Miss Mack’s Beautiful Boutique

The unpaved, bumpy red clay roads are throwing dust onto my windshield.  The air is thick from the summer humidity.  The sweat on my forehead rolls down my nose and onto my top lip.  It is July in the small southern town of Leesburg, Georgia.  Passion fills my soul.  I am looking for a woman.  Her name is unknown to me.  I will know her when I see her.

I am weary from the hot days of relentless searching to no avail until one afternoon I see in front of me, through my dusty windshield, an image moving slowly, bending down and up, down and up.  As I draw nearer, this faint figure evolves into a stalwart, older black woman hanging her laundry on a makeshift clothesline. There is nothing unusual about that in this part of the country except for the large pig split from top to bottom hanging along side her freshly laundered undergarments. Underneath both, a bucket of firewood is billowing smoke over the pig and her crisp laundry.  As I sit in my car mesmerized, memories flood my weary mind. Traveling unpaved country roads with my Father in the driver’s seat of our faded green Studebaker was a staple of my early childhood.

As an insurance salesman in the small southern town of Albany, ten miles away from where I currently sat, many of my Father’s clients mirrored the stalwart black, woman
I was now surveilling. Perhaps, this similarity was the reason I initially noticed her and now found myself on the side of the road staring at her. At the time of my childhood, in the southern culture, “Coloreds” and “Whites Only” signs were prevalent and were found above most water fountains in the local department stores.  In our First Baptist Church the only black man allowed to roam the halls was the janitor, Mr. Johnny. There were still white schools “on the right side of town” and black schools on
the “other side of town.” Our paths rarely crossed.  There were, of course, exceptions. If you belonged to the “rich, white upper class” your family employed a
black woman to clean your home, cook your meals and to serve as a nanny for your children.  A black man could be hired to take care of the beautiful azalea bushes in your
front yard.

Credit cards and bank autopay had not yet been conceived so our family Studebaker was the means by which Daddy would collect the monthly fees. He often took me along for these rides into “the other side of town” where he introduced me to a culture that otherwise I would have had no knowledge of at the time.  As a child, there were no thoughts of the contrasts in the colors of our skin. These had not been learned nor were they taught to me.  As we arrived at one of his client’s homes,  I immediately
noticed her children playing in the front yard and before Daddy could fully park his green Studebaker on the dirt road, I had jumped out and we quickly began a game of hide and go seek.  Or our other favorite pastime that began with a pair of small broken twigs that may have fallen from the pecan trees above.  All that was left was to find a little mound of dirt in which to twist the twig round and round looking for the “doodle bug, doodle bug, come out tonight.” As we arrived, the woman of the house came onto the front porch and down the steps, wiping her hands on her long white apron that covered the front of her skirt. Daddy walked up to her with an outstretched hand and said, “Good mornin’, Miss Mary. How you doin’ this mornin’?”  The arrival of Daddy and me meant only one thing to Miss Mary.  Money was due.  She reached out her hand, lowered her head and said with a stutter, “Misser Hall, I, I, I just ain’t got it this month.” Daddy patted her on her arm and said: “Well that’s alright Miss Mary.  I’ll take care of it this time.”

When we got back in that old faded, green Studebaker heading to his next client, Daddy would pull his wallet out of his back pocket, take out a $5 bill and hand write on a white envelope, Miss Mary. He would put it in a black zippered pouch and place it under the front seat. We would then travel a new, dusty road to his next client where I would play in the front yard with another “Miss Mary’s” children and he might have to slip out one more crisp $5 bill from his back pocket.  As I sit watching my unnamed stalwart, black woman I am reflecting back on the kindness and generosity of my Daddy and the life lessons he taught me on those otherwise forbidden trips into “the other side of town.”  He may very well be responsible for the passion I feel in my soul as I search for the perfect woman.

I am now keenly aware that the stalwart, black woman has noticed this skinny white girl sitting on the side of the road staring at her. I quickly exit my car and move onto her property.

