Sometimes There Are No Second Chances: Trying to Make Sense of Whitney Houston's Death

     This weekend I traveled to New York for a belated 16th birthday present to my daughter, Lyndsay. Since we were meeting up with friends, it was more convenient to fly into and out of the Newark airport and take the shuttle to and from the city and it was not lost on me that I was in Whitney Houston's hometown. On our return trip we spent hours in the airport due to a maintenance delay and by the time we arrived in Orlando hours after we were supposed to, I was tired, hungry and ready to go to bed.

     Lyndsay is a practical joker, and she had spent the weekend doing and saying things that I knew were not true in order to get a reaction out of me. So I thought she was at it again when she looked up from her cell phone and said, “Mom, Whitney Houston' s dead!”  It wasn’t until I turned on the radio in my car that I realized the horrible truth because the station was playing one Whitney hit after another.

     I sat in the car in disbelief not wanting to believe that she was gone. As I listened to the musical tribute, I realized that, like Michael Jackson, Whitney Houston’s music has been a soundtrack to my life. It was her music that was playing in the background as Mia, my best friend in high school, and I got dressed to go out for the night. And it was Whitney Houston's voice that sang me to sleep the night my first grown up love broke my heart and I realized he was not who he said he was. There's no arguing that her voice was perfect and she was more talented than any of the singers that came before, or even after her, but it was her ability to put into melody exactly what I was feeling that made me believe that I knew her and that she, somehow, was there for all of my triumphs and disappointments.

     I was working in the mall at Camelot Records the first time I heard her voice, but that wasn't when I began loving her. It was when I saw her on the cover of Seventeen Magazine that I realized that she was something special. All through my teenage years I read Seventeen Magazine but I never saw myself reflected on the cover until that day. Seeing her face made me feel that I was possible.

    I got busy with life and forgot about Whitney until I saw her on the big screen as Savannah in Waiting to Exhale. Watching Whitney's character and her three girlfriends experience life's highs and lows was transformational. I can't even put it into words what it meant to me.

    Several years ago my step-daughter Tai and Lyndsay would watch Whitney and Bobby's show and talk about all of the crazy things that would happen on each episode, but I refused to watch. I just could not stand to see her in any light other than a flattering one. There were times when I heard her singing on television programs when I knew that she didn't sound as good as she used to, but I refused to accept it. I thought that she would be restored to her former glory. I thought she was going to get a second chance, but I guess sometimes in life there just aren't any second chances. Maybe that's what makes me so sad about her death. After all she wasn't a family member or a friend.  I didn't  know the intimate details of her life and I never saw her in person. She was just a celebrity on a stage and on TV. A beautiful woman on the pages of my favorite magazines, but I was rooting for her all along. I wanted Whitney to have a testimony. I honestly thought she was  going to make a comeback.

     Whitney Houston was my Phoenix. I thought she would rise from the ashes of her life. I feel sad and cheated because it wasn't supposed to end like this. Where is the happy ending?

     

     

Goodbye Granddaddy: In memory of Joe R. Dixon March 1, 1922-January 21, 2012

     Yesterday my grandfather died and although I am sad because I will no longer hear his voice again or be able to spend time with him, I am grateful for every moment that we shared and all of the lessons he taught me. I have written previously about the role he played in my life, but there are not enough words to express what he meant to me. Although grandfathers are important, he was much more than that to me. From my birth, he was my father figure. He provided for me, loved me unconditionally, taught me right from wrong, and lay the foundation for my belief in Christ.

    When he was alive, he liked to tell the story of the time he stopped by my new pre-school to make sure I was getting along okay in this foreign environment. The story goes that I was kicking dirt on the playground  until I saw him standing at the fence looking at me. I immediately began crying and throwing a temper tantrum until he had to sign me out of school and take me with him. What's funny about this story is that he wanted to take me with him and secretly hoped that I wouldn't be happy there. The story continues that for the rest of the day Granddaddy and I went to the mall and ate soft serve ice cream and people watched (as we often did) until it was time to go home for dinner.

     I guess the reason this story is so special for me is because I've always known that he was standing "over there" watching me live my life, but the minute I needed him he would be there to make things right again. There's also another story that doesn't involve me directly, but involves my aunt who is just a few years older than I am. She had been bused to an all white elementary school and on the first day of class she recalls looking out the window at my granddaddy who was following closely behind the school bus in his pick-up truck. Only later did we learn that my grandfather had a shot gun on the seat next to him and he had been ready to use and suffer the consequences  had anyone tried to cause harm to one of his baby girls.

     That was my grandfather, the protector and the provider. He made sure that his family had food and shelter and plenty of love. His generosity extended beyond his immediate family as well. If he knew or even suspected that you had a need, he would take care of it without expecting anything in return.

