jaylar
Molly had gotten Jane’s birth certificate. Using that as proof, she was able to sit and gain a High School equivalency diploma in Jane’s name.
It wasn’t hard to do.
Then she got a social security card in Jane’s name.
Molly saved her money, applied for jobs far away. And when she got one, she prepared.
She ‘d packed, left the apartment, where her mother was asleep and her sister in her own room and went to the bus station.
She had planned this for months.
In the bathroom, Molly dyed her short blondish hair dark brown. She covered her head with two scarfs, then boarded the bus to Atlanta.
The reason it was Atlanta is because it was far away, and she had found a job there.
It wasn’t much of a job but it was good enough.
it is sad what some have to go through to get away.
A lot of people live very hard lives beyond their creation. In this story Molly had no life.
I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.
Maya Angelou
no one ever forgets how someone made us feel
I actually heard her say it and I have it in the front of my mind.
i find i use her quotes more and more
it truly depends on the person and their resolve.
She was strong and seemed to know that all the tragedy, pain, she experienced as a child didn’t matter to people. She overcame in such a sense that if you had met her and knew nothing about her, just walked in and she was there, chatting, and you were chatting, you’d never guess her past.
that is the power of resilience, the power of potential!
So many people live in the past and let something hold them back. She didn’t. What happened to her was many times worse than most people experience but you would never know it. Unless you knew who she was and had read her story.
everyone has to overcome something in their life. some do, some do not, there is no subjective measure of pain. Each of us feels that differently. What causes one person to stop and cry whoa is me, another person will call the stiffness of the morning.
but reversed, the pain one sees can sometimes be greater when it arrives.
Always depends on how weak one is. Some people will whine about something that happened 38 years ago. They don’t seem to catch that no one cares and may only use it against them;
“I don’t think she’s suitable for the position, She was raped when she was nine and seems to be dragging it with her.”.
the reality is if someone said that last line in the US, they would lose their job.
I have met people like Maya Angelou who you would never guess the tragedies they lived through. They never use what happened to them as an excuse.
i was at a writing institute with Maya, she shared her personal story (right after she published the story why the caged bird)
I am impressed. I didn’t know who she was. It is after that I learned who she was and then saw the movie made of Cage Bird.
she was a force in American literature.
Jamaicans aren’t politically correct… maybe in public but, privately… behind closed doors…NOPE.
You’ll see the media mouths, speaky spokey every so P.C. but in R.L. NOPE. We aren’t bit on pity here.
Everyone has a back story… I know a Big Important Woman who was raped by her grandfather when she was a child.
The public doesn’t know and won’t know. And when she got her job, as she moved up, no one knew. She kept that hidden. And there is nothing in her behaviour to give you a hint that anything is off.
You have to be strong to survive here.
Oh yes. And personally she was very decent.
i only spoke to her for about 10 minutes total, so i don’t know.
At least you knew who she was when you met her; I didn’t know who she was.
yes she read about five of her poems to us at the writing institute. they were a delight!
She was talking social issues; her involvement with various organisations
for the writer’s conference she was talking her process for creating poetry. i listened and actually use some of that model for my own poems.
I recall she had belonged to some civil rights groups
she was a driver in several of the groups. A sprit for change she often called it!
I remember her talking about a demonstration she was on for Civil Rights
when i was with her, she was talking about writing. By the end of the session we were all enthralled
I was and am very politically involved so that was what I knew her from. After I learned she was the writer. I met her as ‘sister maya’
activism is a good thing to show commitment!
I was involved and met a lot of big people I didn’t know where big people. A few, yeah, but many it wasn’t until after I learned.
sometimes people like that just like to be treated like they are just people!
That is how it is here. Just treat them as people, not super stars
i think you could go anywhere in the world and find those that treat their children like people.
but you could also find people that treat their children as superstars as well