“I was riding by and noticed the pig hanging on the clothesline and I was just curious about it,” I say. As she cautiously moves toward me she says: “Yes M’am.  I’m smokin’ ‘at pig to have in the winter.”  With this, she gestures me to have a seat on her tree stump chairs as she explains,  “Em workers chopped these trees down over yonder in ‘em woods and they give me these stumps.” This is a welcomed new experience for me as we both have a seat. Although I was at that time, a young woman and she was seasoned and in her upper years, we were immediately relaxed and comfortable with each other.  She seemed familiar to me as she introduced herself as Miss Mack.  Her blue coverall jeans were frayed at the knees and her white tee shirt was worn and stained from too many wears over the years.  At that time in the feminine evolution, women were just beginning to wear pants and she had lots to say about that as she noticed I too was wearing pants.

She informed me, “that if you are sanctified,”  (a word I had not heard since I was a child sitting in the pews at the First Baptist Church) “old ladies like me don’t straighten they hair,  don’t curl they hair and don’t wear pants.  But I been wearing pants when I was a young lady ‘cause I was plowin’ a mule and diggin’ ditches and cuttin’ bushes.  I needed on pants you know.  And I been wearin’ ‘em but now like I see on that tv they be wearin’ ‘em pant suits.  I didn’t have no pant suits in those days, but I wore pants so it ain’t nothin’ new to me.”

As Miss Mack expressed her angst, I noticed that rich, red Georgia clay was impacted under each broken nail.  Her knuckles were bruised with deep scratches along the tops. These were strong, working hands earned from her long years “diggin’ ditches and cuttin’ bushes.”  I recognized them as very similar to my Mother’s. Although hers were without the rich, red Georgia clay, Mama’s hands had a certain character developed after many years of struggling in life.  Miss Mack’s hands softened my heart and made for an immediate connection.

As the summer sun continued to beat down on our sweaty brows, Miss Mack pulled out of her coverall jean pocket a small tin can.  Immediately, I recognized it to be some form of snuff or dipping tobacco.  I know this because one of my Daddy’s sisters was quietly rumored to have been a dipper.  As a small child, I had noticed little brown streaks streaming from the corners of Aunt Annie’s mouth all the way down her chin.  They appeared to be permanent.I had also noticed a Maxwell House coffee can beside her living room chair.  Inside could always be found a brown liquid and a rather pungent smell emanated from this mysterious can.Now here I was all these years later, sitting on a tree stump with an aging, black woman named Miss Mack extending her can of chewing tobacco toward me as she says:  “I quit smokin’ cigarettes but I went to dippin’ snuff and chewin’ tobacco.  Here you take a dip.”

Cautiously, I take hold of the can.  I had seen my Aunt Annie with an extended lower lip often making a slurping sound so I figured perhaps that extension was a dip of snuff.  So I pull out my lower lip and ask “Do I put it down here?”  I see a wry little smile on Miss Mack’s face as she says  “Well some people do but I hump mine around…I mean you know take your tongue and push it all around.  And a big one, I take a great big dip you know…”

 Although I am now gagging and about to throw up on her freshly cut grass, I see this snuff dipping experiment as a means to gain her trust.  I choke back any excess tobacco juice to avoid a disaster. Miss Mack notices my struggles and says:  “That’s right. That’s right.  This here is Peach flavor and it be real sweet.”

Still not certain I have mastered the proper technique I ask, “Do I suck on it or do I swallow it?” She says rolling her eyes: “No, no, no, honey, you spits it.”

With sweat dripping down our foreheads, and a split pig smokin’ on the clothesline, spits it we did for the next hour or so.  I finally now understood the purpose of Aunt Annie’s Maxwell House coffee can that she kept by her living room chair.  She too, had been spitzin’ it.

As the sun began to set that day, I felt our connection growing deeper.  I knew for certain that I had indeed found the woman I had been looking for.  At that point, I knew it was time to share with Miss Mack the reason for my search.  Having witnessed the evolution of racial relationships as a child and young adult, I had a vision of making a documentary seen through the eyes of a black woman living in the deep South during the Civil Rights Movement.  A woman who never made the NBC Nightly News but one who was a nameless fighter for freedom and one who stood steadfastly with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. As I explained my reason for being there, she appeared quite eager to share her story.  As I rose to leave, she reached out her hand. I grabbed it and asked,  “May I see you again?” She quickly answered, “You can come agin tomorrow if you want. I’ll be here.”