     Not only did my grandfather give material things, but he also shared the most important gift of all. A gift that would last for all of eternity. There was not one conversation that I can recall ever having with my grandfather where he did not share Jesus. Regardless of the topic of conversation, Granddaddy would find a way to share the message of Jesus's love, grace, and mercy. Once when he was here in Florida and had to be hospitalized, he shared a room with an elderly white man who was a retired college administrator. After my grandfather was released, I received a phone call from this man to find out how my grandfather was doing. Before the man hung up the phone, he told me that my grandfather had reminded him about Jesus and what eternity with Him would be like. I don't know if this man knew Jesus before or if he is even living now, but I do know that my grandfather made an impact on him and could possibly have changed the rest of his life. These men were from two walks of life and they easily could have ignored each other as they lay in their hospital beds. They were both born during a Jim Crow America, one was highly educated while the other was not. One used his brain to provide for his family and the other his back, but they used love and Jesus as a common denominator to build a friendship.

     My grandfather knew no strangers and he loved everyone he met.

     He loved his country and served during World War II. He fought for a country that did not regard him as a man. He held his shoulders back and his chin up and demanded not to be any body's "boy" or "nigger." He was not political, but he followed current events and could weigh in on what was happening around the world. On election day when Barrack Obama's name was on the ballot, my grandfather stood up from his wheel chair and marked his ballot. When he was asked why he didn't want to be in the chair, he said "I want to stand as a black man to cast my vote for another black man."

     My grandfather was my hero. Yes, he had clay feet and he made mistakes in life, as we all do, but he taught me about God's grace and mercy and my grandfather always did right by me. I will miss my grandfather for the rest of my life here on earth, but I know that he is in the next life waiting for me with a soft serve ice cream cone in hand.

Why I Write

Today in class I told students that I would answer any question they posed to me. I instructed them to write their question on a piece of scrap paper and then fold it in half before handing it in anonymously. During the last few moments of class, I read through each of the questions and gave an immediate response without filtering my answer or trying to project a professional image. Of course many of the questions were related to the course: How do I get an A? or related to something that I had stated prevously.

However, some of the questions were personal: What's your favorite color? (Green) and Which writer do you most admire? (Toni Morrison). There was  one question, though,  that really made me stop and think and that question was Why do you write? Yes, it would have been easy to give a quick response but this question, in my opinion, deserved reflection, so here is my answer:

I write because I understand the power of a single voice. I have witnessed how people have tried to silence me and others with their good (and sometimes not so good) intentions.  I have heard comments like: Don't question or Good girls don't talk about that! yet I still had questions and there were things I wanted to talk about and I knew that I wasn't alone, so I wrote to ask the questions that I needed answers to and to begin the dialogue that I needed so deperately to be a part of.

A good story can be a catalyst for personal or societal change. There were times when I finished reading a poem, short story, novel or play and it made me have a better understanding of something or of myself and made me want to change. I write thinking that maybe there will be one idea in my writing that will make a reader think differently about something or feel affirmed about something else.

 Years ago when I was a student, I actually believed it when my teachers told me that the pen was mightier than the sword and that words are indeed powerful. I had the audacity to think that I could make a small ripple in our world by sharing my ideas in writing.

As a child I wrote because there were things happening in my world that I couldn't explain, so I put pen to paper and poured out my heart. For years I kept diaries and then journals and I hid them away so that no one would know what I was thinking deep down inside. As I got older, I realized that I had the right to feel anyway that I wanted to feel and if someone didn't agree with me it didn't mean that I was necessarily the one who was wrong.

Even now  I sometimes write to process my emotions because they are too strong and too powerful to express in words because when I speak the words may come tumbling out of my mouth without my having an opportunity to revise or amend. When I write my feelings down, I can read over what I've written and decide if I need to add or delete any part of my message. Maybe it's a cowards way out, but I've seen how harmful unwieldy words can be. People have always said that sticks and stones can break  bones but words can never hurt, but they lied because words have the power to kill. A word said carelessly can kill a dream, a spirit or a relationship.

So I write to find the truth in a situation and sometimes I write just to find my truth.

It may sound dramatic, but I write to stay alive. If I did not have a way to express what I was feeling or to question those things I had doubts about, I would die. Perhaps not a physical death, but a slow draining of my creative life force.  I feel like I would become just a shell of who I was created to be.

Not all of my writing is public, nor should it be. A great deal of my writing is between the pages of my journal and there are other things that I've written that I may share with readers in time, but I don't write to get published. I write to somehow make it right.

Finding the Emotional Truth

I have received so many emails, text messages and Facebook posts from readers who've said that the reason they connected with The Other Side of Through was because it was so real. At first I wasn't sure what was meant by these comments and then I realized that what was being said is that the novel openly discusses topics that many find taboo, such as infidelity, abuse, unforgiveness and church hurt. Those readers who know me personally seemed to be surprised that I spoke with such candor about things that I wouldn't necessarily discuss in everyday conversation.

