Individuals
As the saying goes , “into every life some rain must fall”. The Narrator of the story is an indomitable African American woman named Care. She shares her life experiences with us, showing how faith and love helped her through the rain.
Swimming to the Top of the Rain By: J. California Cooper
Mothers are something ain’t they? They mostly the one person you can count on! All your life… if they live. Most mother be your friend and love you no matter what you do! I bet mine was that way. You ain’t never known no body didn’t have one, so they must be something!
Life is really something too, cause you can stand stark raving still and life will still happen to you. It’s gonna spill over and touch you no matter where you are! Always full of lesson. Everywhere! All you got to do is look around you if you got sense enough to see! I hear people say they so bored with life. Ain’t nothing but a fool that ain’t got nothing to doin this here world. My aunt Ellen, who I’m going to tell you about, always said,: “Life is like tryin to swim to the top of the rain sometime!”
One of things I always put in my prayers is: “Lord, please don’t let me be no big fool in this life!”Cause you got to be thinking, and think hard, to make it to any kinda peace and happiness. And it seem like things start happening from the moment you are born!
My mama died from my being born the minute I was born! Now if you don’t that changed my whole life, you need to pray to be a fool! She left three of us. My two sisters, I call them Oldest and Middle, and me. She had done been working hard to support herself for years, I learned, and finally for her two children after my daddy left. He come back, one more time, to make one more baby. I can look back now and understand, she was grieved and lonely and tired from holding up against hard times all by herself and wished this time he was back to stay and help, so she let him back in her bed. Probly to be held one more time by someone sides a child. Then I was made and she told him. He got drunk, again, but didn’t beat her. There’s some whippings people give you tho, without laying a hand on you, hurts just as bad, even worse sometime. He left, again. He musta broke somethin inside her beside her spirit and her heart cause when I took my first breath, she took her last breath. I wished I could of fixed it whilst I was inside her, so she could live…… and I could get to have my own mama.
She had already told my sister what my name was to be. I was called “Care.” My first sister was “Angel” and the second “Better,” four and five years old. But I call them Older and Middle.
We was alone, three babies.
Mama had two sisters we never heard of. Somebody knew how to reach them cause one, Aunt Bell, who lived in a big city, came and got us and took us in. Had to, I guess. Cause wasn’t nowhere else we could go at that time… three of us!? Musta been a shock for somebody wasn’t expecting anything like that!
We think my Aunt Bell was a prostitute. Older say she was never in the little rooms she rented for us but once or twice a month. She would pay the rent, stock up the food, give us some little shiny toy or dress, lotsa warnings bout strangers, and leave us with a hug and kiss. If she had a husband we never met him. We were young and didn’t understand a lot, but we love that woman, least I did. Was something kin to me in her. She was so sad, even when she was smiling and laughing. I didn’t see it, but I felt it. I’d cry for her when I thought of her and not know why I was crying! She took care of us about five years, then she was dumped on our front porch, stabbed to death! We opened the door for sunlight and found her and darkness. The darkness moved right on into the house, into our lives, again.
I don’t know if they even tried to find out who did it. Just another whore gone, I guess. Never mind the kind of person she was, trying to do for us and all. We had never really been full to steady, but we had always had something!
We was alone, again.
I found out early in life you going to find a lotta mean people every place, but sometime a few good ones somewhere. Someone came in and prepared for the tiny, short funeral. The church donated the coffin and fed us. Somebody went through Aunt Bell’s few sad things she had there and that’s when we found out we had another aunt, Aunt Ellen. People should tell the children where to look and who to look for, just in case! Do we ever know what’s goin to happen to us in this life? Or when?
Somehow they reach Aunt Ellen and she got there bout a week after the funeral. We was all separated and could tell people was getting tired of feeding and caring for us. Well, after all they was poor people or they never would have known us anyway and they was already having a hard time before we needed them!
Aunt Ellen was a husky-looking, mannish-looking woman who wore pants, a straw hat and a red flowered blouse. I will always remember that. I was crying when she came…. Scared. I stared at her…. Our new mama… wondering what she was going to be like. What should she do with us, to us, for us? Would she want us? I was only five years old and already had to worry bout my survival… our lives! I’m telling you, look at your mama, if she be living, and be thankful to God!
