A new commandment I give unto you, that you love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another. By this shall all men know that you are my disciples, if you have love one to another.
—JOHN 13:34–35
My mother was really worried about my lack of socialization after so many months. She would ask me every Friday with expectation, “What are you doing this weekend?”
“Not a thing,” was my standard reply.
Throughout the week, I was running like a crazy woman all around the country, working with Arista artists and attending various functions. I needed the weekend to replenish, and it had nothing to do with Steven, I would tell my mother. But my mother wasn’t buying that a bit.
I knew inside that I didn’t want to continue on my journey in life alone. I knew that eventually I wanted to go out, have some fun, and maybe even date, but this time I was going to wait. Wait on the Lord. I asked God to help make me ready for the man of God that He wanted me to have.
I understood very clearly that I also had to take responsibility for my actions in the Steven debacle. My actions included a lie. Go back to the first page of Chapter One, when I premeditated a sick day. In case this issue confuses you, I told a lie. We have got to stop saying we fell into sin. You don’t fall into sin—you plan it. I planned to take a sick day when I was not sick. Had I not planned that sick day, I would have shown up at my part-time teaching job in my typical entertainment industry outfit: a casual black something or other and a ponytail. Steven, in his incessant need to have a vision of perfection by his side, would probably never have looked my way. But having taken off, feigning sickness, I had the time to get all dolled-up, with black leather pants, a red silk blouse, and a headful of freshly blow-dried, bouncing, and behaving hair that drew me right to the enemy.
As I mentioned, the Bible is very clear on this subject in Proverbs 18:22: “He who finds a good wife finds a good thing.” I found Steven. He didn’t find me. Yes, when we met, there were fireworks between us. But I didn’t have to place my stake in him and make the declaration to all of my friends: “That’s gonna be my husband!”
I then proceeded to whip it on him good, adding log after log onto the fire to garner a marriage proposal. He may have had an agenda, but I had one, too.
Once the wedding date was locked, I spent a lot of time consumed by the planning of my wedding. God was putting things right in front of me in plain view, and if I had not been so busy coordinating the wedding like it was another one of my events, maybe I would have seen some of the signs. But at age twenty-eight, when all of your friends have already walked down the aisle and you’ve got a closet full of bridesmaids’ dresses, you look the other way at a lot of things. Compromise is the pen that writes the story of future destruction.
Don’t do it! When someone shows you who they are, believe them!
Back in 1990, a girl didn’t need to ask the questions that you’d better ask today, such as “Have you ever had a homosexual experience?” And “Have you taken the AIDS test?” And “What’s your status?” I didn’t adopt the very important concept of NO TEST, NO TOUCH! and NO COVENANT, NO COOCHIE! Yes, doing what your mama told you—save yourself for marriage—is still good advice.
While I don’t have concrete proof of Steven being on the down low—like catching him in bed with another man—I have the compilation of lies and behavior patterns I discussed earlier.
HIV is not some disease that sneaks up on you. Steven was in denial to the nth degree, and last I checked, the Nile is a river in Egypt. It is time that denial let our people go!
The bottom line in this is my responsibility. I didn’t ask enough questions. I wasn’t educated enough to get myself tested, and I didn’t seek God. Matthew 6:33 says, “But seek ye first the kingdom of God and His righteousness and all things shall be added unto you.”
In the words of the early departed Biggie, “If you don’t know—now you know.”
I only share my story so you know what to look out for. Don’t make it your story and risk becoming a statistic. Now you know.
As bad as things had gotten, I knew God was still God. You cannot conquer what you do not confront. I also knew that I could not just sweep my mess under the Cross. I serve the one true master who helped me to overcome all, but I first had to face Him. It made no sense to me to murmur and complain about my situation. The test was not to see what I was going to do. God already knew what I would do. But God’s grace is the test to show us where we are in Him.
Some people have gone so far as to say that Jesus had forsaken me—and maybe for a moment in my disobedience, He had. As I said, delayed obedience is still disobedience. During my wilderness experience, God was arranging some things. Only when He was ready did He bring me back onto the scene with a fresh anointing that could not be denied if, this time, I did what He ordained. Before an anointing, there is always a crushing, and after a breaking, there is always a blessing….
Christmas 1995
I arrived in Chicago with an airtight calendar that I intended to follow. I had arranged to visit with Gus after Mommie, Sloopy, and I went to see Waiting to Exhale. At work, I had slaved over the publicity details of the movie’s soundtrack, and I was excited to sit in an audience to hear the raw public response. We whooped and hollered through the movie and talked back to the screen as only a black audience can do. The afternoon out was soothing to my soul. It was good to be home.
At the Brookshire house, I found Gus had waited for me all day because he didn’t know what time I was going to arrive. Mama Brookshire had a fabulous meal on the stove, and I sopped up string bean juice with my corn bread while Tony, Gus’s teenage son, serenaded us, trying to convince me that he was the next Usher. I made him sing “Silent Night” and “Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star.” I wanted to hear Tony sing, not Usher. It turns out that he wasn’t such a bad singer. He was a tall, good-looking teen and very well mannered. Reminds me of Gus at that age, I thought.
Gus came back to my parents’ house and helped me do all the cake and pie baking, as I am the official dessert-maker. At the family gatherings all of my life, I’d be watching my Grannie and aunts cook. No one else in the family knew how to make my Grannie’s famous three-layer coconut cake with pineapple filling.