As I left her house late that afternoon driving on that dusty dirt road, I found it hard to breathe.  My long awaited meeting of the perfect woman had finally arrived.  My mind raced in anticipation of what was to come. I sensed deep in my being that Miss Mack and I were about to have one great adventure.

The following day I arrived early to find her sitting on one of her tree trunk chairs with her tattered, Holy Bible in her lap.  I could see its significance in her life from the crevices in the leather and the multiple hand folded bookmarks that she had carefully placed at passages she deemed to be pertinent.  It looked similar to the one my Mama had on her bedside table all of her life. Remembering Miss Mack’s previous use of the word sanctified I was prompted to ask, “Are you a religious woman?”  Without hesitation she said, “I reads the Bible every day. I believe you gotta do right to go to heaven. ‘Cause if gettin’ yo license would make you a good driver, all you had to do was drive good ... then you could zig zag all over the road.  But once you get yo license and you still don’t drive right, they be takin’ it away from you.  So that’s what I believe about religion, if you pray and get converted and you do whatever you wanna and don’t do right, then you gonna go to hell.”

I did agree wholeheartedly with Miss Mack that “we gotta do right” in this world, and at the same time, it was also quite clear to me that we were currently living in very different worlds. Although I had grown up in Albany, I was now living as an independent young woman in the City of Manhattan and thought my Self to be a woman of the world. These religious views appeared much harsher than mine although these concepts were familiar to me as I had grown up in a strict Southern Baptist home.

As our day progressed, I moved our conversation to the Civil Rights Movement and how she had gotten involved. She explained to me that she had not intended to be a marcher. “I used to raise tomatoes, butter beans and snap peas and I’d give ‘em to a lot of people who was marchin’ so they’d have somethin’ to eat. I told ‘em, I’d do anything but march.”

She seemed to linger in thought for a moment before continuing: “Somethin’ happened down the road from here that changed my mind. There’s a girl up there now, that girl went to jail.  Her name was Miss Dorothy Bell. She stayed there a long time.  She was going to school over ‘der in Sylvester, GA and her and this white boy had a fight  and they put her in jail. I think she beat that boy though.  She didn’t kill ‘em, she just tore him up.  Just beat his butt.”

At the time of this conversation, the Women’s Movement was at the forefront of life in our country and I was deeply involved. Hearing that a female beat the butt of any male was a delight to my ears.  As Miss Mack continued, my enthusiasm quickly turned to anger.

“It made me mad so a bunch o’ us got together and we marched over there. Would you believe one of these 'crackers' got some bees in a box, they call it a hive, and they got in front of us and they pushed that bee hive over so those bees would get us.  But didn’t a person get stung.  It made me so mad, I said if everybody else’ll keep marching, I will too. And we all marched and marched right up to that courthouse.”

 In telling this story she was reminded of another event that sent her into the streets as well.  “There was a black boy one day, the white woman say he whistled at her.  And he went to the chain gang for whistling at a white woman. And he swear he didn’t whistle at her but he went to jail.”

 I sat quiet on my tree stump.  Several minutes passed in silence before she continued.  “But now they can whistle at our black women, they can cuss ‘em out, they can kill ‘em, they can do anything and there’s nothing to it.”

Inside, I wanted to scream as I struggled to hold back my tears. Painfully, I knew she was right.  Her stories took me back to growing up nearby.  Even as a self-centered teenaged girl, I was aware of the palpable sense of danger that began to permeate our society at the time.  I could see the inequities and yet knew that it was not safe to speak of them.  The “Colored” and “Whites Only”  signs remained hung above the water fountains in the Rosenberg Department store.  I recall one Saturday morning shopping with my Mama for a new dress to wear on Easter Sunday. As I passed by the water fountains on the way to the dressing rooms, I saw the signs.  I stopped in front of them and I remember thinking, “these make no sense.”  I took a moment and looked all around the store to see if anyone was looking in my direction.  When it seemed safe, I ripped both of the signs off the walls, held them against my chest, covered them with my potential Easter Sunday dress and quickly walked into the dressing rooms.  With the curtains closed, I dropped them both into the waste baskets.