She picked me up and held me close to her breast, under her chin and she just like I knew my mama did. She took us all sat us down and just like we was grown, talked to us, “I ain’t got no home big enough for all us. Ain’t got much money, done saved a little only. But I got a little piece of land I been planning to build on someday and this must be the day! Now, I ain’t got chick or child, but now I got you… all of you. Ain’t gonna be no separation no more, you got me. I loved my sister and I love you.”
Three little hearts just musta exploded with love and peace. I know mine did! i remember holding onto her pants, case, she disappeared, i could disappear with her!
She went on talking as she squeezed a cheek, smoothed a hair, brushed a dress, wiped a nose. “I ain’t no cookie- bakin woman! But you learn to bake the cookies and I’ll provide the stove and the dough!” My sister, Older, could already cook most everything, but we’d never had no stuff to cook cookies with. “Now!” she went on as she stroked me, “You want to go with me?” One nodded yes, one said yes. I just Peed I was so happy! I kept putting her as my mama.! “we’ll try to swim to the top of the rain together!” she smiled and I sensed that sadness again, but it went away quick and I forgot it.
When I hear people say “Homeland” I always know what they mean. There is no place like a home. She took us to that beautiful land on bus, eating cold biscuits, bacon and pieces of chicken, even some cornbread. All fixed by our old neighbors. We stayed hither and yon while she mixed and poured the concrete and built that little cabin with four rooms. We lived in each room as it was finished. It was a beautiful little lopsided house… ours!
Oh, other people came to help sometime, but he worked hardest on our own home! It took two more years to finally get a inside toilet and bath, but Aunt Ellen had to have one cause she blived in baths and teeth washing and things like that, tho I never saw her take one!
We lived there til we was grown. We tilled a little land, raised our own few pigs and chickens, and split one cow with another family for the milk. She raised us, or helped us to raise ourselves.
Older sister quit the little schoolhouse when she was about fifteen years old in the eighth or ninth grade and got married to a real light man. She just had to have that real light man! In a couple years she had two children, both girls. The light man left, or she left him and came home. Aunt Ellen said, ”NO, no! I ain’t holdin up no learning poles! If you old enough to spread them knees and make babies, you old enough to take care yourself! You done stepped out into the rain, now you learn to swim”!Older cried a little cause I guess she was scared of the world, but aunt Ellen took her round to find a job and a place to live. We baby set for her til she was steady. One day we looked up and she was on her own! And smiling! Not cause she was doing so good, but because she was taking care herself and her children and didn’t have to answer to nobody! When her man came back, she musta remembered Mama, cause she didn’t let him in to make no more babies!
Middle sister went on to ninth grade, she went to nursing school. Just the kid teach you how to clean up round a patient. Aunt Ellen was proud. She was getting older, but not old yet, and said she would help anybody wanted to go to school long as they got a job and helped themselves too, and she did. That left only me home with her, but I didn’t want to go nowhere away from her!
We didn’t have no money, helping Middle go to school and taking care of ourselves. I couldn’t even think of getting clothes and all those kinds of things! I had me one good dress and a good pair of patent leather shoes I wore to church every Sunday. So after I got out my ninth grade I asked a lady who sewed for a livin to teach me
In exchange for housework and she did. That’s why I know there’s some nice white people who will help you. After I learned, she would pay me a little to do little things like collars, seams, and things. Then I still watched her and learned more for free! I sewed for Aunt Ellen and me and Older’s babies. We saved money that way. That’s the same way I learned to play the piano… sewing for the piano teacher. I got to be pretty good. Got paid a little to play at weddings. Cause I won’t charge for no funerals. Death already cost too much!
Middle graduated from that school. Well, got out. Cause all they did was ask her was she all paid up and she was when she said yes, they handed her a paper said she was completed. She got married right soon after that to somebody working in a hospital and they moved to a city that had more hospitals to work in. Soon she had a baby girl. Another girl was good, but, where was all our boy children? They necessary too!
