Speaker 1: Yea. Yet you know boys, it's back and reot it
Speaker 1: all in your mind. Yeah, and that deep throating. This
Speaker 1: is for the streets, the real the railroading, the distant franchise,
Speaker 1: the truth escapegoating, and they ain't know when we speak
Speaker 1: the truth. So they quoted because we wrote it. The
Speaker 1: North South East coat is the g be my tree,
Speaker 1: keeping your head bobbing. It ain't no stopping and wants
Speaker 1: to be drops head by. And then the system is
Speaker 1: so corrupted they throw the rock out of their heads
Speaker 1: and then blame it on us. Don't get it twisted
Speaker 1: on code And we danced for no buttament biscuits. So
Speaker 1: so the crazy thing is like when you are teaching,
Speaker 1: especially in like underprivileged areas right from town. You know
Speaker 1: you're at the schools and you're trying to your best,
Speaker 1: you know, to to get these kids on the right track.
Speaker 1: Oftentimes these kids you don't know what these kids are
Speaker 1: going through at home. You don't know. Kids come to
Speaker 1: school hungry. Sometimes if they don't come to school, they
Speaker 1: will not eat. They come come to school after being
Speaker 1: assaulted by family members. Um sometimes dirty. Yeah, they come.
Speaker 1: It's the same outfit where the average person may think, oh,
Speaker 1: they must really like that outfit. They may not have
Speaker 1: another outfit, right. And then it's also the peer pressure
Speaker 1: of that kid who noticed that they're wearing the same
Speaker 1: thing that might tease them, you know, because that happened
Speaker 1: to me. You know, crazy thing. I had a guy
Speaker 1: in my classroom, you know, he started making fun about
Speaker 1: my clothes and we started fighting. We gotta suspended three day,
Speaker 1: came back to school. The first day back, he was like,
Speaker 1: I'm still gonna talk about you. So we started fighting again.
Speaker 1: This time they put us in sack, you know, detention, right,
Speaker 1: and uh, he was one of those people that I
Speaker 1: kind of put in that same uh, you know cluster
Speaker 1: of the tractors that I wanted to get back at
Speaker 1: when I got paid, right, And so after I got paid,
Speaker 1: I got to the money. Yeah, I wrote up to
Speaker 1: I was riding around and Maserati and I'm in I
Speaker 1: come through the McDonald's parking lot and I see him
Speaker 1: and uh, you know, I called his name. See this guy,
Speaker 1: he's like, he looks like a crackhead, skinny, dirty clothes.
Speaker 1: I called his name. He turned around teeth on and uh,
Speaker 1: I called his name, and I said, oh, you said yo,
Speaker 1: what's up? WILLI D I said, what's up? Man? I say,
Speaker 1: so you are right, yeah, yeah, yeah, I said, you
Speaker 1: need to ride now I'm good, I say, we're here
Speaker 1: back then. You know, I just started making money, so
Speaker 1: I want to show off. So I always had thousands
Speaker 1: of dollars in my pockets, so I probably had about
Speaker 1: ten thousand dollars in them one of the pockets, and
Speaker 1: I pulled it out and gave it to him. Wow.
Speaker 1: And at first he refused, and I said, no, take it, man,
Speaker 1: take it. You know what I'm saying, I don't need it.
Speaker 1: And I gave it to him and I drove off.
Speaker 1: But it goes to show you about life. I thought
Speaker 1: that it was gonna make me feel good to snub him,
Speaker 1: you know, to put it and rubb it in his face.
Speaker 1: You know that I had made it. Look at me,
Speaker 1: I'm this big successful look at me. But I felt
Speaker 1: sorry for him. I felt really bad, and I felt
Speaker 1: bad that I even felt that when in the first
Speaker 1: place like that, I felt like I had to like
Speaker 1: accomplish something great, you know, to be accepted by a
Speaker 1: person you know or someone you know. I felt like
Speaker 1: I had to come back and and and prove that
Speaker 1: I was worthy, you know, uh of of somebody else's
Speaker 1: you know, praise, you know, a recognition, like you said earlier, attention. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you want to be recognized. You want to be known
Speaker 1: literally for doing something. Unfortunately, now a lot of young
Speaker 1: and even some older people want to be known for
Speaker 1: doing something, and it may not be good that seconds
Speaker 1: of fame. Everybody just wants everybody just wants that that attention.
Speaker 1: And you know, it's crazy because you know, I'm gonna
Speaker 1: tell you something, like I I double salute you for
Speaker 1: you do because you don't just you know, teach. I
Speaker 1: mean you're really ingrained, and like I really like the
Speaker 1: correction and the rehabilitation of our young people, you know,
Speaker 1: who are out there who are going through it. That's
Speaker 1: a tough position to be in because you live with that,
Speaker 1: you go to sleep with that, you wake up with that,
Speaker 1: you know, you eat with that. You know, it's constantly
Speaker 1: you know, on your mind, you know, so you know
Speaker 1: it's it's it's a it's a very difficult thing to
Speaker 1: deal with, you know, especially if if you've already had
Speaker 1: your own traumatic experiences, right, you know, which which you
Speaker 1: can speak to. I mean, I don't know if you
Speaker 1: want to, but yeah, you know so. So you know
Speaker 1: with the situation with your mother, you know, it came
Speaker 1: a time when you didn't feel safe around her. Um.
Speaker 1: That's why I said dysfunctional family. You get this picture
Speaker 1: and it it looks great, but you don't know what's
Speaker 1: on the back side of the picture frame. And as
Speaker 1: I got older, my mom started to be more I
Speaker 1: guess you would just say, down right me and abusive
Speaker 1: because she had been done wrong by so many men.
Speaker 1: Did you feel like she was jealous of you at all?
Speaker 1: Sometimes yes, she had made comments about or you, thank
Speaker 1: you pretty, we'll mess up your face. I wore glasses
Speaker 1: and she would say things like break up your glasses.