After completing this dangerous, inappropriate sign removal in Rosenberg’s, Mama and I left the store with Easter dress in hand, crossed over Broad street and headed to the Woolworth’s for a Coca Cola.  As I stepped onto the street I saw a handsome, young black boy crossing in the opposite direction.  As we passed each other, almost shoulder to shoulder, I looked at him and he looked at me. We smiled.  No one saw this “shocking exchange” but the two of us.  I knew this was an innocent act yet I also knew that if someone else had seen it, I would have been viewed as the victim, and he would have been found guilty on the spot as was Miss Dorothy Bell, fighter extraordinaire, and the unnamed whistling black boy.

The time that Miss Mack and I spent together was filled with stories like these in which she shared the struggles and courageous adventures that she traversed in the Civil Rights Movement.  On one of these days, she shared with me her trip to Jackson, Mississippi with a group of Methodist women.  She began with a proclamation. “Black folks have had it and white people what believe in helping black people.  But the only way the whites could help is they would have to do it unbeknowns to they color.”

I am somewhat confused by this statement but she quickly continues saying, “that one of the women on the trip was the wife of a white minister.” As they were walking to a Bible class, this white woman put her arm around Miss Mack, a gesture that made her feel uncomfortable. She says to the minister’s wife: “Now when we get back home would ya”ll be doing this, puttin’ yo arms around me?” The minister’s wife says: “Well, you know my husband’s a minister and you know what my folks would think of me.” Miss Mack pushed her away and said: “Take yo arm down. You don’t mean it so take yo arm down. I understand in Georgia ya’ll don’t fool with black folks so why you pretending over here in Mississippi?”  According to Miss Mack, it was a long, hot ride back to Georgia.

Some days, as we sat in the steamy, humid summer air and she shared her stories, my heart was broken open.  Often, I was overcome with anger, grief and sometimes disbelief. As a child, traveling with Daddy, my experience of the battle between whites and blacks was primarily one of innocence and curiosity.  Later as a teenager, fear, anxiety and often bewilderment and misunderstanding came into my awareness.  Juxtaposed to this, Miss Mack’s experience was as a woman with understandable anger who stood up with courage.  As I sat with her those precious days, I came to see that she was one woman living on a country road sharing her  experiences freely with a young white woman.  I wondered, how many stories were left untold by how many black women?  What would have been Miss Mary’s story?  Through my experience with Miss Mack, I knew I was one of the privileged.  I got to hear them first hand.

As we continued our adventure together, our conversations often turned to Dr. Martin Luther King.  In one of these she said:“ I went to Washington on a Trailways bus to march with Dr. King.  I wore out a pair of shoes in four days.  Course “em shoes  weren’t no count.”

 As a teenage girl, I too had watched Dr. King take his place on the streets of our country.  He became somewhat of a fixture in my hometown as he often spoke at the Baptist Church on Whitney Street.  This area, of course, was forbidden to me as deemed by the current societal norms of a small Southern town. His presence there, however, was widely and exhaustedly reported by our local news team.

As part of what Dr. King called The Albany Movement, he organized a sit-in at the local Woolworth’s on Broad Street, right near where I had encountered the provocative smile from the handsome black boy. There was a great deal of shouting, rock throwing and flag waving that day. Many were arrested including Dr. King and his faithful follower and companion, John Lewis.  This incident made the NBC Nightly News, at that time our only source of national news. Many in our First Baptist Church were lead to declare this “ an embarrassment to our genteel, Southern community that would henceforth be known for this one, tragic event!”  As it turned out, the history books have indeed recorded this incident as a significant part of The Albany Movement.  Apparently, Dr. King and John Lewis were prepared to stay incarcerated for as long as it took.  However, an unnamed, mysterious white man came to the jailhouse and paid their bail in cash thus releasing them from their “prison time.”  There has always been some question as to the motive of this white man.  Was his generosity due to the kindness in his heart and his belief in The Movement, or did he have a more sinister motive?  Some have felt that by freeing Dr. King, he might soon be found dead in a back alley from a gunshot wound.  We will never know the answer to this question however, at the time, these events certainly served to intensify the anger bubbling below.

