There are many moments and events in my life that circle back on each other and I'm going to try and coherently explain them to you. I was raised the first six years of my life - from 1944 to 1950 in the deep south - Greenville, MS. My sisters were twelve and thirteen years older than me and supposedly I wasn't particularly wanted. Hence, my mother needed a nanny to raise me and who did she find but a wonderful black woman named Bertha. Please follow below the orange squiggle and I will explain the powerful impact Bertha had on me, both when I was young and many years later after we had lost contact.
I was apparantly a difficult child for my parents and sisters as I was diagnosed at a very early age with ADHD. Now I know that wasn't a diagnosis when I was young, but our doctor gave me the best one I've ever had. He explained to my parents that if I had been a horse I would have been a race horse. I was approximately six months old when Bertha came to take care of me and she's the only one that stands out in all my memories of nurturing and caring. She cooked my meals, she washed my clothes, she took me for walks, every day when I lay down for my nap she took my white high top shoes and polished them so when I awoke they would be shiny bright again. She kept bows in my hair and a gold ring on my finger. She read to me when I was sleepy and caressed me when I was sad. We laughed together and she told me jokes. I was supposedly too bad to take to church, so Bertha had Thursday afternoon off and came on Sunday morning to keep me while the others went to church and she cooked Sunday dinner.
One she told me I never understood until I was much older and I always kept begging her to explain it to me. In her beautiful southern voice she would tell me there were four men floating down the river on a marble slab. The first man was blind, the second man didn't have any arms, the third man didn't have any legs and the fourth man didn't have any clothes on. The man who was blind saw a duck and the man who had no arms picked up a gun and shot the duck and the man who had no legs waded out in the water and got the duck and brought it back to the man who had no clothes on and he put it in his pocket. "Bertha," I would beg, "please tell me what it is." She would always smile her lovely wide smile and her eyes would get big and she would slap her leg and say loudly, "Dat am a lie!" I don't remember how old I finally was when I figured out what it meant, I do know Bertha was no longer in my life.
And while Bertha loved me and made all kinds of sacrifices for me, there was a problem in our relationship. My parents were extremely prejudice and kept reminding me Bertha was not okay because she was black. And I related to her as my primary caretaker and therefore as my mother figure. So if Bertha was not okay, how could I be? I was my father's pet and he was never angry ever with me in my life except once. I was four and my mother had a white friend named Lucille and the woman who did the laundry was called "colored Lucille." Once I called colored Lucille ma'm and my father jerked me over to him in front of colored Lucille and told me never to do that again as ma'am meant lady and there were no colored ladies. I remember being devestated at that and wondered what that meant for me and Bertha. Somehow it definitely meant we were not as good as other people. The negativity was reinforced for me in that while Bertha ate at our house, she had her own set of dishes and was never to eat or drink from any of the family dishes. Bertha and I were both also relegated to eating at a kitchen table while the rest of the family and sometimes friends ate their meals in the dining room.
So here I am in love with Bertha and her caring kept me sane for quite a while and fast foward many years until I was twenty-two and worked at Atlas Van Lines in Atlanta, GA. I was at work one day when I was robbed and raped by a black man with a gun. I was alone in the office he came to rob and saw the opportunity for rape. They caught him two days later and he pled guilty and was sentenced to many years in prison. At the time, a black in Georgia could get the death penalty for raping a white woman and I was ever so glad he didn't. I lost most of my friends though, as this was 1966 as they all said their husbands would never allow them back in their beds after a black man had touched them. Everyone, including my family, now thought I was dirty.
But I had shades of Bertha and love and caring and I didn't judge the whole black race by what one man had done. Perhaps Bertha saved me after all those years. And I think the biggest compliment I've ever had from my daughter, who was four, that day in 1966 when I was raped, is that she has never seen a prejudicial bone in my body. I taught her to love and revere everyone just the same.
I often think of Bertha and how good she was to me, and now that I know we are both okay, I feel sorry for all the little children who never had a Bertha in their life.