Speaker 1: Oh god, I really can't see now. But it's like, okay,
Speaker 1: just be quiet, just be quiet, don't don't poke the bear,
Speaker 1: don't don't give it any more energy. I would just
Speaker 1: be quiet. And I wasn't the kind of young teenager
Speaker 1: who did stuff to get in trouble. All I had
Speaker 1: to do was breathe oxygen. All I had to do
Speaker 1: was be there. And if she had a bad day
Speaker 1: at work or someone had just literally piste her off,
Speaker 1: I was gonna get it. I was gonna get it,
Speaker 1: and my grandmother would be the one to say, run,
Speaker 1: get out of the house, and I would run and
Speaker 1: I would run to my neighbor's house and I would
Speaker 1: stay until my grandmother will say, Okay, you could come
Speaker 1: home now. And I grew up with that in my teens,
Speaker 1: and I didn't think it was abnormal. I thought, maybe
Speaker 1: this is what everybody goes through. I had nothing to
Speaker 1: compare it to. But every family has something then, But
Speaker 1: what is that something? It might be, um, you know
Speaker 1: grandparents like my grandparents who took care of you. But
Speaker 1: when I got older, I understood, Oh, my grandmother Mary
Speaker 1: and my grandfather because he could take care of her
Speaker 1: when she was fourteen fifteen years old. That's like you
Speaker 1: said that nobody would do that. They not normally don't
Speaker 1: do that here in the United States and other countries. Yoh, yeah,
Speaker 1: that's quite normal. But who would have thought of that?
Speaker 1: Who would have pawned her off like that? But my
Speaker 1: great grandmother, I know, loved my grandmother hugely. But with
Speaker 1: my mother, she, according to where my cousins and aunts
Speaker 1: would tell me, she just had this mean streak in
Speaker 1: her and the physical abuse that she received just accentuated it.
Speaker 1: She had one other set of children, supposedly with my
Speaker 1: biological father, and I say a set because they were
Speaker 1: twins and they didn't live, so I literally was the
Speaker 1: oldest and then the only child. But in my twenties
Speaker 1: I always worked. I always wanted to work because I
Speaker 1: want to have my own money, because there were things
Speaker 1: that I wanted, and she, oh, I'm not buying that,
Speaker 1: I'm not paying that. And we didn't know allowance. It
Speaker 1: was just if you ask, you would get if it
Speaker 1: was feasible, if it was possible. And one particular time,
Speaker 1: I had a really really decent job. I didn't have
Speaker 1: a degree yet and Uh, I said, come on, let
Speaker 1: me take you out. My mother and my grandmother and
Speaker 1: we were riding in the car going down to I
Speaker 1: don't remember where we were coming from, but I said,
Speaker 1: let's go to the UH, which is now chaos. On
Speaker 1: six ten. I said, let's go to Bennigan's and sit
Speaker 1: down and eat, because my grandmother always cooked. And my
Speaker 1: mother said, I don't. I don't want to go there.
Speaker 1: I want to go home. And I said, okay. I said, well,
Speaker 1: to keep her from having to cook, let's go there.
Speaker 1: And we get it to go and we bring it
Speaker 1: home and she said, I told you I don't want
Speaker 1: to go there. I said, we're not going to stay.
Speaker 1: I'm just going to buy the food and we take
Speaker 1: it home to eat. And right about then I heard
Speaker 1: and she had a gun to my temple and she said,
Speaker 1: if you don't turn this motherfucking car around, we'll blow
Speaker 1: your goddamn brains out. And I pulled over the side
Speaker 1: of the road. My grandmother was hysterical. She was just
Speaker 1: out of control, crying and telling her, don't do that,
Speaker 1: don't do that. Put the gun down. Put the gun down.
Speaker 1: And she said, no, she's gonna take me home. That's
Speaker 1: what I said, She's gonna take me home, and stopped
Speaker 1: the car. I got out and went running down the freeway,
Speaker 1: yelling and screaming. Somebody helped me. Somebody helped me, and
Speaker 1: somebody stopped and it was like a bad movie, but
Speaker 1: I was the star and said, my mother's trying to
Speaker 1: kill me. I need somebody to call the police. And
Speaker 1: someone did call the police. It was like I was
Speaker 1: just they's a free falling and I couldn't control anything,
Speaker 1: and it was totally gone from my mind. It was
Speaker 1: like I couldn't see anything, I couldn't hear anything, I
Speaker 1: couldn't remember anything. It was just that traumatic for me.
Speaker 1: And police came to my mother to jail, and we
Speaker 1: went on took my grandmother home. Keep in mind, we're
Speaker 1: all living together, me and my mother and my grandmother,
Speaker 1: so you know, I'm sure she did not. She did not.
Speaker 1: Points we voting podcast will be right back back to
Speaker 1: the point. M M. My mother called, she got her
Speaker 1: her jail call, and said, did if you still in
Speaker 1: that house when I get out, I'm still a kid. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I told my grandmother's act, I gotta go. I was
Speaker 1: maybe twenty one, maybe twenty one years old. I left
Speaker 1: and I went and stayed with my No, I didn't.
Speaker 1: I actually went and stay with my aunt, my grandmother's sister.
Speaker 1: And not a problem, not a problem. And I paid
Speaker 1: them pay them rent because I couldn't stay for free.
Speaker 1: But they let me come and go. You know. I
Speaker 1: went to work or not, and then I would go out.
Speaker 1: But otherwise I was was like a hermit. Was like, no,
Speaker 1: I'm not trying to do anything to cause anymore issues
Speaker 1: with anybody. And though I say making good money in
Speaker 1: terms of what can you pay rent and can you
Speaker 1: pay your card? Okay, Well it wasn't that kind of
Speaker 1: good money. So um, my grandmother had started to get
Speaker 1: real sick, and she said, I really want you to
Speaker 1: come home, she said. And I talked to your mother
Speaker 1: and I told her, you're killing me. I need her
Speaker 1: to be able to come back home. So like a relationship,
Speaker 1: you know, where somebody says I'm gonna beat you, I'm
Speaker 1: gona beat you. Oh, I'm sorry, I'm not gonna beat
Speaker 1: you anymore. I apologize and you come back, and then
Speaker 1: as they beat you again, Oh, I didn't mean to
Speaker 1: do that again. It was that kind of a cycle.