One evening after a good dinner, me and Aunt Ellen sat out on the porch. I was swinging and she was rockin as she whittled some wood makin a stool for her leg that had started giving her trouble. She wanted something to prop it up on. Mosquitos and firebugs was buzzing round us. She turned to me and said. “you know, I am glad you all come along to my life. I did a lot of things I might never have got to, and now I’m glad they done! I got a family and a home too! I believe we gonna make that swim to the top of the rain! Things seem to be workin out alright! You all are fine girls and I’m proud of you. You gon be alright!”.
Pleased, I laughed.”Aunty, you can’t swim goin straight up! You can’t swim the rain. You got to swim the river or the lake”!
She smiled. “Life is more like the rain. The river and the lake lay down for you. All you got to do is learn how to swim fore you go where they are and jump in. But life don’t do that. You always gets the test fore you learn the swimming lesson, unexpected, like rain. You don’t go to the rain, the rain comes to you. Anywhere, anytime. You got to prepare for it!... protect your self! And if it keeps coming down on you, you got to learn to swim to the top through the dark clouds, where the sun is shining in that silver lining”.
She wasn’t laughing, so I didn’t either. I just thought about that she said till I went to sleep. I still ain’t never forgot it.
The next day when the dinner was ready, aunt Ellen hadn’t come in from the fields and it got to be dark. Finally the mule came home dragging the plow. I went out to look for her, crying as I walked over the plowed rows, screaming her name out, cause I was scared I had lost my Aunt Mama. I had.
I found her under a tree, like she was sleeping. Had a biscuit with a little harm in it, still in her hand. But she was dead. I couldn’t carry her in and wouldn’t have her alone so just stayed out there holding her all night long. A kind neighbor found us the next day, cause he noticed the mule draggin the plow and nobody home.
I sewed Aunt Ellen’s shroud to be buried in. I played the piano at her funeral too. Her favorite song, “My Buddy.” I would have done anything for her. I loved her, my Aunt Mama, she taught me so much. All I knew to make my life with.
I was alone again.
Older and I buried her. Middle didn’t come, but sent $10,00
I gave the preacher $5.00 and stuck the other $5.00 in Aunt Ellen’s pocket, thinking, all your money passed out to us… take this with you. Later, I planted turnips and mustard greens all round her homemade grave, cause she liked them best. Then…. That part of my life was over.
I was alone again, oh Lord. Trying to see through the rain.
You ever been alone? Ain’t had no Body? Didn’t know what to do? Where to turn? I didn’t. I was alone even with my sisters living. This was my life and what was I to do with it?
The house and land belonged to all of us. I tried to stay in that cabin, intended to, but it was too lonely out there. Specially when all the men started passing there late at night, stopping, setting. Rain coming to me just like Aunt Ellen said. I didn’t want to be rained on, so I gave it out to a couple without a home and moved on down there where my middle sister was, in the city. I got a job living-in and was making a little extra and saving by doing sewing. I was hunting out a future.
I went to church a lot. I stick close to God cause when you need a friend, you need one you can count on! Not the preacher…but God! I steered clear of them men who try to get a working woman and live off her itty-bitty money. I ain’t got to tell you about them! They dress and sit while she work! No! No! my Aunt taught me how not to be scared without a man til the right one comes, and that’s why I’ll have something for him when he gets here!
I met that nice man. A very hard-working man at church social. Was me and a real light woman liking him and I thought sure he would take to her, but he took to me. I waited for a long time, til after we were married to ask him why, cause he might think of something I didn’t want him to think of. He told me “I like her, I think she a fine woman, a good woman. But you can’t like somebody just cause they light! Ain’t no white man done me no favor by making no black woman a baby! What I care most bout skin is that it fits! Don’t sag or shrink when it gets wet!” He say, “ I love your outsides and your insides, cause you a kind and lovin woman who needs a lotta love and don’t mind letting me know it! I need love too!” then I knew I could love him with ease. And I did, through the years that passed.
My husband was a railroad-working man so we was pretty soon able to buy us a little home and I was able to stay in it and not go out to work. I made a little extra money with my sewing and teaching piano lessons. We was doing alright! We both wanted children but didn’t seem to start up none, so I naturally came to take up more time with my nieces. That’s when I came to know the meaning of the big importance of who raises you and who you raising!
I had urged older to come to the city with her two girls, they were bout fourteen and fifteen years old round then. Middle didn’t have no husband now, and her daughter was bout thirteen years old. I could see, tho they was all from one family, they had such different ways of doing things! With My Husband gone two or three days a week, I had time to get to know them more.
