Levels of Strength (for Jethro and Helen Anderson)

Levels of Strength (for Jethro and Helen Anderson)
by Jolivette Anderson

FIRST DRAFT

I woke up this morning with my mind stayed on THE FREEDOM. My mind is stayed, positioned, locked on the freedom that was created for me by mother based on how she raised me. It seems, it was her job to raise the girls as the chief executive parent while daddy focused on raising the boys, but we all were there together. Each person affecting and influencing both the girls and the boys. It seems they believed that the menfolk had a certain role in the life of the boys and the women folk had a certain role in the life of the girls neither being mutually exclusive because Daddies impact Daughters and Mamas impact Sons.

Back to strength and freedom. My mother gets a lot of credit for the way I think, the way I approach the world with a Fearlessness and Courage, being ever ready to put it all on the line for my people, Black people.

My father gets a lot of credit for the way I think about justice and the systems, the institutions structured to make justice accessible to every human being. The system had its place, it was to make right the wickedness of man against man, especially those wickednesses based on racial animist toward Black people. In short, to avoid the chaos that is always in the world, there needed to be rules to embrace the order that is always in the world with the key understanding that both chaos and order are first and foremost the internal human battle inside of every human and in my fathers view, that internal struggle was mirroring the struggle between God and Devil, good and evil. The church (Christianity) organized their lives to deal with and respond to God and Devil. The government (Democracy in America) organized their lives to deal with and respond to good and evil. One religious and spiritual. The other societal and governmental. Confirmation from BOTH were used in their personal beliefs about marriage, family, and parenting. In the Anderson home it was God and the Government that wielded out justice in different forms and together they represented the nature of God, they mirrored the male and the female aspects of God that make us human.

All of that to say this: Helen Anderson had a reputation for being crazy but strong. A woman who could demonstrate strength and compassion with the tone of her voice and her actions. She was feared by many. Her passion for doing what is right based on all the wrong she endured, the wrong she witnessed as a child growing up in rural Louisiana. The internal wrongs done by us and the external wrongs done to us left their mark on her and she tried to correct it by actively proving it wrong. She worked with children and adults but she focused on children. Things had to be done a certain way, it had to look good, it had to sound pleasant, it had to be respectful, it had to be filled with joy and passion and encouragement. We had to know that we could do things, we could be good at things, we could be successful, we could be better than our current circumstance, status, or situation and to Hell with whomever was in the way trying to block us from becoming better. They would be labeled 'the devil'.

While my words have changed, my attitude is pretty consistent with the way my parents viewed the world. The Devil is real in the workings of human beings, in our treatment of ourselves and each other, in our very inability to see ourselves and each other as humans, being.

My father and mother argued a lot about money. He liked holding on to it, she felt it should be spent on creating opportunities and joy for Black people, not just her own children, everybody's children. Much of what she did, my dad had to foot the shortfall of the finances. Our electricity, phone, gas, water.... NOTHING.... WAS EVER DISCONNECTED when my father was alive. He believed in paying his bills and paying them on time. Mama, not so much. There were always community issues, Black children and adults that needed help and Mama would help them with her monthly pay check. After Dad died, she had to learn how to live a different type of life.

All that to say this: Jethro Anderson had a reputation for being firm, loving, caring, rational, practical, steadfast, hardworking, and more but of all the words I can use to describe my father, the simplest word carries the most weight and intensity. My dad was 'responsible'.

for those that knew them, I wonder if they have ever asked themselves the question, 'If Mrs Anderson was so fierce, so strong, so courageous, so intimidating then what kind of man must my father have been to embrace all that my mother was to so many people? Or, perhaps, they were more alike than any of us realized.

My mother believed she should "obey" her husband. Deep down inside of me, I believe the same thing. It will take a special kind of person to understand what 'obey' means and still be okay with it. At my core,in all the ways I mirror my mother, I understand how deep and profound of a man my father was. He truly believed in God and the Bible as the teachings of how man and woman should behave toward each other. He believed in RULES. One should "know right from wrong and do right over wrong, no matter how difficult it may be.

To make it simple, all money ain't good money. All loving and good loving. There is some shit you just should not do, not say, not be part  or party to because of what will happen to you after you do it or what could happen to your children and your grand children if you do it. There were always consequences to every action and every opportunity.

Daddy did not spread his seed all over the planet. There were rules and consequences about this type of behavior. You lay with a woman you better be prepared to marry her if you get her pregnant because she and that child become your responsibility and they have to have your name.

Mama gave me advice on my failing marriage. She said, "you got a name and that baby got a name and that is all that matters." It took me years to figure out the culture, the codes embedded in that wisdom, and I am still searching for deeper meanings, but what I have figured out so far is that 'having a name', a mans family name meant you belonged not just to that man, you belonged to a group of people that would give you identity, purpose, and direction on your journey in life, if you choose to embrace who you are.