 A few weeks later on one of our Friday visits, Miss Mack invited me to come to church with her on the following Sunday.  As a child, I had found Southern Baptist church services to be boring and bordering on painful. This often lead to a battle between falling asleep or covering my midsection to avoid the loud sound of my stomach growling during the dramatic, silent pauses in the preacher’s sermon.  I recalled that on some of the visits with my Daddy, I had heard his clients speak about going to their churches where there was great shoutin’ and dancin’ in the aisles.  Wild eyed upon hearing this, I was certain some in my Mama’s Baptist church might have called this behavior, “sinful.” This did not prevent me from secretly wishing I could witness this “shameful” behavior in person.  Now after all these years, Miss Mack was finally providing that opportunity.

Getting dressed that Sunday morning, I did, however, have some anxiety about what to wear.  In our white churches, the ladies, including my Mama, always wore a hat out of respect for the Heavenly Father.  I had not discussed my attire with Miss Mack so decided that I best just wear a nice “Sunday go to meeting” dress and skip the hat. When we arrived at the wooden church deep in the woods near Miss Mack’s house, it became clear perhaps for the first time in my life, I was in the minority.  A young white woman was surrounded by a room full of black strangers wearing their Sunday finest! How often had the black folks in my Southern community felt this sense of anxiety when surrounded by all us white folks?

The first thing I noticed was the old, upright piano with the broken ivory keys.  The wood was faded from the morning sun peaking through the stained glass windows.  There were scuff marks along the bottom and one of the pedals had collapsed to the floor.  It reminded me of the piano in my Grandmother’s living room after all nine of her children and then the twenty or so grandchildren had abused it for all of their combined childhoods.  As Miss Mack and I found our seats on the pews right in front of the pulpit,  the aging church pianist placed her hands upon those faded keys and hit her first notes. Instantly, en masse, every person in the congregation stood up. This brought me to the second thing I noticed.  My Daddy’s client’s were right!  Black folks church music is not like the white folks church music I grew up with. I was used to a more subdued approach to a hymn.  This music was upbeat and had rhythm. The congregants found ways to add their own unique expression to it.  They clapped their hands, stomped their feet, pounded their hands on the back of the pews, and lifted their voices to the greatest heights of that sanctuary.  It pierced my being.  Before I knew it, Miss Mack was moving out into the aisles and grabbing my arm to come with her.  We all danced, and shouted and stomped our feet in praise to the Heavenly Father.  What a far cry from wearing a hat like my Mama! Next the roaring voice of the preacher stepped up to the pulpit and shook the rafters with his words.  Believe me, if my stomach had growled during this sermon, no one on the planet would have heard it.  Following the end of his words, as is required in any authentic Southern Baptist Church, the pastor gave the congregation an opportunity to be saved again. And then in an effort to send us all out into the world in high spirits and filled with joy, the pastor closed with an uplifting prayer and the choir led us in a closing song. We sang and danced and stomped our way up the aisle and out onto the country road.  Thinking back to that Sunday morning, I understood that this event occurred not because the Civil Rights Act of 1964 had been passed, but rather this joyful event occurred because human hearts connect on a soul level no matter the color of one’s skin.