Speaker 1: But I came back and helped take care of my mother.
Speaker 1: And that's when I went on and got in HCC
Speaker 1: and got the good job learning how to do the
Speaker 1: surgery piece. So that redeemed me. And I helped take
Speaker 1: care of my grandmother until she succumbed to cancer. But
Speaker 1: my mother's mind, things had started to change tremendously with her,
Speaker 1: and I could see it. And if I said something
Speaker 1: to anyone, and other people would say, oh, you know,
Speaker 1: your mama was had a crazy way. There are you're crazy, mama?
Speaker 1: Like my pastor said, you ought to start asking, but
Speaker 1: why are they crazy? Yeah, we say it flippantly, jokingly.
Speaker 1: Why do you think she was acting like that? Why
Speaker 1: do you think Well, when some years had passed, married,
Speaker 1: family and everything like that, I didn't realize my mother
Speaker 1: had really started to go in the wrong direction mentally.
Speaker 1: She when she went in the hospital this last time,
Speaker 1: I had not talked to my mother in probably five
Speaker 1: or six years. She took herself away from us. We
Speaker 1: didn't take ourselves away from her. I found out my
Speaker 1: mother had gone through a homeless stage. She was living
Speaker 1: in a car, She had lost everything, she had lost
Speaker 1: her home, house had caught on fire. She didn't want
Speaker 1: to tell anyone. She didn't have insurance. Um, she had
Speaker 1: been sick and ended out of the hospital. She was
Speaker 1: just really in dire straits. But she would never reach out.
Speaker 1: I would kind of keep tabs on her, like get
Speaker 1: so close just enough to see and know where she
Speaker 1: was and how she was doing, but never approached because
Speaker 1: I knew that was probably set her off. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: I didn't want to do that. Ironically, when I was
Speaker 1: working at another school in the district on the northwest side,
Speaker 1: I'm a thrifter. I love going to the the drift store.
Speaker 1: And I was in the thrift store and I saw
Speaker 1: a lady at the corner of my eye and I
Speaker 1: was like, that looks no, no, that is definitely not her.
Speaker 1: And sure enough, I go and see, just go and see.
Speaker 1: And I turned around and I called her by name,
Speaker 1: and she turned around and looked at me, and she said,
Speaker 1: don't come close to me. I knew it was her,
Speaker 1: but I knew how she was. I didn't know how
Speaker 1: she was at that moment. I should say I know
Speaker 1: how she was previously. I didn't know how she was
Speaker 1: at that moment. And at that point you hadn't seen
Speaker 1: it in five years at least. The first thing that
Speaker 1: comes to her mind, the first words that you you
Speaker 1: hear her uttered when she sees you, when she laid
Speaker 1: his eyes on her daughter, the child she gave birth two,
Speaker 1: is don't come close to it. And she told someone
Speaker 1: in the store that latest allowing me because I was watching,
Speaker 1: and I was and so and so it has to
Speaker 1: be in the back of your mind. She probably have
Speaker 1: a gun. So yeah, I am. I'm gonna keep my
Speaker 1: distance exactly. So I turned and I went out the
Speaker 1: store and went to my car, and I cried, and
Speaker 1: I cried and I cried, and I didn't try to
Speaker 1: get in touch with her. One of my fraternity brothers,
Speaker 1: he and I would always chop it up and talking
Speaker 1: and say, you ever wonder where your mom is? And
Speaker 1: I said, yeah, but I'm kind of afraid to find
Speaker 1: out because I don't want to. I just don't want
Speaker 1: to be in there. I can't deal with that, I
Speaker 1: really can't. And he said, well, at least just know
Speaker 1: where she is. And I said to my daughter, I said,
Speaker 1: with China, you know I've been thinking you. Her name
Speaker 1: is China. I said, I don't know if your grandmother
Speaker 1: is alive or dead. And it's on my mind more
Speaker 1: and more, which means that's that God is trying to
Speaker 1: tell you something you need to know. So I reached
Speaker 1: out to my my frat brother again and he said, okay,
Speaker 1: let me check and see what I can find out.
Speaker 1: And he he would talk, you know, every so often,
Speaker 1: he said, I keep checking. He said, she doesn't want
Speaker 1: to be found. He said, I'm coming up empty on
Speaker 1: a lot of my leads. But somewhere in the heights,
Speaker 1: somewhere over the heights, but I don't know where. And
Speaker 1: It was the very next week I got a phone
Speaker 1: call from Memorial Herman over in the Heights, and at
Speaker 1: that particular time, I was still at work. My husband
Speaker 1: answered the phone and they asked for me, and he said, well,
Speaker 1: she's not here. I can't take a message. And he said,
Speaker 1: was Marrie Herman. We need to talk to her, and
Speaker 1: we can't give any information. So when I came in,
Speaker 1: he told me, but it was too late to call
Speaker 1: then until I called the next morning, got the social
Speaker 1: worker and she said, I think we have your mother,
Speaker 1: but I need to ask you some questions so we
Speaker 1: can verify your identity. And they asked me everything and
Speaker 1: I answered, because I knew all her information, social secure number,
Speaker 1: everything I knew and she said, well, we have your
Speaker 1: social Security number. You you really are a NERD can
Speaker 1: say yes, I know my children? Well, so yes, but
Speaker 1: I did so I could very investigators, borderline, next job baby,
Speaker 1: but I told she said yeah, you're definitely her daughter.