Now, older, she the one with the two daughters, she did everything for the oldest pretty, light one, leaving the other one out a lot. The oldest one had more and better clothes and was kinda snotty girl. Demanding… always demanding! She was going to be doctor, she said, and true enough she studied hard. She volunteered at the hospitals a lot. Getting ready, she said. She was picky bout her clothes and since her Mama didn’t make too much money and wouldn’t let her work, she was always asking me to sew for her or do her hair. Her best friend was a little girl, live up the street, from a nice family.
I took to sewing, buying the material myself, for the youngest brownskin one. She was a little hard of hearing and didn’t speak as prettily and clearly as her older sister, so they was always putting her off or back, or leaving her home when they go out. Now, she was not college-smart, but she was common-sense smart and a good decent girl, treated people right. That’s what I like, so I helped her! She was never asking for nothing but was grateful for the smallest thing you did for her. That kind of person makes me remember my aunts and I will work my butt off for people like that! I was closest to her.
I spent time with Middle too. I love my family. Her daughter, thirteen orr fourteen years old, was a nice quiet girl. At least I thought she was quiet. I found out later she was beaten under. She was sacred to be herself. Her mother, Middle, had turned down her natural spirit! You know some of them things people try to break in their children are things they may need when they get out in that world when Mama and Papa ain’t there! The child was tryin to please her mama and was losing herself! And she wasn’t bad to begin with! Now it’s good for a child to minds its mama, but then the mama got to be careful what she tells that child to do! She’s messing with her child’s life!
Middle was mad one day and she told me she had whipped the child for walkin home holding hands with a boy! I tond Middle, “Ain’t nothing wrong with holding hands! Specially when you heading home where your mama is! Human will be human! Some people wish their fourteen years old daughter was only holding hands!” I told her, “you was almost married when you was her age!” Middle told me I didn’t have no kids so I didn’t understand! I went home thinking children wasn’t nothing but little people living in the same life we was, learning the same things we had to. You just got to understand bout life! I hear people say, “I ain’t never been a mother before, how am I supposed to know what to do? Well, let me tell you, that child ain’t never been here before, been a child their age before either! How they always supposed to know what to do, less you teach em! How much do you know to teach em?
Several months later she whipped that girl, hard and long, for kissing a boy in the hallway. I told Middle, ‘she was in your halfway. What could she do out there and you in here?! If they was planning anything special, they got the whole world out there to hide in!” Middle said , “I wish she was just out there holdin hands walking home, stead of this stuff!” I looked at her trying to understand why she didn’t understand when she was well off. “while you think you whipping something out of her, you may be whippen’ something in! talk to her more. Are you all friends? You know, everybody need a friend!”
She was so sad, my sister, I asked her, “why don’t you think about getting married again? Get you some kissin stuff? They maybe natural things won’t look so dirty to you! You can be a mama and a wife, stead of a warden!” Middle just screwed up her face and say she know what she doing! Sadness all gone… madness too close. Things you feel sposed to make you think bout em! Think how you can help yourself. Hers didn’t. She say, “the last thing I need is a man messing up my life again!” Well, it was her business, but it looked to me like she was getting close to the last thing! I told my niece if she ever need a friend, to come to me. I was her aunt and her friend, just like Aunt Ellen was to me! I left.
Life is like something chile! Sometime watching over other folks’ life can make you more tired than just taking care your own!
Older’s snotty oldest daughter had graduated with good grades from high school and was going out to find work to help send herself to college. Both she and her white girlfriend planned to go to college, but the white friend’s family had planned ahead and had insurance for education. They both went out together to find work. They went to that hospital where Oldest’s daughter had volunteered steady, spending all kinds of time and energy in most all the departments there. Her friend hadn’t . but when they had their interviews, her friend got the job! Well, my niece was just done in or out, either one or both! But her white friend told her, “I’m a minority, aren’t I? I’m a female! At least one of us got it! That’s better than some man getting it!” Ms. Snotty just looked at her and I don’t think they’re friends anymore, least not so close. Anyway, my niece wrote a pack of letters and a month or so later, she went on East and got a job. I can tell you now, she didn’t become no doctor, but she is a head nurseof a whole hospital. Her mama surenuff scrimped and saved and made herself and her other daughter go without to keep that girl in school. I was giving my other niece all she had to keep her from feeling too neglected. I loved that girl! I loved them both, but people with certain kinda needs just get me!