The following week when I arrived for my visit, the topic of discussion was one that had not been breached in any way previously.  Apparently, Miss Mack had seen a story on the NBC Nightly News about bisexuality and it was fresh on her mind.  Living in New York City had certainly provided me with opportunities to become aware of and to support the Gay Rights Movement.  Based on our previous religious discussions, I was somewhat apprehensive about addressing this subject.  I decided in the end,  it was best to just let her have her say on the topic.  I sat quietly on the tree stump as she began. “’Cause it’s like, some people buy oranges and grapefruits.  There was a girl told me one day,  while I was eatin’ a grapefruit, I was trying to reduce my weight, and I don’t like to scoop ‘em out with a spoon, I like to peel ‘em and eat ‘em like you do an orange.  “

I am hanging on her every word as she continues: “That girl then she say: You care as much for a grapefruit as you do an orange?  I said: I really do.  So I guess that’s the way. Them bisexuals they care as much for the woman as they do the man.  They care as much for the man as they do the woman.  I guess they feel just as good one way as they do the other.”

With that Miss Mack gave a big laugh with her rather sizable belly giggling up and down, and said in a loud voice:  “Ooooh Boy!”  No further words were necessary. It seemed that topic was now happily covered and closed.

Summer was drawing to an end as well as my time in the Deep South. In one of our final visits together, I asked Miss Mack to share what Dr. King had meant to her.  I saw her draw in a deep breath of hot, Georgia air as she dropped her head forward. She pondered deeply for a few moments and then said:  “So I feel like my flower yard.  I go get me a rose.  I get one wide open.  I get one just startin’.  However, I want to fix my bouquet that’s how I get my flowers out of my Garden.  That’s how I think about Dr. King. I believe he was another Moses.  Him gettin’ killed, it wasn’t ‘cause he was doin’ bad.  God take care of everybody.  And at His own set time, He get the flowers out of His garden that He wanna put in His bouquet, just like we do.  And I think King was one of the beautiful flowers that He had growing in His garden.”

Her words took my breath away.  I had never heard Dr. King described in a more beautiful or eloquent way.  Sitting with Miss Mack on our stumps that day, we both cried.  As I watched her, I understood that she had faced her fear when she gave up growing food and took to the streets fighting for the freedom of others.  She had survived beehives thrown onto her path, wore out shoes marching from Mississippi to Alabama, all the way to Washington DC. and New York City.  She had survived unwanted stares and whistles from white men. She stood up to disrespect and false admiration from white women. And ultimately she took her place beside Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. on the streets of this country where they all fought for something that should have been theirs all along.

In speaking of him that day, I was reminded of my chance encounter with him years earlier.  After a short visit to my family in Albany, I was returning to my life in New York City. I would take a small aircraft to Atlanta and from there would transfer to a larger plane taking me to LaGuardia and home. As I arrived at the airport, I saw there were fifteen to twenty men dressed in suits running about the parking lot and in and out of all the buildings.  As we made our way to the drop-off location, an out of breath young man, screamed to us: “Move your car now.  There is a bomb threat.”  We quickly park our car and walk into the terminal where we learn that Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and his wife, Coretta are to be passengers on my flight. We knew immediately that the bomb threat was directed toward the two of them and all the frantic men in suites belonged to the FBI.

We wait for further instructions.  Boarding a plane in a small, regional airport at that time was still simple. Walk out to the awaiting plane on the tarmac, climb the stairs with your suitcase, show your ticket to the stewardess, (TSA agents and flight attendants were unknown terms at the time) and take a seat.  Of course, none of this was taking place at the time as the men in suits were scurrying in and about the plane searching for the infamous bomb. With all the commotion it took me a moment to realize that I had yet to see Dr. and Mrs. King.  Ultimately we learned that they were sequestered, for their protection, somewhere in a private room in the small terminal.