Speaker 1: And we asked her if she had any family and
Speaker 1: she said no. She said, but we're calling it because
Speaker 1: and I said, oh lord, what is this. I don't
Speaker 1: even know if I'm ready for this. And I was
Speaker 1: at work and she said, um, your mother is not
Speaker 1: in good health and we don't expect her to survive.
Speaker 1: We want to know if you're willing to take on
Speaker 1: the responsibility and make all decisions for her. And I called, man,
Speaker 1: what what a phone call? All that week, I had
Speaker 1: been listening to gospel music, just getting infused, infused, infused. Okay,
Speaker 1: I listened to it, but not quite like this, but
Speaker 1: just every day I would put it on driving past
Speaker 1: the gallerya bump of the bumper traffic, sometimes get a
Speaker 1: whole church sermon in. And I said, I know why now,
Speaker 1: because I was getting built up to be able to
Speaker 1: handle this journey, because I didn't know what that was
Speaker 1: gonna be like. So the lady told me. I said, well, yes, man,
Speaker 1: I said, I'll be there this afternoon. And I went
Speaker 1: and asked for the social worker and I said, how
Speaker 1: did you find me? She said, we went on the computer.
Speaker 1: She said, your mom. She said, we could tell she's
Speaker 1: not the kind of person that wouldn't have anybody, but
Speaker 1: she was adamant she had no family. But the last
Speaker 1: name was Nick Spatten. It was amazing name, family name,
Speaker 1: she said, and it's not a lot of people with
Speaker 1: that spelling. And you go online and you look and
Speaker 1: you start pulling up names and he'll say, oh, this
Speaker 1: person may be associated with she said, and you and
Speaker 1: your husband's name came up, but not your number, your
Speaker 1: husband's name and phone number, so that's why they call.
Speaker 1: And I said, oh okay, she said, what do you
Speaker 1: want to see her? H yeah, I'm here, so yeah.
Speaker 1: So we went to the room and opened the door.
Speaker 1: And I had always called my mother Melanie because when
Speaker 1: I was small, I thought my mother was my sister,
Speaker 1: because my grandmother was raising me. She lived with us,
Speaker 1: but she was usually gone or gone on the road
Speaker 1: with the entertainers or things like that. So was she
Speaker 1: incapacitated when I saw her? Yes, she had just had
Speaker 1: her kidney removed cancer and she looked at me and
Speaker 1: her eyes just and she didn't say anything. And I said,
Speaker 1: it's me. I don't know you. I said, now you
Speaker 1: know what you know? You know me because I looked
Speaker 1: just like you. And the social worker said, oh my gosh,
Speaker 1: y'all sound just alike. My mother was in her eighties.
Speaker 1: And the social workers said, you have the same eyes,
Speaker 1: your voice, it's the same. So how many days that
Speaker 1: you have her before she passed. I had six weeks.
Speaker 1: Six weeks and how often did you go to the
Speaker 1: hospital as much as my heart could stand. Uh. I
Speaker 1: brought my kids because she had not seen them in years.
Speaker 1: And what was her reaction when she saw them. She
Speaker 1: would talk to them like she just saw him yesterday.
Speaker 1: Same with my husband. And we were able to get
Speaker 1: her moved into a nursing home because I could do it.
Speaker 1: I just couldn't do it. It was so much that
Speaker 1: she needed. It was beyond anything that I was emotionally
Speaker 1: able to do. And I call it the nursing home
Speaker 1: from Hell because I had no idea it was a
Speaker 1: good one, but then management changed and it became the
Speaker 1: nursing home from Hell. While she was there, I had
Speaker 1: to act like she was destituted, which technically she was. Uh.
Speaker 1: During that time when she was in the hospital, the
Speaker 1: apartment complex that she was in, they went and had
Speaker 1: a court order done to have her evicted. Unfortunately, the
Speaker 1: apartment people wouldn't tell me anything, but one lady who
Speaker 1: worked there work the night ship, and she said, I'm
Speaker 1: not supposed to tell you anything, but I'm going to
Speaker 1: tell you because what they're doing isn't right. She said,
Speaker 1: they're going to court tomorrow and they'll take everything that
Speaker 1: she owns. You need to go to court. I said,
Speaker 1: where do I go? And she told me and she
Speaker 1: gave the information and I showed up at court the
Speaker 1: next day and I prayed and I said, I'm pleading
Speaker 1: on the blood of Jesus that this judge will show
Speaker 1: me favor for my mother, because I had been calling
Speaker 1: the apartment where my mother lived and they would never
Speaker 1: call me back. So when the apartment people came up
Speaker 1: in front of the judge and he says, there anyone else?
Speaker 1: And I came up and the apartment people looked at
Speaker 1: me and they said, do you notice lady? And they
Speaker 1: said no, and they asked me this, and do you
Speaker 1: know them? I said, I've seen them because I went.
Speaker 1: But they wouldn't talk to me. And the judge said,
Speaker 1: why wouldn't you talk to her? And they said because
Speaker 1: Ms Max Patton said she didn't have any family. He said,
Speaker 1: so you didn't try to investigate to find out. Didn't
Speaker 1: that seem odd to you? And well, she said she
Speaker 1: didn't have any family. They had got my mother to
Speaker 1: sign over everything everything, so um. The judge then said, well,
Speaker 1: if I give you seven days to take care of
Speaker 1: your mother's affairs? Will you do it? And I know
Speaker 1: seven is a number of completion, and I said, yes, sir,
Speaker 1: I will. So within seven days, I had packed up everything,
Speaker 1: moved it away, some of stored, some I gave away
Speaker 1: to family and friends, and said she may not be
Speaker 1: able to have it. I may not want it, but
Speaker 1: I'll be dog on if you get to take it.