Although I am not timid or bashful by any means, I am somewhat reserved and am definitely a private person, so people, especially students, were very surprised when they read my novel because they couldn't believe Dr. Thompson wrote THAT!!! Many people want to assume that Jessie is my alter ego or that I am dissatisfied with my own life and marriage, but that's not true. What is true is the lesson that I try to teach all of my students when we discuss writing fiction: Find the Emotional Truth.

I've always felt that writer Anais Nin was on the right track when she said that "the role of the writer is not to say what we all can say, but what we are unable to say." What I mean is that the best writing, at least to me, is writing that says what we are all feeling, but may be unable or unwilling to say.

When we begin to identify the emotional truth of a situation, we learn that everyone basically feels the same emotions, but may have different life experiences that trigger them; therefore, it's important that as writers we learn to really feel those emotions so that we can describe them to ourselves and to others. I tell my writing students that it really doesn't matter whether or not they have ever experienced what it is they are writing about. What is important is that they find the emotion that is true for that situation and write from that perspective. For example, a writer could be working on a story about a man who has recently become a widower. This character may have lost his wife suddenly and is now having to readjust to being alone. It doesn't matter if the writer has ever actually had the experience and it doesn't even matter if the writer is male or married. What does matter is that the writer has felt whatever the core emotions are and in this case it's probably fear and regret.

In my writing workshop I would encourage my students to journal about what it feels like to be afraid. Afraid that no one will ever love them again or that the love they've experienced once in life may be all there is and that they will never get a second chance at happiness. Then I would ask them to journal about not being able to say goodbye to a loved one and what that would feel like. I would encourage them to remember a time when they didn't get a chance to say goodbye and what they wished they could have said. Next, I would probably ask them to reflect on losing pet or a loved one and then we would take all of those raw emotions and project them onto our character, the widower.

If you are thinking about writing seriously, then  that's what I encourage you to do this week. Take a moment to think about the emotions you've experienced in life: love, anger, betrayal, faith, joy-whatever comes to mind. Spend some time writing about these emotions without censoring yourself. Be completely honest without fear of what others would think or say about what you are feeling. Just write what YOU feel, not what others told you you should be feeling.The second part of this exercise is to apply it to your genre. So if you're writing poetry use the words that really capture the essence of that feeling. If you're writing a memoir, then use description so your readers feel those emotions, and if you are writing fiction apply those feelings to the character you've created.

Let me know what you think after you've tried this writing task and please keep those questions coming.

Happy Writing!

Michelle Donice

It's a Wonderful Life

Each Christmas Eve my cousin Marvin, my children, my husband, my mother and I put on our pajamas, eat pizza and the cookies we baked earlier in the day and watch movies until the wee hours of the morning. It never fails that Marvin will pick a movie that is so bad that it becomes funny and instead of watching the movie we laugh at all of the reasons it's so horrible. This Christmas Eve was bittersweet. Although Matt's girlfriend Devin and my step-daughter Tai Lynne were present, my mother was not able to travel.

Before going to sleep, we always read the children's classic The Crippled Lamb, a selection from the book of Matthew, feed the reindeer- although my children are all nearly grown- and leave cookies and milk for Santa. And as sure as the sun rises on Christmas morning, Santa will have sipped the milk and left crumbs on the table.

When Lyndsay was younger she would wake us up at an ungodly hour on Christmas morning and we would all walk bleary- eyed to the tree as she scurried beneath to see what Santa had brought her for being such a good girl. Now that she's almost 16 (and more sour than sweet most of the time) she wakes up much later in the morning, but since she is the baby of the family we let her be the first to make the Christmas morning discovery.

My husband and I have been up for hours waiting to hear movement. He's reading the paper as I write this and we both know it will be awhile because they stayed up until 4 am watching movies.

In a few hours there will be Christmas paper and bows scattered everywhere and the house I so carefully cleaned will look like a battle zone. Christmas music will be playing in the background and the kids will be enjoying their gifts while I sit in my favorite chair sipping tea and staring in amazement at how blessed I am. Lynn will begin preparing the lobster-stuffed grouper and then we will sit down as a family at the dinner table and once again give thanks to such a wonderfully amazing God.

But his holiday is not without sadness. At the moment Granddaddy is ill having given up his will to live. There have been several deaths that have shaken us and for too long we have had to deal with the evil motives of evil people.  We have had to tighten our belts financially and we have witnessed a world that gets crazier and scarier by the moment.

Just a moment ago Simba, our dog, threw up on the carpet and I remembered that I forgot to wrap a gift, but no matter how imperfect my life is, how silly our family traditions, or how wretched the world may seem, it truly is a wonderful life.

