Past

I returned from the military in May of 1981. A lifetime ago. I was really not enamored with being home, although it was my choice. A choice based on a voice from God that literally said, "go home".

This voice was familiar but based on ancestors, long gone and recent/past ideology from visits to the sanctuary. I heeded but was quite skeptical.

There I was. At mama's house and ready to go the moment I arrived. 7 months pregnant. I knew her name was Jasmine. I now call her Nicole.

I started looking for my own crib, immediately. I had money, a sense of perseverance and a stronger sense of independence.

It didn't take 24 hours to figure out why the voice (God) sent me there. 

I went to a Bible Study beneath a tree (a shelter that I had been to many times, unsaved) - there, I listened to a man I loved from youth, but on this occasion, he introduced me to the same Jesus he had preached before; I accepted and my life has never been the same. I was 22. 

I moved into my first apartment on American soil  (I had lived in Germany, previously) and started hosting many entertaining endeavors.

My place was the place. My younger sisters crashed there.....my friends dined and played cards. I started mothering at that same spot and there, I learned that I loved to have people over. I delighted in playing music, cooking good food, laughing, gossiping, telling good stories and living life.

On top of it all, I was saved, sure and sold out for Christ. Oh, the good times that ensued. 

There was not a day that went by that didn't include a friend dropping by unannounced and welcome. I didn't realize that hospitality was a gift; I just knew that the more, the merrier. It became "do drop inn" and, I loved it. 

That small apartment was filled with love, laughter and tears. The stove was always on and the door was always open. 

Eventually, I moved into a larger apartment and the company followed. 

My love for the Lord, my Church and the people of God continued. The man that introduced me to Christ became my spiritual mentor......father....friend. To this day, I miss his presence, his preaching and his influence.

.................

Since I began blogging, in April of 2018, I have always had a title prior to my actual content. I looked.....I even stared (there is a difference) at the title section, then I tabbed down to where you type the actual content.  

At this moment, I have no idea what I'm going to write. Another first. 

I do know that I have been promising to blog for months. I have even written dates and made promises, and you "liked” or “loved" the posts on social media. Then. Nothing. I had nothing. 

Now, don't get me wrong. I always have something to say. A story brewing. An incident. Past or present. And as a woman said to me in 2019, "Well, you know you love to talk,” which isn't quite true. It also hurt my feelings. Can you tell?

This is the reality. I love to tell a story......which sometimes comes out in the most irritating, rapid-gunfire, incessant way. I see what she means, I guess. 

My first audience was my baby sister, Yvette. I would come home from school and tell her everything that went on, but I always put a spin on it that made her sit patiently and listen. Or I would read books—sometimes boring, historical books—that I made come alive. 

As adults, one day she said, "I always loved listening to your stories," and I beamed. By the way, if she is ever telling you a story, run. They are long and drawn-out and sometimes, you forget what she was even talking about. But she does have a beautiful way of telling a story with her voice. She is a singer extraordinaire. Moral of the story: if she has a pianist with her, you are safe. 

Each time I told you I was going to blog, I meant it. I even had an idea that I jotted down. I had a thought about something I found interesting. Then, life......

You would think that in a time where social interaction is limited and people are somewhat sequestered, that I would find myself with all the time in the world to share. That was not the issue.

The truth is, the outside world has crept in and stolen my writing ability. My wit. My quips. My penmanship. It is almost like I do not know where to begin, and if I started, you would be reading a novel. But the novel would have so many chapters and no fluidity and no rhyme or reason. 

It would be romance, horror, fiction, non-fiction......based on my life and also based on my dreams; yes, like this sentence, it would be all over the place. 

So I have no blog. I have the recent passing of Chadwick Boseman, who played T'Challa......the superhero of black children and others. I have Jacob Blake, Breonna Taylor.....George Floyd......I have people, including myself and my youngest, who ran for 2.23 miles to honor Ahmaud Arbery.