Middle had told her daughter, “No company til you arev eighteen years old and through with school!” but she didn’t give her the hugs and kisses and touches we all need. So the girl found her own. She was eighteen years old now, and she had gotten pregnant. She and the boy wanted to get married but Middle beat her and demanded her to get an abortion. The girl wouldn’t have one, so Middle was going to show her evil ways had cost her her mother, and how lost she be without her! She put out her child out of her rented house! Her own child! Seem like that was the time for Middle to act like the mother she was always demanding respect for! That was going to be her own grandchild! But… she put her out. I didn’t know it and that poor child didn’t come to me… what had I missed doing or saying to show her I was her friend? Oh lord, I prayed for her safety. You know on the other side of your door sits the whole world. The good people are mostly home taking care of their family and business. It’s the liars, thieves, rapes, murderers, pimps, sadistic, dopers, crazy people who are out there…. Waiting…just for someone without no experience. Thems who the child was out there with, the minute her mama slammed that front door! And a belly full of baby, no man no mama. It’s some things you don’t have to live to understand. I wanted my grandniece. I would have taken care of it for her. And Middle would love her grandchile. It’s a mighty dumb fool won’t let their own heart be happy! If she was worrying bout feeding it… she got fed! And didn’t have no mama! Trying to show what a fool her daughter was, she showed what a fool she was! Your chile is your heart, your flesh, your blood! And some times, your way! Anyway, life goes on. I couldn’t find her til way later.
Older’s daughter had done graduated and was a surgical or surgeon nurse, and had her own place and car and everything! Older was planning to go visit her did, leaving the youngest daughter to stay home and watch the house with my help. When older got back she was hurt and mad. She didn’t want to tell it, but we finally got it out of her. Her snotty daughter had made her wear a maid’s uniform, the one she had for regular jobs. She had to cook and answer the door and stay out the way when company came! Not tell nobody that was her daughter! Can you believe ….even can you imagine that?! Her mother?! Well, it’s true, she did and she still does it! Then shames of all shames possible to snotty sister, her young sister got a job as a maid in whore house! Snotty and Middle hated that, but she had made such a good money, tips and all, and the girls giving her jewels and discarded furs and clothes and all. They wanted to use them, borrow her money, but seem to hate her. Two ways. For having these things and for being low enough to work as a maid in a whorehouse! they made her sad. She was trying to swim to the top of the rain in her own way. I tried to love her enough, but there ain’t nothin like your own mama’s love!
Bout that time somebody told us about Middle’s daughter. She was a prostitute trying to pay her own way, raising her daughter, living alone. She didn’t have time to find a job before she started starving, so this was a way. She was trying to swim to the top of the rain, but was drowning. Middle took a gun down on the street and threatened to kill her! I talked to the young woman. She was still a good girl, just lost! But loving her baby! That baby had everything! Was the fattest, cutest, sweetest smiling baby I ever seen! Ohhh, how I wanted that baby! And I knew the pain, the great big pain I could see in her face she was going through . who wants to sell their body? The only thing, no matter how long you live, that is truly yours, is your body. I don’t care how much money you got!
Later, Middle told me, “Ohhhhh, I wish she was home just having one of them illegal babies! Oh just to have her back home holding hands, or kissing in the hallway, even having that baby! I should a let her marry that boy when they wanted to! I’d rather kill her than see her be a prostitute!” she hurt and I could see it. It was the first time she had even blamed herself a little bit for her part in all this. I had a little hope for her.
The daughter brought the baby her mother had tried to make her get rid of and let her keep it sometime. Middle loved that grandchile so much, cause you see, she didn’t have nothing else in her life. It was empty! I kept it whenever I could. That girl, her daughter, stayed sad… sad…. Sadder. She would look around her mama’s house and make a deep sigh and go away looking hopeless. Her mama told her to come home, but she said it was too late.
