My father passed away when I was barely 10 months old. He was pastor of the Liberty Baptist Church at that time (now First Baptist), in Ponca City, Oklahoma. It was 1937 and during the waning years of the depression, aside from the church providing a manse, Dad was often paid in chickens, gasoline, and physical labor.

He left my mother, my two sisters, two brothers and me. I was the youngest by nine years. My mother was now left with a family to feed and no commercial skills or prospects of family income. She became mentally unstable and soon fell to a diagnosis of schizophrenia. She was hospitalized at the insane asylum in Milledgeville, Georgia, for the rest of her life.

That left my brothers and sisters, and me. With the meager insurance payment and help from my parent's families, they were able to place a down payment on a house. My widowed aunt moved in, but everyone was either getting an education or working to support this new family of five. After going through several possibilities -- all of which failed -- the Georgia family hired a young black woman whose name was Lizzie Mae Brooks. At this time, I was two years old.

I immediately fell in love with Lizze Mae. She was with me and watched over me constantly. She often held me on her hip while she was doing the family ironing

First day in kindergarten at East Lake grammar school was a nightmare. My favorite cousin, Marypaul Bowen, accompanied me on that day, but I was having none of it. My friends in the neighborhood had already told me of how bad school was, so when I entered that classroom with all those other kids I didn't know, I decided a screaming, crying fit was the best way to handle the situation. I was inconsolable. Marypaul was at her wit's end. So, she said to me, "If I get Lizzie Mae to come and sit with you in kindergarten, would you behave?" Through the tears and pursed lips, I knodded my head in the affirmative. So, Marypaul took me home and Lizzie Mae sat in kindergarten with me the next day, and for the remainder of the week. I made friends and was mollified.

In first grade, teacher sent me home owing to the fact that I had pooped in my corduroy knickers. Guess I was stinkin' up the whole classroom. Lizzie Mae met me at the door and took my humiliated, sobbing face in her beautiful black hands and said, "You be proud, boy. Hol' yo' head up high and proud."

Suffice it to say that Lizzie Mae became my mother until well into my teens. My white relatives, my siblings all loved me, but I felt the love of this dear woman more, far more, than anyone else.

Many years later during a visit to Atlanta I found her listed in the white pages of the telephone book, so I called her. "Mista Davitt! Mista Davitt!" She shouted in surprise. (My middle name is 'David,' by which I was known at that time.) Bonnie and I visited several times after that and she hadn't changed a bit. She'd always call us her "White chir'ren." Then she'd say "Y'all is so S'weet. S'weet! S'weet! S'weet!

In her memory, I began to write letters that were never mailed, telling her of my thoughts and concerns. US Postage doesn't mean much in heaven, so, using the means of the printed word as prayer, I send these thoughts to her -- just to make sure they are approved before anyone else stumbles across them.

--PDM