Speaker 1: That's not fair to her. My mother told me she
Speaker 1: had no insurance, So okay, I still got you. She said,
Speaker 1: you know I'm dying, don't you. I said, yes, ma'am,
Speaker 1: I do. I need you to tell me what you
Speaker 1: want because if you don't tell me, I'm gonna do
Speaker 1: what I want to do. She would never but tell
Speaker 1: me what she wanted. I was able to move my
Speaker 1: mother out of the the place that just did not
Speaker 1: breathe life into anyone, and I got her into Harbor Hospice.
Speaker 1: She survived twenty three hours. And what was the last
Speaker 1: word she said to you? I always knew you would
Speaker 1: be okay, and I love you. Man. That is crazy
Speaker 1: that that sounds like something my mama would have said.
Speaker 1: Because my mama was particularly hard on me, you know,
Speaker 1: she told me one day, like, you know, after beating
Speaker 1: the hell out of me, She's like, the reason why
Speaker 1: I'm hard on you because you better, You're gonna be
Speaker 1: better than the rest of it. And I remember saying,
Speaker 1: I don't want to be the rest better than the
Speaker 1: rest him if I got to go through this. Yeah. Um,
Speaker 1: so after all of that, you you eulogize your mother.
Speaker 1: What did you say? Like? What like? What like? What
Speaker 1: are the most pleignant things that you remember saying during
Speaker 1: the eulogy? And then you also, I guess you use
Speaker 1: your money to bury her, right? You know you said
Speaker 1: she didn't have insurance or whatever. Right. Well, after going
Speaker 1: through my mother's things, my mother was a hoarder, A
Speaker 1: horrible hoarder, I could say, a good hoarder. She hid money,
Speaker 1: she hid money orders, cash enough to give her the
Speaker 1: homegoing that she wanted and to bless my children. So no,
Speaker 1: we're not millionaires. Iss why I still go to work,
Speaker 1: But I'd brought to go to work anywhere. But I
Speaker 1: had enough to pay for and I pay for a
Speaker 1: thing in cash, so there were no extenuating bills. She
Speaker 1: um never told me I had planned to do the
Speaker 1: cremation and we had everything set up at the church,
Speaker 1: and our youth pastor ray Baby, shout out to ray Baby,
Speaker 1: and I asked him, and I had to tell him
Speaker 1: my story, he said, because I don't know your mom.
Speaker 1: And when I told him, he's like, my god, oh
Speaker 1: my god. If anybody knows ray Baby, that's something he
Speaker 1: always says. And he said, yeah, I'll do it for you.
Speaker 1: And the sermon that he did was entitled Maximized the dash.
Speaker 1: You get a birthdate, get an end date. What did
Speaker 1: you do with your dash? Yeah? So he talked about
Speaker 1: me and the family and how he knew us and
Speaker 1: that we were the fruit of my mom. Why thought
Speaker 1: you eulogized that he did, and then I came behind
Speaker 1: him and I got to speak, and I talked about
Speaker 1: tough love and forgiveness, the power that's in forgiveness. Which
Speaker 1: is why I could do that, I said, because I
Speaker 1: had to pray. I mean, everybody has to find some
Speaker 1: kind of way to deal with it. Mindest to prayer.
Speaker 1: And something that my pastor has said, hating somebody, it's
Speaker 1: like you drink and drain on hoping they would die.
Speaker 1: And I never forgot that. That allowed me to just
Speaker 1: really started to release a whole lot of stuff, a
Speaker 1: whole lot of baggage, and to understand that. Like Oprah,
Speaker 1: I would say, you know, when you know better, you
Speaker 1: do better. So all these things, Mike, thank you. She
Speaker 1: was on Oprah show when she said, at that particular time,
Speaker 1: thank you. Uh. Just hearing all of these things that
Speaker 1: people have said to give me peace and to be
Speaker 1: a strong tower to knock coward and be broken down
Speaker 1: like old beautiful me. I could have been this with
Speaker 1: my mama. Mm hmmmm. That wasn't in my fiber. If anything,
Speaker 1: I just needed to be undergirded to stay strong. I
Speaker 1: was already strong, I just didn't know it and needed
Speaker 1: their support. And I talked about mental health and I said,
Speaker 1: my mother was mentally ill. When you jokingly say, oh
Speaker 1: crazy and Sally, oh duhn, Uncle Bubba everything, Hey, I
Speaker 1: got uncle Bubba. Now had you know, everybody's shout un
Speaker 1: Bubble my favorite uncle. Everybody's family has it. But the
Speaker 1: question is, but why are they What makes them crazy?
Speaker 1: What makes them goofy, what makes them silly in their eyes?
Speaker 1: And that's what as a as a people, as a
Speaker 1: people culturally, we like to sweep it under the table
Speaker 1: and act like it doesn't existest, but having been the
Speaker 1: the beaten child, it's like, oh, but it does exist
Speaker 1: because I lived through it and I lived to tell
Speaker 1: the story. Why did I get to live to tell
Speaker 1: the story. Because I'm supposed to help somebody. I'm supposed
Speaker 1: to help somebody else. Understand that when you start seeing
Speaker 1: when they say, if it looks like a duck and
Speaker 1: it's cracking like a duck, guess what. It's a duck.
Speaker 1: What are you gonna do about it? And a little
Speaker 1: roasted duck tastes pretty good sometimes, but don't ignore it.
Speaker 1: The science and symptoms are there. There's so many. I
Speaker 1: have a granddaughter who's five years old. Smartest could be
Speaker 1: smart as a whip. Of course I say it because
Speaker 1: it's my grandchild. But still the teachers at the school say,
Speaker 1: she is so smart. She's an old person. She's been
Speaker 1: here before. She talks like you know, she's seven, eight, nine,
Speaker 1: ten years old. Yeah, she's been around us. We didn't
Speaker 1: talk to her in baby talk. We started off talking
Speaker 1: regular English, where she was walking at nine months. That's
Speaker 1: scary to have a nine month old that's already walking,
Speaker 1: and was saying Mama and dad. But otherwise it was
Speaker 1: the regular words. But does she have some issues? I
Speaker 1: could say genetically maybe, so she's and I don't want
Speaker 1: to say she is, but she's showing a little sign
Speaker 1: of being hyper. She's got to be busy. So knowing that,
Speaker 1: I could just say, oh, isn't that cute? Or say okay,
Speaker 1: let me see what I need to do exactly. How
Speaker 1: did you meet Maryland Gambrella with no more victims, my
Speaker 1: dear sweet friend. I was working at Stirling High School.