Two hours slowly pass. Finally, an employee from the airline entered the waiting room announcing that the plane has been cleared and we may now board.  I say goodbye to my family and walk onto the tarmac and up the stairs. There are sixteen seats on the aircraft so I find a window midway and settle in for the short flight to Atlanta.  Soon I look up to see that Dr. King and Coretta have entered the plane.  My heart starts to pound.  I had “grown up” with both of them and watched their movements on the Nightly News for years.  Now here they are standing five feet from me.  They walk down the aisle and take their seats two rows in front of me on the opposite side of the aircraft.  The back of their heads are in clear view.  As we taxi down the runway, my eyes are fixed on the two figures in front of me.  Once in the air, the real mental battle began.  My first thought was, get up out of your seat and go talk to them.  There was so much I would love to ask this great freedom fighter and hero of so many.  And yet, dare I disturb them?  I am a young, inexperienced white woman, what can I say to them?  This is when the other thought began to run rampant through my brain, “the bomb is still on the plane and midair, it is going to explode killing all on board.”  I imagined that the headline would read :  “Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and his lovely wife Coretta were killed when a bomb exploded on Flight 207 heading to Atlanta.  Also killed on the flight was a nameless, young white woman from Albany, Georgia.”  It became clear to me that after all my beautiful life and all the things I had accomplished and wanted to achieve, I now would forever be remembered as the nameless young white woman who also died. This thought finally won out and for the remainder of the flight, I sat in my window seat on the opposite side of the plane anxiously waiting for the aircraft to explode.

As I recalled the events of  that day, I could once again feel the fear that I had felt as a teenage girl.  My fragile, youthful mind had been clouded by untruths and misunderstandings placed there by ignorance. After escaping this uninformed environment as a young independent adult, I educated my Self and came to understand and value the mission that Dr. King had set for himself, for his people, and for all of us.

That educated Self is the one who regrets this once in a lifetime, missed opportunity on Flight 207 headed to Atlanta.

I also knew that day, that no matter my childish experiences of The Movement, or my fearful, chance encounter or what I deemed my Self-educated mind, I would never know the depth of Miss Mack’s sorrow. Watching her sitting on that tree stump as she reflected on Dr. King, was a sacred moment in my life.  One I will never forget.

 I did not finish that documentary, although I still have the tape recordings in my storage. Perhaps, that was not my mission with Miss Mack. I have come to believe that she simply may have served as one of my life’s greatest teachers. Two women, unknown to each other, who lived through the same events with paradoxical experiences.  Two women, one older, one younger. One with dark skin, one with light.  One urban, one rural. Nothing available to them but for the dusty red clay roads and two recently chopped tree stumps.

Years later I received a note in the mail from Miss Mack’s son.  It seemed she too had been picked for God’s Beautiful Boutique. Looking back, I have asked my Self why I chose and felt compelled to tell this story.  What drove me as a young adult to those dusty dirt roads looking for the perfect woman? I wanted to tell Miss Mack’s story not just for her but for all the faceless, nameless black women who fearlessly took to the streets of America in order to open a path for themselves and for the children that would follow.  Yes, that is certainly the most powerful motive for my story.

And yet as I have reflected and pondered all of these events, I have discovered a deeper meaning for me in the telling of this story. My most profound memories of Daddy are of those days in that faded green Studebaker sedan, barely able to see over the windows, traveling to all the homes of his “Miss Mary” clients.  There he taught me how to treat others by his own kindness and generosity, no matter the color of anyone’s skin. I have come to see that his connection with the black community deeply impacted this little, innocent girl who held his hand and looked with awe at his every move. Those memories translated to my understanding of love, compassion, generosity, and grace. They also have left a profound sense of deep longing in my soul. A longing to once again see those tiny black and white hands, twirling sticks in the dusty dirt looking for “Doodle Bugs, Doodle Bugs!  To hear the gentle sound of Daddy’s voice calming Miss Mary, “That’s alright, I’ll take care of it this time.” To sit in that faded green Studebaker and watch Daddy take out that crisp $5 bill…

My life’s work and spiritual path have led me on a journey from which I have often found my Self to be the only white human in the room as I was so long ago dancin’ in the aisles at Miss Mack’s church. I found love in those rooms, eternal relationships and I have found in those moments of connection and familiarity, that my longing is fulfilled.

Although no one knows my Daddy’s name but for those of us who knew and loved him, I am certain he has earned a place in God’s Beautiful Bouquet right next to Miss Mack, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.  and all the Miss Marys who stood with them.

And as Miss Mack said, perhaps one day, we will all learn that a beautiful bouquet takes many colors, shapes and sizes, “some of us be a rose, some be wide open, and some be just startin,” but if we carefully place them side by side, it could take our breath away.