While the World Watched (17 page)

As U.S. attorney general (January 1960 to September 1964), Robert Kennedy had actively enforced Civil Rights laws and was deeply committed to African-Americans’ equal right to vote. On May 6, 1961, he had traveled to the University of Georgia to deliver one of his first major talks as attorney general. In that speech, RFK compared the domestic struggle for Civil Rights to the free world’s fight against communism. In 1962 he had sent U.S. marshals to Oxford, Mississippi, to enforce James Meredith’s enrollment into the University of Mississippi.

In 1967, at the invitation of Dr. Marian Wright Edelman, Bobby Kennedy had visited the poor shantytowns in the Mississippi Delta and saw personally the plight of the poor in that area. Kennedy visited one poor family with many children and no heat. Trying to make conversation with a small boy, Kennedy asked him, “What did you have for lunch today?”

“Haven’t had lunch,” the boy replied.

Kennedy looked at his watch. “It’s three o’clock in the afternoon and you haven’t had lunch yet?”

“No,” the boy said. “Sometimes we eat just one time a day.”

After that visit, Kennedy returned to the White House determined to change conditions in the Mississippi Delta and other impoverished parts of the South.

Now he, too, was dead.

Within the span of a decade, I had watched my beloved grandmother die in the basement of Princeton Hospital, I had survived two bombings, I had seen four friends murdered, and I had lost three compassionate leaders to assassins’ bullets: John F. Kennedy, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., and Robert F. Kennedy.

And I had not yet turned twenty-one years old.

Chapter 18

Je-Romeo

* * *

Faith is taking the first step even when you don’t see the whole staircase.

Martin Luther King Jr.

We know not what we should pray for as we ought . . . [but] we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.

Romans 8:26, 28,
KJV

During my darkest days at Fisk University, God sent Jerome to me. At first, I didn’t realize Jerome was God’s gift. I prayed each day that God would take away the pain and the depression, the dark cloud. God heard my prayer, but he answered it in a way I never could have imagined. He sent me Jerome, that I might see a reflection of God’s love. Jerome loved me unconditionally, like God loved me. It was true then. It is still true today.

During my freshman year at Fisk, in 1965, a friend introduced us. “Carolyn, I want you to meet one of my homeboys. His name is Jerome.”

I noticed the tall, slender, good-looking young man. Jerome looked at me and smiled. “My name’s really Je-
Romeo
!” he said.

Je-Romeo?
I thought.
This guy’s really stuck on himself
.
He thinks he’s something really special.
Sorry, Je-Romeo! Not interested!

“Hello, Jerome,” I said and walked away.

The next time I saw Jerome, I was standing in Fisk’s cafeteria line. I was hungry, and the line in front of me stretched a long way.

“Hello, homegirl!” He walked toward me and eased into the lunch line beside me.

My, my
, I thought.
If it’s not that stuck-up Je-Romeo! He so smoothly broke into the cafeteria line, and nobody objected. Amazing.

We filled our trays with food and ate lunch at the same table.
No big deal
, I thought.

The next time I saw Jerome, he was in my dorm building. As part of my on-campus job, I worked behind the desk on the first floor and greeted dorm guests. He asked me to page another girl in the dorm. When I turned away to pick up the loudspeaker to call her, he said, “Hey! You look good in those jeans. Can we go on a date?”

For some reason, I agreed. I learned that Jerome grew up in Aliceville, Alabama, where his mother taught school. His father worked at the Fairfield Works, a steel mill in Birmingham. His parents had a strong marriage even though they lived a “commuter marriage.”

Jerome was two years ahead of me at Fisk. We began attending campus dances together, and before long we became a steady twosome. Jerome was a good dancer and a fun date. We fell in love and were married on January 30, 1968.

Jerome knew little about me when we got married. He knew I belonged to Sixteenth Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, but I didn’t tell him I had witnessed the 1963 bombing and the deaths of my friends. He never questioned my inner sadness or my desire to be alone.

Jerome graduated from Fisk and was drafted into the Air Force. He was stationed at Robbins Air Force Base in Valdosta, Georgia, while I continued my education at Fisk in Nashville. We visited each other as often as we could.