Speaker 1: I've been all over Histy. I was working as a
Speaker 1: graduation coach, working with kids making them graduate because they
Speaker 1: didn't seem to want to. And some of the kids
Speaker 1: would come in and would say, oh, Mama Jesus and
Speaker 1: Mama Mama G. Who is Mama Ge. We have somebody
Speaker 1: on this campus, ame Mama Gi. Yeah, you don't know her, No, miss,
Speaker 1: you need to meet her. So a couple of them
Speaker 1: they took me to where she was and she was
Speaker 1: in a conference room and they introduced me and they said, oh,
Speaker 1: this is Mama Ge. And I said, I'm sorry, what
Speaker 1: is your real name? She saw the kids call me that.
Speaker 1: She said, I'm Marylyn Gambriell. But that's so nice to
Speaker 1: meet you, Dr Britarson. Chandra whatever you want calling, she said,
Speaker 1: I am the great Maryland Gambrill, friend of Willie d.
Speaker 1: I guess she didn't want to run me off on
Speaker 1: the first meeting, but I said what do you do?
Speaker 1: And she said, well, I have this program called No
Speaker 1: More Victims? So what is that? So she said, well, basically,
Speaker 1: it's a program that works with students whose parents or
Speaker 1: family members have been incarcerated. Wow, I never even knew
Speaker 1: that existed. And what do you do? And in essence,
Speaker 1: it was an opportunity for for kids to unleash and
Speaker 1: let it out and let the hurt and the anger
Speaker 1: and the pain go in a protected environment. And she
Speaker 1: would also take the kids to a prison, not to
Speaker 1: see their parents or anything like that, but to speak
Speaker 1: to inmates and let them know, this is how your
Speaker 1: kids feel when you do the things that you do.
Speaker 1: So they would tell their own personal experiences, and um,
Speaker 1: I noticed the kids were always they might act a
Speaker 1: fool out in the hallway, but when they got in
Speaker 1: there with her, it was like they were different people.
Speaker 1: They were calm and lacks. They might be energized and
Speaker 1: you know, talking loud and stuff. But otherwise they were
Speaker 1: just so much more piece that's right, that's right, and
Speaker 1: and and shot salute because you know, it's like they
Speaker 1: gotta want it right, and they all wanted and and
Speaker 1: she has done such a remarkable job. I mean, not
Speaker 1: for years, for decades with that with that program, and
Speaker 1: the kids that come through that program, all of them
Speaker 1: have experienced various degrees of pain and and just being
Speaker 1: neglected and let down by the adults in their lives.
Speaker 1: And to their credit, all of them, I'm talking about
Speaker 1: every single one of them have just shown like incredible
Speaker 1: progress and just I mean, if you could tell when
Speaker 1: from the time that they come in to the time
Speaker 1: that they get just a few weeks under them, it's
Speaker 1: like she doesn't give up. And she also empowers them.
Speaker 1: That's a big part of it too, is she empowers
Speaker 1: and put them in leadership roles and things like she does.
Speaker 1: She's really good. I just felt so honored, first of all,
Speaker 1: to him met her. But then we were talking one
Speaker 1: day and she was, you know, kind of laid back.
Speaker 1: But I would say Maryland is a cry baby. So
Speaker 1: when something touches her heart, she's just spewing tears like crazy.
Speaker 1: And I thought, oh, what is wrong with this lady.
Speaker 1: She's crying every time you turn around. And one day, um,
Speaker 1: some of the kids. I guess they probably had a
Speaker 1: conversation with her because I didn't go to the meetings.
Speaker 1: But then I got invited to a meeting and I
Speaker 1: was given the opportunity of telling what I say, is
Speaker 1: my truth, tell my story. So I told a little
Speaker 1: bit of my story and the kids were shocked because
Speaker 1: they know me as Dr Richardson, you know, the the
Speaker 1: lady who has it together. And I said this, this
Speaker 1: is like a lucky accident that y'all get to know
Speaker 1: me this way. I was not the one who had
Speaker 1: it all together either, and I told him about my
Speaker 1: mom and stuff that I had gone through, and they
Speaker 1: were just really really shocked. And next thing I know,
Speaker 1: the offer came if I wanted to be sworn in,
Speaker 1: and as well, I guess, so if that if y'all
Speaker 1: want me, and they said yes, So I was sworn
Speaker 1: in and they got on the course that they had
Speaker 1: a graduation. They even gave me an honor core that
Speaker 1: I could wear, and I was really impressed. Well yearsually,
Speaker 1: I moved went to another school and over the last
Speaker 1: two years, I wound up being at a school again.
Speaker 1: I taught it Worthy twenty one years ago, actually a teacher,
Speaker 1: and now I'm back at Worthy in another role as
Speaker 1: the coordinator Girl Points Relogal podcast will be right back
Speaker 1: back to the point. M tell me about these scholarships
Speaker 1: that you have raised. Uh, how you like, like responsible
Speaker 1: for raising millions of dollars? Yes, sir, I've been blessed,
Speaker 1: truly blessed, and I blessed the kids. Uh. Relationships not
Speaker 1: just with the students, but outside relationships. And when I
Speaker 1: tell people what I do, and I said, do you
Speaker 1: do you have any or does your foundation do or
Speaker 1: do you recommend somebody? Do you know somebody? And sometimes
Speaker 1: they say yes. And then for the record, I am
Speaker 1: a coordinator for college Access, but I say, I'm a
Speaker 1: coordinator for college, Military and career Access. I cover all
Speaker 1: the basis literally life access. I come in, I introduced
Speaker 1: myself and I tell them my name. I said, but
Speaker 1: just because I give you that name, that's not who
Speaker 1: I am. That's just something that I have, something that
Speaker 1: I've earned, something that I work for. You see the
Speaker 1: outside cover, but you don't know the inside story. And
Speaker 1: I tell the story and they look at me in disbelief.
