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Rhonda was an attractive child. Her
grandmother Flood sewed the most beautiful dresses for her and she always
looked like a little doll. On this particular morning my child was wearing
one of her grandmother’s creations. The dress was decidedly plain with no
extra design but Wenona Flood knew how to put color and accessory together
in the most charming ways. A striking color of soft blue-green of what
might be called aqua was the color. The outfit was accented with a wide
band of three inches, unique, Swedish lace all around the skirt. The
contrast of the white lace and the color of the dress was so striking. A
simple pattern was turned into something exclusive and of an unusual
design. The green in the color of the dress complemented the strawberry
blond of the little girl’s hair.
This morning in contrast to the day we had
first visited the center when it was pouring rain. Today was bright with
sunlight and this brought out the red glints of Rhonda’s hair. I had been
going alone for appointments in the back part of the building but this
meeting was held in one of the front offices. In my youth I never
questioned anything so didn’t really know what was to be discussed. I
carried Rhonda wherever I went since she couldn’t sit alone and wasn’t
even able to hold her head up very well. At the moment she was sitting on
my lab and doing rather well with holding her head up. I was pleased to
see what I believed to be progress in her development.
The woman who was meeting with me was cordial
enough. We exchanged pleasantries and visited for a time. She had a stack
of papers on her desk and now she lifted one of the pages, held it in
midair and turned her head to look directly at me. I should have known
from this position and attitue she would have something to say that would
shake me to my shoes.
Were there great earthquakes, ravaging
tornadoes, deadly plague, hosts of invading insects, famine and hunger,
squalid living conditions in my upbringing? No, there were not. We lived
each day with an anxious anticipation for what was on our plate. The joy
of a struggle was with my family when I was a girl and I knew about
adversity in small ways. There was never a holding back from what had to
be done and life had been altogether normal, whatever normal is, as the
saying goes. At any rate, as children, we learned all that goes into our
make-up and our conditioning for the way we are to perform when faced with
making decisions for our own families. Mother and Dad never hid the daily
living conditions from us. We were a part of the work, play or anything
else that was happening. Other greater dark things were hidden and only
many years later with a genealogical searching for Dad’s family who he had
separated from his own family because of fear for racial problems were
some of these frightening elements discovered. For the moment I was
blissfully ignorant of what this woman’s position was and how she was
sitting in a place to be a powerful force in my life.
Probably, this is how youth and inexperience
is protected. I was interested in the neat way she was dressed, how her
hair was obviously coiffed at a shop, and the neatness of her desk,
nothing more. The money that went into this new building, their staff, and
all the other amenities were of no concern to me and I wasn’t even aware
or interested in whom or what determined the goals for the organization
much less threatened by it. |