After about a year of marriage, I became pregnant with our first child. After I graduated, my mother and father encouraged me to come home to Birmingham and live with them until the baby was born. My daughter, Leigh, arrived on September 26, 1969—my mother’s birthday.

Leigh was four months old when the Air Force sent Jerome to Korea, and during the thirteen months he was gone, I continued to live with my parents. When Jerome returned from overseas, we moved to Orlando, Florida. He took a management job with Sears. On July 12, 1973, I delivered our second daughter, Joya.

Life was good. I had a husband I deeply loved and two beautiful, healthy girls. God had blessed me tremendously. But I still couldn’t shake the depression. The sadness weighed heavily on my heart. Jerome didn’t understand it.

“Carolyn,” he often asked me, “what’s wrong?”

I don’t know why he always asked that question. I thought I was doing a good job keeping the pain buried inside, but apparently some things showed more than I realized.

“Nothing,” I’d always answer. I never told him the reason because I really had no idea where the sadness and depression came from.

My drinking increased during our two years in Orlando. Jerome knew I had a small glass of wine on occasion. But he had no idea the immense volume of alcohol I consumed on a daily basis. During the days, after Jerome left for work, I drank vodka—mostly because Jerome couldn’t smell it on my breath when he came home. I had big bottles of vodka and gin hidden all over the house. I could easily drink half a bottle a day. I hid the liquor inside my shoes in the bedroom closet, in the bathroom dirty clothes hamper, in the laundry room, and in other secret places.

The more I drank, the colder I became to Jerome. I treated him with indifference, and I stayed aloof and emotionally distant. I was afraid to share my feelings with him—I didn’t really understand these bleak emotions myself. I guess I just thought this was life—that some people are born happy and some aren’t. I didn’t know how to get past it. But Jerome quietly accepted my isolating behavior.

As a youth, I had loved people and parties. But now my life seemed so uncertain. I was frightened. I got scared when Jerome traveled out of town and I had to stay by myself. So many unanswered questions were spinning around in my mind.
What was happening to me? Why had I changed so much?

Loud noises also terrified me. I flew into a panic every time a truck backfired or a balloon popped at a child’s birthday party. And, as hard as I tried, I still couldn’t sleep well at night.

Even now, I had not connected the Sixteenth Street Church bombing and my friends’ deaths with my depression. All I knew was that I was miserable. I hated life, and I had no idea why.

One day in 1973, Jerome came home from work with news. “Carolyn, Sears wants to transfer me to Atlanta, Georgia.”

We packed our belongings and moved. But things proved no better for me in Atlanta than they’d been in Orlando. I stayed home during the long days and cared for my daughters. I continued to drink vodka and gin, hiding the bottles in secret places all over the house. I grew even more despondent. I didn’t want to live anymore. I thought about death a lot, and I didn’t know why. I didn’t think there was anything unusual about a constant preoccupation with death. My life was like an open, bleeding wound that had festered and would not heal.

I felt totally alone.
I have no one to help me
, I thought.
Maybe I should just die and be done with all this.

When Jerome left for work one morning, I fed and dressed my children and then poured myself an orange juice with vodka. One drink followed another.

As the girls played outside, I watched television and nursed my drinks. During the commercial break, the station gave a number for the suicide hotline.

“Are you confused about life? Don’t know which way to turn? Need someone to talk to?” the ad asked. Then the narrator added, “Call this number. Counselors are waiting to take your call.” A phone number flashed across the TV screen.

We had been in Atlanta about a year, and I had not made any friends. I wanted to talk to someone besides my children. I was sad and lonely, but I still hadn’t thought through what was causing it. Even as I dialed the number on the screen, I’m not sure I realized how down I was—I just wanted someone to talk to.

A counselor answered, and I gave my first name only. I explained that I was new to Atlanta and that I was feeling sad and lonely and a bit overwhelmed. And that I just needed to talk. It had been ten years since the bombing, but I still thought about that awful day or the girls—usually Cynthia—daily. I had been back to Birmingham many times since then, but I’d never visited the church.

The counselor talked about their services and asked questions about my daily routine. During that conversation, at about ten thirty in the morning, Jerome unexpectedly showed up at home. This was really unusual—he typically didn’t get off work until five thirty in the evening—but he had to get some papers for work he’d forgotten at home. I believe God is in everything that happens, and maybe he allowed Jerome to forget those papers so he would be there right when I needed him.