Speaker 1: I say, if I can do it, I can also
Speaker 1: help you do it. And I don't care if you
Speaker 1: go to college. And they look at me like, what
Speaker 1: she's to college? Lady? What is she talking about? I said,
Speaker 1: I really don't care if you go to college. What
Speaker 1: I care about is do you have a plan and
Speaker 1: is it a workable plan? Because if you come to
Speaker 1: me and you got a what a point seven five
Speaker 1: g p A and then you tell me all this,
Speaker 1: I want to go to Yale, I want to go
Speaker 1: to Harvard. Uh, let's let's sit down and look at
Speaker 1: this realistically. And I'm not gonna tell you no. I'm
Speaker 1: just gonna say not right now. Let's see what we
Speaker 1: need to do. And sometimes it maybe started Houston Community College,
Speaker 1: I had to go backwards because I messed up. Nobody
Speaker 1: missed me up. I messed up. I made all those
Speaker 1: choices myself. But then once I figured out what I
Speaker 1: needed to do, I got my act together and I graduated,
Speaker 1: and I was making the Dean's list, and I got
Speaker 1: what I would call a good job, a decent salary
Speaker 1: where I could help my family and get my kids
Speaker 1: to understand you can do whatever you want to do.
Speaker 1: You have some paper behind you. You said that people
Speaker 1: are in disbelief when you tell your story. What's the
Speaker 1: most remarkable part of your story? That they don't believe
Speaker 1: that I came up in Sunnyside, that I was born
Speaker 1: in Third War, or that idea come from a dysfunctional family.
Speaker 1: That uh, when my mother passed away, that I eulogized
Speaker 1: my mother, and in that eulogy I talked about mental
Speaker 1: illness and how it affects a family because my mother
Speaker 1: had it. And so what made your family dysfunctional? Because
Speaker 1: you know from what I heard, you know you had
Speaker 1: a loving mother, loving grandmother, loving father, and that was
Speaker 1: the tribe, or at least the immediate part of your tribe.
Speaker 1: So what what made where did this function comes from? Well,
Speaker 1: when you look at societies analysis and definition of what
Speaker 1: family is, family is a mother, father and children in
Speaker 1: the same house. Well it was a mom, no dad
Speaker 1: in the legal aspect, and you shouldn't be on welfare,
Speaker 1: but we were, and my mother was. And my mother
Speaker 1: had not graduated from high school, so she was of
Speaker 1: no help to me. But she was adamant or you're
Speaker 1: gonna go to school you're gonna go to high school.
Speaker 1: When it came to going to college, I what do
Speaker 1: I know about that? Who was I talking to about
Speaker 1: college other than the people at school or my classmates?
Speaker 1: And I distinctly remember my councilor Miss Jane Foster from
Speaker 1: Medicine High School, who said, and what are you going
Speaker 1: to do? Where are you going to school? And I said, oh,
Speaker 1: I'm not going to question why? Uh, because my mother said,
Speaker 1: we don't have money for that. Uh, well do you
Speaker 1: want to go? Well, yeah, I guess well if I
Speaker 1: get you some money, where you go. Yeah. So she
Speaker 1: gave me papers to take them home, let your mother
Speaker 1: feel them out. Oh no, ma'am, I can't take this
Speaker 1: home to my mother. Why because she said, I'm not
Speaker 1: going girl, take that stuff home. And I took it
Speaker 1: home when my mother said, I'm not feeling this out
Speaker 1: and mess with my welfare check. I'm not doing that. Now.
Speaker 1: Was your mom? Did she use welfare to subsidize her income?
Speaker 1: Did she? Did she have a job? But she did?
Speaker 1: She just My mother was the most talented seamstress in
Speaker 1: the city of Houston. She sold for all the entertainers
Speaker 1: like James Brown, Tina Turner, the t s U Toronados
Speaker 1: Ali head for the wife. The wife is a She
Speaker 1: did it in Houston, Melanie's fashions. Uh. She was in
Speaker 1: a shop next door to Ray Barnett's Center Club, the
Speaker 1: old Center Club, next to the Palletroyal. Uh. She was
Speaker 1: at the Continental Showcase. Whatever she wore, it was an
Speaker 1: original design by Melanie. Her name was Melanie Emmy L
Speaker 1: l O w n E. Melanie max Bay. And she
Speaker 1: did it. She was around all the entertainers and she
Speaker 1: took me to I was ten, eleven, twelve years old
Speaker 1: sitting in the Continental Showcase with my mother, who had
Speaker 1: a front and center table. Now, you said, well, that's
Speaker 1: not normal, but back then a lot of stuff wasn't normal.
Speaker 1: But that's what we did, and we had matching outfits
Speaker 1: and things of that nature. But my mother was in
Speaker 1: abusive relationships where men beat her. Man beat her, and
Speaker 1: I saw it. I saw the aftermath. I saw the
Speaker 1: black eyes, I saw the bites on her face. Um.
Speaker 1: I was in a car with her once when I
Speaker 1: was about ten, and one of the gentlemen that she married.
Speaker 1: I'm being gracious, I'm being I have to be g Yeah,
Speaker 1: I was shooting at her down the street, driving down
Speaker 1: Coloring and Airport. I remember, I remember him shooting out
Speaker 1: the glass. I remember having glass in my hair. I
Speaker 1: remember it. And she buried him after my grandfather had passed.
Speaker 1: As long as my grandfather's last she went there because
Speaker 1: my grandfather said, no, he was no good for her.
