contributions and the lessons learned. The luckiest are those who not only recognize the contributions but are able to thank the contributors. Regrettably, recognition can often come too late.

Time and memory are thieves that have robbed me of the ability to thoroughly cite all the contributors along the way. Admittedly, we fail in real time to see the impact of tiny actions and words casually spoken. We don't recognize, until life teaches us, that lessons come from every direction, with power and position of contributors being the least significant. But we do learn, and with attentiveness, the lessons shape us. If we are fortunate, we are able to share the lessons, hoping that others too might be shaped in meaningful ways.

Balcony People offers a premise of two types of contributors: affirmers and evaluators. It posits the potential damage resulting from evaluators whose words and actions can hurt, defame, even diminish ones concept of self. It has been a necessity to accept the inevitability of evaluators stretched across the entire span of my life. Rather than be crippled by them, I have learned to stand taller, in spite of, and often because of them. Affirmers, of course, are those who encourage, stand with us, and will offer their shoulders to lift us up.

A valuable discovery has been that the source of contributions is endless. There are no caveats about credentials, education, or the wisdom of contributors. Even from inadvertent sources where nothing positive was intended, lifelong lessons can be learned from anyone where there is a willingness to be attentive, accepting, and sometimes forgiving.

From My Balcony

Two are better than one…for if they fall, one will

lift up the other.

—Ecclesiastes 4:9a and10a

A Neighbor

Ours is a culture that embraces success. There are different definitions of success; but generally, measurements given to status, material worth, and recognition are the more prevalent description.

By these measurements, my neighbor wouldn't make the cut as successful, at least not by any societal definitions or circumstances. But thankfully, the definitions in our Western culture aren't the ultimate deciding factors. My neighbor, a woman of great faith who had not achieved any educational, economic, or social success was a giant in teaching me many of my most valued life lessons.

My neighbor lived less than a block from the house where I grew up. Ours was a small, sleepy community in the South where people of color were relegated to very definitive stations in life. In the mid to late fifties, few of our neighbors were successful by general standards. And even if they had been, African Americans, beyond their own limited environments, were not deemed successful anyway. Successful at what, and even more nonexistent was recognition. By whom?

Of course, it's always been an unspoken understanding that in order to be a success, it was necessary to be recognized. Recognition of African Americans by African Americans was tantamount to a lyric in a popular rhythm and blues song in the seventies, Nothing from nothing leaves nothing. So success and recognition were nonentities.

In my formative years, I would hardly have described my neighbor as a success. Today, I don't see her that way either because success is so limiting and far too subjective. Its value too often determined by prejudicial perspectives. My neighbor was a woman of great worth, again, not by any means from a material perspective. She never earned any level of educational achievement. She may have completed eighth grade. I never recall a discussion about education as it related to her. I had countless discussions with her about education as it related to me. It's an amazing reality that one doesn't have to have something to recognize its importance and instill that importance in others.

My neighbor was a believer. First, and above all else, she believed in God. Everything that I can remember about her reflected that belief. She wasn't what some might call a Bible thumper. I don't remember that she would quote scripture passages to make her points. I came to understand and see much of what scripture teaches in how she lived.

She was a quiet, unassuming woman. She wore her love of God outwardly, as she wore her love of others. She wore her love for me that way. I always knew she believed in me. She had great dreams for me. Dreams of accomplishments she couldn't describe because her world was so limited. But she dreamed, and she gave her dreams to me because she believed that I would honor them.

My neighbor was centered. That's one of the best words to describe her. She always knew what she believed and in whom she believed. She didn't apologize or allow herself to be drawn into debates. She was centered in her belief that God's presence and direction in her life did not represent itself with things. Her centeredness was about feelings and a knowing that she neither attempted nor felt the need to explain. She didn't seek to convince anyone about her faith.

Everything she did and said affirmed a deep faith in God. She never aspired for more of anything—other than more faith and more love for God and others. My neighbor never engaged in debate or theological disclosures. I can't remember her ever being challenged about her beliefs. A life as centered and transparent as hers didn't invite challenge or explanation.

My neighbor taught me that God's love was always with me. It didn't matter if I knew it or not. It didn't matter if I loved Him back. She wanted me to know God and to know the peace that came with that knowledge. She didn't actually tell me about God's love as much as she showed me.

I have no idea why she chose me. I suspect that there were many others with whom she shared her centeredness. She had that way of making you feel that you were the most important person in the world. She always had time. Nothing that was brought to her for discussion was judged or devalued. And no discussion was ever concluded without directing its resolve to God's presence and His will above anything else.

My neighbor taught me that in the center of everything that is good and purposeful, God is. She taught me that this centeredness grows and encompasses our hopes and dreams. It shapes us. It comforts us. It accompanies us. Admittedly, as much as she taught me, it would be years before I was able to begin to embrace her truth.

*****

Topping the bridge that crossed over the railroad tracks, I could see smoke in the distance, just a few blocks from my parents' home where I stopped every evening after class. I had a feeling of dread. You know the kind of feeling that makes your chest feel tight, too tight to comfortably hold what only seconds before had been perfectly normal, and your heart races.

My daughter always stayed over with my parents while I taught classes at the local junior college. It was one of two jobs that I had. Both jobs together didn't earn as much as one real job would have paid. I was living in the ultimate center of the socioeconomic, racially biased reality, struggling to succeed in a badly skewed and inequitable society where race mattered far too much.

The sanctity of my parents' home and the familiarity of the community I had grown up in were constant. And whatever else was askew in my life, these were places of comfort.

Cresting the bridge that evening, it was early enough to see quite a distance. I knew the smoke was either on the block of my parents' house or the block before. With the anxiety rising in my chest, I cautiously turned the corner, hoping to see nothing too serious.

It was my neighbor's house, the small two-bedroom house that she and her sister had lived in as long as I could remember. It was a house they rented. My neighbor was a widow. I only vaguely remember her husband who had died when I was in elementary school. She and her sister had lived together in that little house. The fire hadn't destroyed it. Nonetheless, they had no place to live, at least for a while. And who repairs rental property, especially in our neighborhood?

Burned homes were not unusual when I was growing up. The fire department didn't dispatch fire engines with urgency to my neighborhood. They always came, but usually, the damage was already done and too far along to waste a lot of water. Just another of the many realities of growing up in the segregated South where taxes, financial and civic responsibilities were as equal between Blacks and Whites as basic services were unequal.

My neighbor was standing on the street flanked by neighbors. There were those who had just come to see the fire. Others stood by watching to see how my neighbor and her sister were responding to their loss. And others just passed by, looking, staring, but not really seeing.

I worked my way through the crowd. My neighbor reached out to me, almost pulling me to her. I didn't know what to say. I hadn't seen a fire before that took the belongings of someone I had known so well. My expression must have been of disappointment, dismay, even hurt. I remember mumbling something about them having lost everything. With her arm around my waist, she simply said, We've got each other. Even though her sister was in tears and feeling the loss at a totally different level, my neighbor's centeredness prevailed. In that moment, she had sifted through it all, arriving securely at what was important: We've got each other.

So many times, as I struggled with college and work and expenses and parenting, my neighbor always saw beyond the moment. Her words were not quotes from anything she had read, except, of course, the Bible. She didn't compare life's situations or attempt to explain them away. While her poverty was beyond anything I had ever experienced, so was her joy and her remarkable ability to see beyond the moment. To see what for her was truth.

She and her sister found another small house. After several months, they settled in, and it wasn't long before the fire was forgotten. The visits became less as my work and interests took me away from the community that had shaped me.

The years of domestic work, long hours, no health care, and the