I got involved round that time with Older’s youngest daughter. She had fallen in love
‘and was bout to marry a blind man. I thought was good after I was met him. He was so good-seeming, so kind to her, so sweet and gentle with her. My sister was going to crazy cause he was blind! She didn’t even think of his honesty and kindness and love for her daughter. She could only see he was blind. Oh Lord, deliver the innocent from some fools that be mothers, fathers, and sisters. She married him anyway , bless her heart, and my sister had a heart attack… a real one! Her daughter she didn’t love so much and her blind husband took care of her, better than she took care herself when she could. Her nurse daughter, said she couldn’t! Didn’t have time.
I was so busy being in my family’s business I hadn’t been in my own enough! My husband, have mercy, told me he was leavin me cause he had met someone he might could love and she was pregnant! I looked at him for bout a hour, it seemed, cause he was my life but I hadn’t been actin like it! Been giving everybody else all my thoughts, time and life. But I had done learned bout happiness and I understood if he wasn’t happy here, he should be where he was happy! Ain’t that what we all life for? How could I get mad at a man who had give me everything, including the chance to make him happy? I washed, cleaned, packed his clothes, and let him go, clean away. Then I went in the house, took the biggest bottle of liquor I could find, sat down and drank for bout a week. Now, I ain’t crazy and a hangover ain’t the best feeling in the world. Life started again in me and bless my soul, even alone, I was still alive!
I went out in my … my yard and saw one lone red flower dug it up and took it in the house. I told it, “you and me, we alone. We can survive! I’m going to plant you and make you grow. I’m going to swim to the top of the rain!” I planted it, it wilted, it lay down even. I let it alone cept for care. Let it grieve for its natural place, I loved it, I talked to it. I went and put it back outside, it’s my yard too! It could be mine still be free where it wanted to be! In a day or two, it took hold again… it’s still livin! Me, I just kept carrying on with my swim.
I hadn’t seem nobody, cause I didn’t want to be bothered with their problems, I had my own! Then Middle came to me. My niece was in the hospital, dying from a overdose of dope in her veins! Ohh lord!
When I got to the hospital, I stood in the door listened to my sister talk to her daughter who could not hear her. “Don’t die, my little girl, don’t die! Stay with me. You all I got. What I’m gonna do… if you die? Stay with me, don’t leave me alone. Hold hands with anybody you wants to! I won’t say nothing! Kiss anybody you want to… I won’t mind at all. Just don’t leave me, my baby! Have many babies as you want! I’ll love em all! Don’t go. Child of mine, you can even be a prostitute. I don’t care! Just live. I rather see you on dope than see you dead! Cause if you got life, you got a chance to change Baby, I’m sorry. I’m sorry! Be anything you want … JUST LIVE… don’t die! Come home! Don’t die!” she screamed that out and I went in to help her grieve… cause the beautiful young woman was dead.
After the funeral, the good thing Middle had left was the baby she had tried to make her daughter get rid of. Her daughter had won that battle at the cost of her life, it seemed … so now, Middle was blessed to have someone to love and be with… in her empty life. I went on home to my empty life.
Things smoothed down. God is good. They always smooth down if you give life time.
One day bout year later, my door bell rang when I answered it, my husband was standing there with a baby in his arms who reached out for me the minute I opened the door. I reached back! I ain’t no fool! He had got that young woman he thought he loved and she had got him, but after the baby was born, my husband wanted to rest and stay home when she wanted to play and go out. She left him with his baby. I tried to look sad for him. But my heart said, “ Good, Good, Good!”
But he didn’t look sad. We talked and talked and talked! I loved my husband and I knew he loved me, even better now. He wanted to come home and I wanted him home. And I wanted that baby. It was his and musta not been able and she was. How lucky I felt that if I couldn’t have one, he had give me more one anyway. We didn’t need to get married, we still wa. Neither one of us had gone to the courts, thinkin the other one would. So I had a family.
Sometimes I hold my baby boy and look deep in his little bright, full of life eyes. I know something is coming in the coming years cause life ain’t easy to live all time. Even rich folks commit suicide. But I tell my boy, like my aunt told me, “just come on, grow up, we gonna make it, little man, right through the storms! We gonna take our chances… and get on out there and take our turn… swimming to the top of the rain!”
