Stand Up Straight and Sing! by Jessye Norman Page B

responsibility to do that job to the best of her ability because doing so honored God and her church. Mind you, this was a volunteer position, as was every other position in our church, other than that of our pastor’s.
    My mother’s work ethic and dedication to her faith extended, too, to our personal lives and those around us. She felt it her duty to God and her community to be there for those who lived around us, and I know for sure that she was not alone in this thinking. There were many people on our street who were older than my parents—people whose children had grown up and moved away and who were getting on in age and having a difficult time taking care of themselves. Medicare and Medicaid were yet only dreams in our country at the time. These neighbors needed help with managing their lives, and it never would have occurred to the younger parents on the street to leave them to fend for themselves. I remember clearly when Mrs. Hubert, one of our favorite older ladies, who lived directly across from us, was not really feeding herself properly. She had lost the ability to cook for herself, so the women in the community simply got together to work out on which day of the week each of them would be responsible for making breakfast, lunch, and dinner for her. It was understood that this was something they would do. There was no discussion other than of the logistics of providing Mrs. Hubert the care she needed: food and a little company during the course of the day. No one said anything like “Gee, I don’t have time.” I loved taking my turns bringing breakfast over to Mrs. Hubert before going off to school; she was always so happy to see me and made a point of asking if my grades were still good in school and if I had time to sing her that song she had heard I’d sung at church last Sunday. I was always happy to oblige; she was just the best audience.
    Today, we can live next door to someone for years and not recognize them in the grocery-store queue. But that simply was not the case in our community. Indeed, more than twenty years ago when I became involved with City Meals-on-Wheels in New York City, one of many such organizations around the country that deliver nutritionally balanced meals to thousands of seniors. I noted that what we were doing on a very large scale was, in many ways, what my mother and our neighbors did while I was growing up in Augusta. As neither the federal, state, or local governments provide food to our older citizens in need on weekends or holidays, many of whom are unable to avail themselves of the physical and spiritual nourishment of a senior citizens’ facility, it is essential that community efforts and privately funded organizations fill the gaps.
    In our community, it was absolutely natural, too, for our neighbors to look after each other’s children, and for the children to extend the same respect and consideration they gave their own parents to all the adults in their lives. It was perfectly acceptable for any adult entrusted with the care of a child to call that child to account for bad behavior. A parent would be comfortable in saying to a neighbor, “I’ve got to go to the supermarket—just keep an eye on the children there in the backyard.” And were any child to be questioned by an adult in the neighborhood, the child’s response would have had to include the words “Yes, ma’am,” or “Yes, sir.”
    Being neighbors meant something—and doing the right thing by those neighbors had meaning. There was a spiritual element that compelled the neighbors to help one another, because they knew these actions to be a part of serving their faith and their Creator. My parents believed in this wholeheartedly and demonstrated their belief in the most tangible of ways. The Mrs. Huberts of our community had nothing to fear.
    The church informed my journey into adulthood. It was there, too, that I learned to share and work in cooperation with others. Singing in the chorus meant I