I have Emmett Till who was 14 when he was lynched and Tamir Rice who was 12 ……I have Sandra Bland......I have Trayvon Martin.....I have friends I went to high school with who support a man and slogan that is aimed at making "America great again". 

I wish I had an old rotary phone. I would painstakingly put my finger in the hole and swing it around 7 times and when they answered, I would ask:

Which great do you desire to go back to? When my forefathers worked your fields? When my mother's, mother's mother breastfed your mother's, mother's, mother's children. When you hosed my people like dogs or spit on my people at the lunch counter? Or was it during the middle passage where my people were forcibly transported and made the final journey to Charleston, South Carolina? Interestingly enough, I went there in 2019 and ate shrimp & grits and thought of none of this. 

This is all I have. Minus the title. 

Poppy #2

Poppy's mother and I have had many discussions about infertility, and most of it has centered on whether or not it is a recent phenomenon. We have varying views about it, and I suppose that is because of our own life experiences. 

My mother was 22 years old when she had me and I was 22 when I had Jasmine. I don't think I had heard about women having a difficult time conceiving until perhaps 10 years ago. I also only knew of a handful of women who had suffered the loss of a child because of miscarriage. 

My era is one that was built on the industrial age, and Jasmine has had the benefit of going through her 20's and 30's in the information age. She and her peers are accustomed to living their lives out loud and sharing their experiences one keystroke at a time. 

With that being said, both of my daughters are extremely chaste when it comes to social media; I believe their brother shares more than the two of them combined. I am proud to say that all three of them are respectful versus inappropriate. And for this, I am grateful. 

My point is that Google, Wikipedia, WebMD, Bloggers, Snapchat, Instagram, Facebook and Podcasts, just to name a few, are all designed to inform the masses about any and everything. We are living in a world that loves to share.  

When Michelle Obama wrote about her own experiences with miscarriage and IVF in her book Becoming, many believed the former first lady was doing her part to help soften the stigma around pregnancy loss and infertility. 

My daughter has shared with me how difficult it has been for her when people voiced their assumptions about whether or not she wanted children and how invasive she thought people had become because they would inquire. 

I, on the other hand, found it to be a natural part of conversation that someone may have with a young couple. So much so that even after knowing what my daughter was going through, I found myself asking a young man one evening in Indiana, if he and his wife wanted to have children. Little did I know that they were having the exact same struggles, and they were deeply devastated that she had not yet conceived. 

So, have women of previous generations dealt with the same struggles and loss as the women of today? Have food, environment, stress, toxins, and God knows what else played a part? I don't have the answers, but I believe the latter is true. 

My daughter’s blog was very romantic, and it was a teary-eyed read. I honestly thought that mine would be more of the same. I am as surprised as you are. 

I believe in God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost. I believe that He honored a select group of female relatives that Jasmine asked to pray with her after her second miscarriage. Two of my sisters and me, my other daughter and two of my nieces. We're the prayer squad. 

We prayed with her and for her and her husband almost every Saturday for well over a year. We fasted together every Friday from sun up to sun down in the month of September 2018. Nothing—absolutely nothing—by mouth.

We wrote individual devotions on prayer and faith that we will one day share in a book. We set individual goals and did the “21-day financial fast” by Michelle Singletary. We laughed, we cried, but most of all, we prayed. We prayed out loud with each of us taking turns on fb video messenger. 

We also prayed for our individual and collective family members and we shared a list of other concerns that had come to our attention. 

In the midst of our belief, God did it. He gave us Poppy. Middle name Grace. The significance of her middle name is quite obvious. Her first name is also quite special. 

The man who baptized me, performed my wedding ceremony, baptized two of my children, and presented my last child to Christ, died on October 12th, 1997. He was a man of small stature, but extremely formidable. 

He was a preacher’s preacher and a mentor to many. His Bible Study methods were extremely unorthodox and not to be missed. He was the professor of a satellite theology school, but saved his best lectures for us at Denny’s. 