I See the God in You

     The other day I was talking to someone who had recently attended a hot yoga class upon my recommendation only to discover that that form of exercise was not for her. "No, never again!" Were her exact words. We laughed a bit about her experience and before saying goodbye she said in jest "Namaste." Another person overhearing the conversation turned to me and asked what does that mean? As I was explaining that Namaste is an expression that means "The Spirit in me bows to the Spirit in you," I started wondering how many opportunities I have missed in my own life to acknowledge the divinity I see in others.

     Of course it is easy to honor the miracle of my children. When I see them now I am humbled by the fact that just a few short years ago they were only an idea. A concept that my husband and I talked about and then one day I found out I was pregnant and thus began the miracle of their lives. With every heart beat and movement I realized that they were indeed divine creations and so when they were born it was easy to honor the Spirit from which I knew they came. They were God's creation and part of him was breathed into them on the day they were born.

     But when I encounter those people who bother me, it's not so easy. Through my life's journey I have sometimes had difficulty honoring the divinity that exists in everyone regardless of how vile he or she may seem. When that rude clerk at CVS throws my change on the counter without as much as a "thank you for shopping here," it's hard to remember that she is a child of God and deserves my love, honor and respect.

     Of course this doesn't mean that I should accept bad behavior or allow myself to be a doormat for others, but it does mean that before I open my mouth to cast judgement on another I have to think that this person was created by an Almighty God who loves them even in the midst of their bad behavior so why can't I?

     I have found that since I have began honoring the God I see in everyone I meet I have become more quiet in reverence for who they are and how we are ultimately connected even when I can't see anything that we could possibly have in common. The commonality is that we are all created by God and that makes us brothers and sisters, sons and daughters. Just like my children have a bit of me as part of their DNA each of us has a part of God as ours. 

     I'm sorry but I am no longer willing to look at someone who is different from me in either age, race, gender, socioeconomic status, religion, culture, creed, sexual preference or beliefs and not see myself in him. He is my brother. She is my sister and there is divinity in each of us because we honor the same God. There is only one. 

     Forgive me if it takes a moment for me to greet you audibly when we meet. Please just wait with me because I am not being standoffish. I am actually taking a moment to acknowledge the wonderful, divine creation that you are. Namaste.

When You Know Better You Do Better

Maya Angelou's saying "when you know better you do better" has been playing in my head quite a bit lately as I prepare to close out 2011. I feel as if I know what I should be doing, yet I don't do it. I keep doing the same things over and over again, but I expect different results. Isn't that the very definition of insanity? I'm not sure how many times I need to hear that my life mirrors my thoughts and that in order to attract good things into my life I must focus on "whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable" (Philippians 4:8). But even though I know this, I find it so difficult to stop those thoughts that make me feel bad. For example this morning when I started to feel irritated about all of the things that I needed to do today and how little time I had, in stead of immediately taking note of how I felt and changing my thoughts to more positive ones, I rode the wave for a while. Actually it felt good, in a perverse kind of way,  to be in a bad mood. I allowed myself to wallow in this funk until I finally came to my senses and said, "stop! I'm going to make this a good day!"

I think the reason that I find this so difficult is because it really takes a great deal of effort. It's hard work thinking about what I'm thinking about! When I just go with the emotion, there's no effort on my part. But when I'm constantly checking my thoughts, I really have to be on top of things.

It even goes beyond what I'm thinking to what I actually say. Every snarky thought that I have that eventually works its way out of my mouth has the potential to destroy me. It seems so harmless to say something catty about someone else, but when I do it causes harm not only to the other person but to me as well because I create negativity and invite those same unkind words to be said about me.

Probably the hardest thing to do is to just remain silent or to walk away when I'm in a situation where I feel compelled to say something negative or critical about another. There's one person in my life who I really cannot stand. Truthfully I cannot find one good thing about her. No matter how hard I try I cannot think of one redeeming quality she possesses. To make matters worse I don't know anyone who likes her either so it's easy for me to feel justified in badmouthing her. But the thing is that I do know better. I know that words hurt just as much, if not worse, than sticks and stones because the pain lasts so much longer.

Yes, in my opinion she may be vile, but she is a child of God and He loves her.  I know this, but I don't want to like her. I don't wanna! I don't wanna! It's so much better to think bad things about her and to feel superior to her because of the stupid things she does and says, but since I know better I have to do better. I have to keep my mouth closed and my opinion to myself.

So here's the deal. From now until the January 1, 2012, I'm going to do what I know I'm supposed to do.  I'm starting with watching my thoughts and my words and then moving onto other things I know I should be doing. I invite you to take this journey with me. I won't promise it will be easy, but I do promise we'll be better for doing it.