“Who are you talking to?” he asked.

“Just the people at the suicide hotline center,” I responded. “I was lonely and told them I was new in town. I wanted someone to talk to.”

“The
suicide
hotline?” Then he noticed the drink in my hand. “It’s really early to be drinking, Carolyn,” Jerome said.

I said nothing in reply.

At that moment, I believe Jerome understood that a tremendous struggle was going on inside me. He may not have known what it was, but he instinctively knew it was there. And he knew I needed a doctor.

Jerome said, “Carolyn, if you don’t want to talk with me about the problem, then would you please speak with your doctor? Tell him about your recurring hand rashes, your depression, and whatever you wanted to share with the suicide hotline folks.”

I reluctantly agreed. But I really saw no need. I felt it would be a waste of time and money. But I made the appointment because I’d promised Jerome I would.

The doctor examined me and wasted no time telling me his diagnosis: “Well, you can keep going like you are going, and you might live another five years. Or you can accept the life that God has laid out before you and get on with living it.”

Additional conversations with my doctor helped me understand that my behavior had become harmful to me. Little by little, I was self-destructing. I would have to decide that the life God had given me was worth living and that it was, in fact, his plan for me—no matter that the voices in my head tried to convince me otherwise. I believed in my heart it was true—that I could let God redeem my past. But could I live with that decision? Could I live without it?

Chapter 19

Turning Points

* * *

I have been young, and now am old; yet have I not seen the righteous forsaken, nor his seed begging bread.

Psalm 37:25,
KJV

We must seek, above all, a world of peace; a world in which people dwell together in mutual respect and work together in mutual regard.

John F. Kennedy

I thought a lot about my grandfather during the years we lived in Atlanta. Granddaddy had joined Mama Lessie in heaven in 1971. He suffered a stroke while alone at his home in Clanton, Alabama, managing to drag himself to the telephone, grab the cord, and pull the receiver off its cradle. In those days, an operator came on the line automatically whenever a phone came off the hook. The operator identified Granddaddy’s number and called Tom Dickerson, a man who lived across the street. Tom just happened to be the neighbor Granddaddy had given his only extra front-door key, in case he ever locked himself out of the house.

Tom found my grandfather lying on the floor and got him to a small hospital in Clanton. My mother then transferred Granddaddy to Princeton Hospital, where my grandmother had died fourteen years earlier. By 1971 Princeton Hospital had integrated, so doctors allowed Granddaddy a room on the hospital’s patient floor.

While in the hospital, Granddaddy’s health seemed to be getting better. He looked forward to going back home. People in the churches he pastored and in his neighborhood needed him.

My grandfather joked with the nurses and talked with people all over the hospital. When I came to visit, he’d tell the nurses, “See, I told you I had a pretty granddaughter!”

But like Mama Lessie, Granddaddy never left Princeton Hospital. At the end of two weeks, he suffered another stroke and died.

I lost a good friend when my grandfather passed. I missed him and Mama Lessie so much. With their wisdom and patience and steady belief in God, they were a source of stability in my turbulent life. I don’t know where I’d be now without their strong sense of family and their constant prayers for each of us. Granddaddy, one of fourteen children, always talked about how God had taken care of his family. He was proud that not one of them had ever been arrested and that six of them had become preachers.

I often heard my grandfather quote Psalm 37:25 when he spoke of his family: “I have been young, and now am old; yet have I not seen the righteous forsaken, nor his seed begging bread.” I wished I could get Granddaddy’s encouragement and advice now. We had enough food on our table, but emotionally and spiritually speaking, I felt like I was desperate, begging for sustenance. I was looking for a reason to live.

* * *

I got up one morning as usual and fed and dressed Leigh, who was five, and Joya, who had just turned a year old. Granddaddy had been gone for more than two years now, and I needed him more than ever. I thought about his deep faith in God and how he had taken every opportunity to teach me life’s lessons.

“Carolyn,” my grandfather used to tell me, “your name means ‘strong one.’”
Oh Granddaddy, I miss you, but I’m glad you can’t see me now. I’m not strong anymore. You’d be so disappointed in me.

I took a deep breath and tried to put those thoughts behind me.

