Oldest Daughter

Yolanda King, the oldest daughter of Martin Luther and Coretta Scott King died this week. She was young, 51. Died on her brothers door step, just like that. Heart Failure or something unexplainable like that. Death is always hardest for those left behind, "reports" say that the family is devastated.

I had the privilege of seeing her speak to an intimate crowd this summer at the Women's Empowerment Conference this summer at Omega. I was *star struck*, feeling as if that was the closest I would ever get to MLK and his wonderful wife Coretta. I just remember looking at her perform (she put on a part of her play) in all of her power, wondering what it must have been like to live with her parents. Knowing as one older daughter to another, what an incredible weight that must have been to have to represent such a family. What a responsibility to live up to!

I haven't known how to speak about this. I have just been feeling "heavy" about it all. Then I just read a blog I really enjoy about it:(http://acommonplacejbl.blogspot.com/ ( a dear friend of Gal's) and it made me think a lot about what it must have been like for her. In his entry he said what I felt, (especially after a very uncomfortable weekend with my father just recently)

from his entry:

I’ve thought often about the King children as well as the children of Malcolm X and Betty Shabbaz, wondered what is it like to grow up without a father, and yet have your life dominated by that father? Do you ever have the opportunity to find out who you are separate from that father? Do you even know that you may have an identity separate from that father whose shadow falls across you like a net of fine mesh? Do you know that you do not have a duty to perpetuate the life of your martyred father? Or is the expectation that your life will exemplify the work and ideals of the father so overwhelming that you never have the opportunity to even imagine that you might have a separate identity? Although my father was not even remotely as famous as the Kings, Malcolm X, and Betty Shabazz, he was a prominent minister in the communities where I grew up, and there was certainly the expectation by him and those communities that I would follow in his footsteps as he had followed in those of his minister father. I almost became a minister, but that urge, that need, that compulsion to write was stronger even than filial duty and my father’s enormous personality. But when I left my parents’ home in 1961, I did so when they were away. Only once did my father allude to how deeply he and my mother had been hurt to come home and find a note on the dining room table: “I have gone to New York.” I had to steal myself in order to become myself.

" I had to steal myself in order to become myself"

So powerful to me I felt like I had just become punched in the gut.

That is exactly what I needed to do as well. Steal myself. Sharing a similar experience, my father is very very very very " Christian" . For the most part , 99percent of the time I really admire his beliefs and the way he walks in the world. Every once in a while though, my father and step mother take a spin on the crazy wheel, and this weekend was one of them. Having just seen my sister off to Colorado I kept saying in my head "run run run, go find yourself away from them the way I did". Sometimes they are so right on it's silly. And sometimes they represent the very ideals I have laid down my life to undue. Myopic ideals such as as anti abortionists who believe in war, (why is one life treated differently than another?)! I really am beyond trying to change his mind. I admire him and respect him for the man he has become, but really this "passionate" discussion about 9/11 and other lovely topics was enough to give me a head check... I did not feel respected in my own belief systems, and it widened the margin a lot on how different we really are.

And here I am full circle, here on the east coast, back at the dinner table with my father, by choice!?! Hrmmph. Unt uh, come again...

Jerry Falwell died this week as well, interesting that two people on very different spectrums on our life wheel chose to leave this week. HMMMMM.

So yea, I thought about Yolanda a lot. What would her father have said about her "acting". Would that have been enough for him? Would they have seen things differently, her being creative, and he, being such an icon? How would that have turned out if he hadn't been stolen from us so soon?

And for the record, I am currently "stealing" myself back...