Over the years, my mother and three of my sisters were his administrative assistants. And on the rare occasion, I would find him sitting with my father, in silence, listening to Jazz music. 

He was well sought after, but extremely humble. He was prone to helping intellects, but preferred to be around young, inquisitive people. And as such, my children were as devastated as I was when he went home to be with the Lord. 

  

His name - Dr. Emmerett W. Roland. But we called him "Poppy."

Poppy #1

I am sure many of you have heard the phrase, "music to my ears," right? After 27 hours of labor, on November 5, 2019, a medical professional laid my granddaughter on my daughter's chest and I heard my daughter say, "I've waited my whole life for you!" It was positively the most beautiful thing I had ever heard.

I asked my daughter, Jasmine, if she would be willing to share my first blog writing of 2020 because I wanted our circle to learn more about this incredible love story. The highs, the lows, the frustrations and ultimately God's faithfulness.

*Jasmine

My husband Thane and I have been married for 10 years. We have spent 9 of them desperately trying to get pregnant. That's 3,285 days, of praying, dreaming, hoping, begging, mourning, giving up and realizing that, no matter what, God is in control. And He will give me the desires of my heart in His perfect timing.

After 5 unsuccessful attempts with IUI, we decided that we would try IVF. Once we started that process, our lives were totally consumed by a particular, well-timed-out schedule. There are the medications, giving myself shots in the stomach, going to doctors’ appointments every few days. Then there is my husband giving me shots in my hips, egg retrieval and finally embryo implementation.

These are the various steps that every person must go through on the journey of IVF. Keep in mind, that going through them, does not guarantee that you will end up pregnant, let alone deliver a healthy baby.

Thane and I wanted a baby with our whole hearts so we moved forward full speed ahead. Our first embryo transfer worked and I was pregnant!! I can't begin to tell you how overjoyed we were. We told everyone about the pregnancy. I mean everyone! Family, friends, co-workers, people at the grocery store. Our neighbors. Yes, everyone.

Then our world turned upside down, I suffered a miscarriage at 9 weeks. I have never experienced a loss so great. Sometimes it felt like my body couldn't hold all the grief because it was too big, but in those moments, I really leaned on God. I would literally cry out to Him for peace, and He would pour it over my heart.

Two months after the miscarriage, we implanted another embryo and I was thrilled to be pregnant again. We kept this one under-wraps with the exception of sharing with my mother and a few others. When we went in for an ultrasound at 6 weeks, there was no heartbeat. The pain, if possible, was magnified and I was inconsolable. I want you to understand that my grief is not a contradiction of who the Lord is or what He can do. I am a human being who spent countless hours dreaming of the joy of parenting with my husband. The loss of these two children is indescribable.

After this loss, my husband and I decided to take a break from IVF and focus on healing our minds and my body. It was nice to focus on something other than our desperation for a child. We were intent on focusing on our marriage and it was during this decision-making process that I reached out to my mom and asked her opinion about starting a prayer group. I am pretty sure you will enjoy her version of the "prayer squad" much better than mine.

This would be a never-ending blog if I shared all that transpired during this time of "chill." What is most relevant in this journey is that I grew closer to the Lord. I developed a more intimate relationship with Him, and Thane and I began attending Worship on a weekly basis. Life became more manageable, and soon we were ready to try again.

When we implanted our last embryo, we did it with extreme optimism. We believed, along with the "prayer squad," that the Lord would see us all the way through and we would have the child we had been praying for.

God honored that prayer request, and on Nov. 5th at 9:19 pm, I gave birth to Poppy Grace Sanges. My mom has a saying that she normally ends her advice with. It goes something like this, "I have never lied to you and I'm not going to start today."

When I told Poppy that I had waited for her my whole life, I hadn't practiced what I would say. Remember, my dreams had turned into nightmares on two occasions. I was almost afraid to imagine the moment. I opened my mouth and my first words to my daughter were the truth.

*Suni

Part 2 is coming on 1/31/20