Journey to Empowerment by Maria D. Dowd Page A

could hit those church keys that hard with so much rhythm, find all that soul in such an angelic place and conjure up all that power from such a petite package. You smile as you walk away a little lighter realizing how blessed she just made you feel and how good God is…all the time.
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    She sings off-key. But wears the beauty of a note like a lost soul that has just found joy on its way home. A note that you hold for a long time as it relishes on your tongue and after it has left your soul, you try to hit it again…and again…and find pleasure in knowing that once you hit it, it will come back, sometimes more forceful and longer than before. It will bring passion and beauty like a ballad with words written just for you and a melody played so sweetly with so much profoundness it brings satisfaction to your heart and tears to your eyes. She takes that note every first Sunday and sings front and center as a member of the seniors’ choir, soprano section. Even though her voice leans more toward alto or tenor depending on whom you ask and what note she is trying to hit at that given moment…she still sings. With so much wisdom, she goes where the spirit leads her and where she feels her voice is needed the most…amazing grace…. She sings, to us all.
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    She openeth her mouth with wisdom; and in her tongue is the law of kindness.
    â€”Proverbs 31:26

Mine Own
    G EQUETA V ALENTINE
    A fter twenty-two long hours, she lay stretched out on a bulky metal hospital bed, exhausted and disoriented, her body soaked with the perspiration of hard labor.
    â€œIt’s a girl,” the white nurse said, without enthusiasm, moments after the child, kicking urgently against her loins, emerged from her womb. After checking the baby’s vital signs, the disdainful nurse cleaned and wrapped her tightly in starched white hospital linen and hurriedly handed the bundle to her without speaking another word. Protectively, she held the child in her trembling arms, while the newborn flexed her young vocal chords with a deafening cry, announcing her presence to a world that did not want her.
    She stared at the small, black body, pressed closely against her bosom, silently mourning the inevitable. For all of the joys she would experience through motherhood, she knew that the baby girl would suffer much more sorrow than even she could ever imagine. But the woman could not allow those thoughts to stifle her spirits. What she had done was give life to yet another yearning, black child and for that she was proud, even content, and that was what she needed to remain focused on; not the fact that far too soon she would be forced to reconcile her emotions and confront the reality that this very child would be yanked from her care, just like all of the others, into a world that refused to understand her. She would be thrust into a world already set in motion, entrenched in its own ideologies about who or what she could and could not be.
    Why had the woman been chosen to bear such a burden? Wasn’t it enough that she’d survived the same? To teach another was harder to do. No matter how much she’d prepared them all, it just wasn’t enough to soften the blow to the barrier she’d erected, always broken by a single word or action.
    Her daughters would run to her like their lives depended upon it, shocked and amazed that she already knew and felt their pain, even before they had arrived. She consoled and encouraged, all in the same breath, her smile never wavering, while her insides were ripped to shreds at the rejection her children suffered. Each time, more dreadful than the last, having given each child a portion of her own heart for her healing, to cover the scar that the scorn of others had left. Even now as she gazed into the deep brown eyes of the child she held, she felt as if she had nothing left to give.
    Her eyes trailed the room to the open window, for a glimpse of the great big world outside, a