“Leigh, Joya,” I called to my daughters, giving each a kiss. “You can go outside and play. But stay on the deck. Don’t go in the yard or near the street.”

A high-traffic road ran behind our house. I had taught both children never to go near it. I sat down in a kitchen chair and poured myself a large orange juice and vodka. As I sat there in the quiet, thoughts of Cynthia Wesley filled my mind.
You’d be twenty-five years old, too, Cynthia, if you had lived. Would you be married now and have little girls of your own?
I wondered.
How I miss you, Cynthia. We could’ve grown up together; we’d have been best friends for a lifetime.

It was as if Cynthia came into the room and sat down beside me.

Perhaps soon you’ll be joining me, Carolyn
, she said
. Remember what your doctor told you? Five years! Five years!

I drained the glass, trying to silence the inner voice. Then I filled the glass up again with more juice and vodka.

Five years. That’s not nearly enough time to raise my two daughters.

I glanced out the kitchen window and looked at my girls. They were playing together happily on the deck. My thoughts took me back to my grandfather.

I wish I could be more like you, Granddaddy. You and Mama Lessie. You gave your life to everyone around you.

I remembered my grandfather’s compassionate heart for the poor—how he reached out to them and in Christ’s name met their needs—both spiritual and financial.

Granddaddy, I miss . . .

I was brought back to reality by an almost thunderous knocking on my kitchen door. It was my next-door neighbor. I had met her and her husband before, but I had never been in their house. She was older and seemed to prefer keeping to herself.

“Your daughter was almost run over by the bus!” she shouted. “The bus driver had to stop in the middle of the street to avoid hitting her! You should keep your children inside unless you come out with them!”

She turned away from the door and headed back home. Immediately I felt angry and frightened at the same time—angry that my neighbor had rushed to judgment and scolded me, but also because I knew she was right. I should have been with the girls, watching them. Instead, I was inside drinking, trying to make
myself
feel better.

Both Joya and Leigh could have been injured—or killed!
I cried inside.
If anything happened to my daughters, I would
really
be at a point of no return!

I made a commitment to myself that day:
Carolyn, this is it! Today everything changes. I have reached the turning point in my drinking!

Then I prayed,
Lord, you will have to help me. I can’t do this alone. I can’t do anything at all if you don’t help me.

As I stood in the basement ironing, with the girls sound asleep upstairs, I continued to pray.
Lord, remind me that you love me. Help me to appreciate the good husband you sent me and to take care of my two beautiful daughters. You have given me a good life. Thank you! Now, Lord, I repent. I want to be like you.

And then I asked my heavenly Father,
Please take away my taste for alcohol.
Can you make it like I have never tasted alcohol before? Can you touch my body and heal anything harmful I have done to myself through my drinking? And can you fix me so that I don’t hurt so much when I wake up each morning? Amen.

The next two weeks turned out to be the most critical weeks of my life. I didn’t know it then, however. I came to see God’s power only much later, as I looked back on the difficult journey.

I knew I needed to stop drinking, but I didn’t know what that would entail. I thought I would just stop. I thought I
could
just stop. I had no idea that, in those years of trying to rid myself of sadness and depression through drinking, I had created a dependency in my body and my mind. Once I stopped drinking, reality was terrifying.

The first three days were fairly uneventful. I looked after the girls, and I took care of my responsibilities at home. On days four and five I began to think about drinking a lot. By day six, I could no longer sleep at night. On days seven through eleven, I perspired a lot. And I paced relentlessly. My best time of the day was when everyone was quiet or asleep. Even better was when Jerome worked late. He still didn’t realize the full extent of my problem. I couldn’t stand for anyone to touch me—my whole body felt as if it were on fire, screaming.

But somehow God allowed me to get through it—alone with him. I cried. I slept. I paced. And I yelled at anyone who came too near me. By the end of day twelve, I breathed in deeply, and I exhaled. Days thirteen and fourteen were filled with prayer and resolve to never go through this again. And somehow, at that point I knew it was over. God had helped me to win, to overcome. The demon had fled. I have not looked back since.

I am ever grateful that God allowed me to live, that he took care of me when I couldn’t (and didn’t know how to) take care of myself. I am grateful that he touched me before I self-destructed.