Turning to wave good-bye as I slowly walked the endless steps toward the gate where the Boeing 767 awaited, I tearfully begged my sisters not to let the miles that would separate us cause our hearts to break the synchronized rhythm we had known all our lives. Daddy never let a holiday or special occasion go by without demanding phone calls be made assuring us that distance was not a reason for separation of the heart.
I knew they loved me, but I never seemed to be a part of their everyday thoughts. They were always having family gatherings for one reason or another—mainly because they wanted to be together. They were always eating, drinking, and playing cards until the wee hours of the morning. There was always one sister missing. Me, Glynda.
Minute pieces of my heart seemed to be left behind with each step. I psychologically dropped heart crumbs in hopes that my sisters could find their way to me. I felt juvenile and just plain silly. I wanted nothing more than to go back to a time before my daddy had left me; a time when life was so much simpler; a time before secrets had been revealed. I don’t remember walking the quarter mile to Gate B7 or giving my boarding pass to the agent. The pain in my chest had suffocated my conscious mind.
“Hello, may I help you find your seat?” I was greeted by a very warm and friendly aging flight attendant whose name badge read FLORENCE. She immediately noticed the tears falling from my eyes, which could not express the emptiness I felt inside.
“Are you alright, miss?” she said, lightly touching my arm.
Her compassion only opened the floodgates as I started to sob.
“Please, may I show you to your seat?” asked the woman who was certain to be someone’s grandmother as she glanced at my boarding pass. The days of flight attendants being runner-up contestants in the local beauty contest were long gone.
Although I knew I wasn’t the first passenger to have absolutely no authority over her emotional state, I was so ashamed, nonetheless, of my lack of control. “I’m so sorry, I can find it. But thank you. I just buried my daddy last week. I’ll be fine in just a few minutes.”
“I’m so sorry. My name is Flo,” she said tugging on my arm just enough to pull me in her direction.
Totally unaware that I was preventing the other passengers from boarding, I gladly moved closer to the kind woman of Norwegian descent. Today was no different than any of the other days since I had received the call that would forever change not just my life, but the lives of all the people I loved as well as people I hardly knew. I was in a total haze. Repeatedly the air filled with my words, my voice, but who was saying them? Surely it wasn’t me.
“May I get you something to drink?” Flo whispered.
“No, I’ll just find my seat. But you’re so kind for asking.”
“If there’s anything you need to make your ride more comfortable, just let me know. We’re not full today. I’ll make sure you’re seated alone once everyone boards.” Flo was happy to be able to offer me special attention.
“Thank you. I would really appreciate being alone. Again, you’ve been so kind.” I turned, wiping at my tear-streaked cheeks.
As I settled into my seat, I had never felt so alone. What was I going to do without my daddy? The man who had been my rock since the day I’d burst forth into this world more than thirty-seven years ago.
Edward Zachary Naylor had been a strong black man since he was a teenager. He had been raised in the poorest section of Baltimore’s east side. He’d shined shoes and delivered groceries for small-denomination coins to buy clothes and shoes to attend school. His mother, who worked in the kitchens of rich white folks, had told him that as long as he paid his own way, he could stay in school. She could do no more than provide shelter and food for her two sons, Edward and Thomas. Their father, Edward senior, had been killed in a poker game when the boys were five and six years old. Edward was determined to join the army as soon as he turned sixteen and make enough money so his mama wouldn’t have to scrub other people’s floors to eat.
He joined the army the day after he graduated from high school in the summer of his eighteenth year. His mother died of a stroke before he finished boot camp. On the bus ride from Fort Leonardwood, Missouri, back to Baltimore for his mother’s funeral, Edward met Lorraine McLean. Lorraine was the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen. She was tall and sat up very straight. Her long black hair was pulled back so tightly into a bun that her eyebrows seemed raised by the tension. When she spoke, she reminded him of the white women in the fancy department stores downtown. She was dressed like them, as well. Her clothes were meticulously pressed, and her white gloves surely must be covering the most perfectly manicured nails. Not at all like the girls he’d known back on Baltimore’s east side. She was on her way to Coppin State Teachers College. She was going to shape young minds. Right there on the Trailways bus on his way to bury his mama, Edward decided that this woman was to be the mother of his children.
Lorraine had no inkling what the polite young man had in his head, but she was sure she’d never see him again once they debarked at the Baltimore bus station. The forty-eight hours they’d shared had been very special. Her heart had gone out to him. He seemed so deeply saddened by the death of his mother. She remembered what she’d always heard her mother and aunts say about a man who loves his mother. Girl, when a man loves his mama and treats her right, he’s a good man. Edward Naylor fit the bill perfectly. His grief, of course, was the primary source of his heavy heart. His greatest disappointment, however, was that he would never be able to take care of his mother the way she had provided for him all his life. He would make some lucky young woman a wonderful husband. She wrote her name and mailing address at the college on a piece of paper and told Eddie to drop her a line if he felt alone, was missing his mama, and just needed to talk.
My daddy had that piece of paper the day he died.
I remembered my mother telling me that story a million times as a little girl. She reminisced about how her Eddie had written to her every week. Their letters were the talk of the college dormitory and the barracks in the Thirty-second Infantry. All of Lorraine’s friends had teased her that Private Naylor was in love with her. She protested that they were only pen pals and that he was grieving the loss of his mother. He found comfort in her letters and they were just friends.
On the other hand, the men of the Thirty-second Infantry wanted to know when Ed was going to propose!
On his last furlough before he was to be discharged from Uncle Sam’s Army, Edward Zachary Naylor went to attend the graduation of his beloved Lorraine from Coppin State Teachers College. That night while they walked hand in hand through Druid Hill Park, Edward asked Lorraine to marry him. Though completely surprised, she graciously accepted the ring and promised her everlasting love to the man she had come to love more than life itself through his letters. They were married the Saturday after his discharge from the army at a small church in St. Louis, Missouri. Lorraine’s entire family was in attendance. Edward’s only family had been his younger brother and best man, Thomas.
I was remembering that familiar story when Flo interrupted my thoughts. “Ms. Naylor, we have another seat for you where you can have a little privacy.”
As I buckled my seat belt, I heard the doors being closed and the flight attendants announcing the various door cross-checks. Was this how an inmate felt when he heard the prison doors close behind him for the first time? Separated from everything and everyone he loved as his life changed forever.