Speaker 1: But the heart up. Oh my grandfather would have probably
Speaker 1: did more than that. Well I'm saying, yeah, oh, yeah,
Speaker 1: I know, and made him disappear after. But yeah, she
Speaker 1: was in a lot of abusive relationships, but she was
Speaker 1: very popular because of her clothing. She was a certified
Speaker 1: licensed beautician, she was a barber. This was from the
Speaker 1: woman who didn't graduate from high school. But when I
Speaker 1: was graduated from high school, trade though, And that's why
Speaker 1: it's those trades back. We got to take the trades
Speaker 1: out of the prisons and put them back into the
Speaker 1: schools exactly. Yeah, yeah, yeah, beautiful, beautiful. I learned from
Speaker 1: her how to do hair, but I didn't want to
Speaker 1: do it, And I learned from her how to sew.
Speaker 1: I didn't want to do it, but my calling was different,
Speaker 1: still different. Do you think that your mother's abusive relationships
Speaker 1: had any type of effect on your own personal relationships.
Speaker 1: Was you ever in an abusive relationship? Well, I'll just
Speaker 1: say yes. I wasn't beaten, I wasn't sexually assaulted, but
Speaker 1: um there was a guy that I had dated once
Speaker 1: in college and he was kind of jealous. But we
Speaker 1: were always around his friends, which was fine because they
Speaker 1: treated me like the sister. In one particular time, I said, oh, well,
Speaker 1: i've I wasn't ready to go yet or something like that,
Speaker 1: and and he grabbed my arm and twisted it behind
Speaker 1: my back and I used some choice non dr Richardson
Speaker 1: words on him, and our friends were like, dude, what
Speaker 1: you're doing. You don't do her like that. In fact,
Speaker 1: you leave, you leave. And I made the mistake of
Speaker 1: telling my mother. And at the time, I was living
Speaker 1: in Beaumont and working in going to school in Beaumont
Speaker 1: because remember I hel I couldn't go back to your age,
Speaker 1: so I was moving around. But my mother said I'm coming.
Speaker 1: It was like the movie I'm coming and I'm bringing
Speaker 1: hell with me. And I was like, oh, what I
Speaker 1: tell her far She goes, that's the one that's gonna
Speaker 1: kill somebody, and I was like, no, don't. I'm not
Speaker 1: even talking to him. Anymore. You get one time, so
Speaker 1: you shut it down all the way down. Yeah, no, no,
Speaker 1: what do you call it? No looking back over my shop? Nope,
Speaker 1: I refused to look back. That's how you do it.
Speaker 1: And never huge salute to the friends, because that's what
Speaker 1: it takes. It takes men to educate men. Men listen
Speaker 1: to me. I mean, you know, you can listen to
Speaker 1: woman whatever, but most men, you know, uh, they're gonna listen.
Speaker 1: They're gonna listen to men because they feel like women
Speaker 1: have an arterior motive. And just like women, women listen
Speaker 1: to women. Women feel like if a man go to
Speaker 1: talking to stuff, it is because he has an arterior motive,
Speaker 1: he wants something from us, something he's trying to benefit
Speaker 1: in some way. So men listen to men. And that's
Speaker 1: why it is important for men to step up when
Speaker 1: they see their homeboy, their brother, cousin or whatever getting
Speaker 1: out of line being aggressive with women. Uh, shut it down,
Speaker 1: we don't do that. We don't do that around here. Bro.
Speaker 1: The same thing even with you know, just taking care
Speaker 1: of your kids, are being neglected, you know what I'm saying,
Speaker 1: you know, being neglectful. Hey man, hey, we don't do
Speaker 1: that home boy, take care your kids. Because if a
Speaker 1: dude will bring a child, be responsible for bringing a
Speaker 1: child into this world and turn his back on his
Speaker 1: own flesh and blood, his own seed, I know what
Speaker 1: he'll do to me. Now. He he may have not
Speaker 1: done it yet because you know, we haven't gotten to
Speaker 1: that point, but that's what he's capable of doing. So yeah,
Speaker 1: big shot out man. You you resemble who you assemble.
Speaker 1: M Yeah, beautiful. Dr Chandra Chandra, Chandra, Chira Richardson, I
Speaker 1: got it, man, Dr Sandra Richardson. Hey, thank you for
Speaker 1: coming over. We can do this again though, because some
Speaker 1: other things that I wanted to talk about, but uh,
Speaker 1: we're gonna talk coming out of abuse when it's the family,
Speaker 1: coming out of abuse when it's in the family, when
Speaker 1: it's in the family, and we deal with that at
Speaker 1: school more than people would imagine. It's a lot of
Speaker 1: her kids. It's most people in the world, I think
Speaker 1: come from some form of abusive you know, family situation,
Speaker 1: like some kind of abuses that you know, whether it's
Speaker 1: physical abuse, emotional abuse is something there almost all the time.
Speaker 1: I just think that a lot of people just don't
Speaker 1: have the tools to the parent, you know. But everybody
Speaker 1: got the tuols to have sex, you know, and everybody
Speaker 1: get horny. You know what I'm saying. But again, thank
Speaker 1: you for coming on the show. Thank you for How
Speaker 1: can people reach you? I can be reached at M
Speaker 1: well I an email address or something you can gain.
Speaker 1: Believe employed, I can say, well, yes, I'm with the
Speaker 1: Houston Independent School District and I'm at Worthy High School
Speaker 1: and the South Side and the Pride of Sunny Side.
Speaker 1: Uh there, definitely can reach out there. My email address
Speaker 1: is Chandra c h A N D R A dot
Speaker 1: Richardson r I C h A R D s O
Speaker 1: N at A T T dot net. That is, ladies
Speaker 1: and gentlemen. We thank you for your co operation. All right,
Speaker 1: no more talk. This episode was produced by Aching and
Speaker 1: brought to you by The Black Effect Podcast Network and
Speaker 1: I Heart Radio.