Gus helped me, all right—by licking the spoons! We had not had a marathon conversation since the spring, when he was in truck-driving school, so we were overdue. I discovered his divorce had been finalized July 15. We were amazed that our marital situations had both concluded during the same week.
“You’ve hugged everyone today except me,” Gus pointed out. “Come give me a hug.”
Gus was the best hugger in the world. It took only five minutes for us to be fully in love again, and before he left we were kissing on the steps just like when I was sixteen—with him standing one step below me so we could be eye to eye. It was a magical moment, like taking a powerful youth pill.
On Christmas Eve, I went to a church program at Liberty Temple with Darlyn, my best friend from junior high school. Her pastor, Apostle Clifford Turner (who is now her husband), was totally awesome. She and I kept nudging each other, as his message was obviously for us both.
“I need you to drop me off,” I told her.
Recognizing the house, Darlyn said, “If you and Gus get back together, I’m going to just pass out!”
With a giggle I said, “Pass out, baby!” and I kissed her Merry Christmas. She was so happy I could hear her praising God right there in the car.
Gus and I attended a midnight Christmas Eve service at St. Albie’s, a church in our neighborhood that used to have dances every Saturday night when we were teens—dances that I could never attend, by the way. Gus would go and call me from the phone booth and talk to me for the duration of the dance.
Before the service, he took me to that phone booth and showed me where he had carved out “Gus + LaJoyce” way up high.
A friend of mine asked me if I ever thought that God would hook me up with the man of my past, to be the man of my future and my present. I had to think about that question and honestly say no. I promised God that the next time, I’d follow His leading. LaJoyce’s leading was all wrong! I did ask that whomever He sent be a man of valor and one who could be the bishop of our household. I also needed the man to have an understanding of me. With all I’d experienced, we would have to connect spirit-to-spirit, because I had become an extremely complex individual.
Gus was definitely like-minded and like-spirited. He followed the Bible in all matters. At six feet four, he was as rock-solid in stature as he was in his faith. He, too, had a serious wound from his marriage that would take time to heal. Together, as boyfriend and girlfriend, we would heal by seeking and serving the Lord.
“What are you doing for New Year’s?” I asked him one night while he was massaging my scalp.
“What do you want me to do?” he answered.
“Would you like to come to New York? We can go to the Kirk Franklin concert at the Apollo and then Watch Night Service at church.”
“That sounds great,” Gus said.
My mother was a travel agent in her retirement, and she loved planning cruises. She didn’t like being troubled with writing airline tickets, but that didn’t stop me from asking her.
“Mommieeee!” I screamed happily through the house from the upstairs den. “Gus wants to come to New York for New Year’s!”
She appeared at the top of the stairwell. “Oh really! When can you leave? When do you want to come back?”
“I’m flexible,” Gus admitted. He was home in Chicago working with his uncle’s rehab business. He was recovering from an experience with his truck when it met black ice on a Colorado mountain.
“When that truck started to slide out of control toward a railing with nothing but mountains below it,” he remembered, “I just let go of the wheel and screamed, ‘Jesus!’ And it came to a complete stop.”
I had my hand over my mouth in disbelief. But isn’t that just like Jesus? When you call on Him—He’ll come.
So, Gus was officially retired from truck driving, making him available to visit with me in New York. When my mother came back to the den, she had booked and paid for Gus’s ticket for a four-day stay. She was as happy as she could be seeing us together. So was I.
During Christmas we decided that we would not be having any sex. “We’re going to save that for when we get married,” Gus advised me.
“Married?” I asked, with an eyebrow raised. I wondered wherever he got such an idea. I didn’t dare ask, because we planned it all out with each other between ages twelve and seventeen. We had even mapped out our kids’ names back when we were young. We wanted six children.
“Yep, married. We’re going to do everything God’s way so our relationship will be blessed,” he said.
I did not argue with that wish, not one bit.
On the day Gus arrived in New York, I had an Arista car service pick him up from the airport. He said he nearly fell out when he saw the man standing there with a sign reading BROOKSHIRE. When he reached my office, my buddy Johnny took him for a walking tour of Manhattan until I got off work.
When we got home, Gus stood in the foyer with his coat on while I ran around turning on the lights, lighting the wood-burning stove, making sure the coal stove in the basement was filled, and introducing him to the dogs, who sniffed him completely.
“Take off your coat,” I said every time I passed him.
As I whizzed by him for the tenth time, he caught me by the arm and asked, looking around, “How much are your expenses a month?”
“Twenty-three hundred dollars,” I answered. “Why?”
“I can do that.” He then took off his coat.
I thought, That was cute, he wanted to make sure he could handle my lifestyle before he got comfortable. Mama and Daddy Brookshire sure raised him right.
Our night in the city for the concert was a blast on the night before New Year’s Eve. The city was still filled with the spirit of Christmas. Bishop Sam was the emcee for the concert, and I took Gus backstage to meet him. He was totally protective of me by this point of my life, as he had been with me through a fiancé in the 1980s, a marriage, a death, and AIDS. Bishop Sam talked to Gus a really long time before announcing joyfully, “Okay, daughter, I approve.”
After the concert we all went to Wells Restaurant for chicken and waffles, jazz music, and lots of laughter. We got back to the Poconos just as the sun was rising.
On New Year’s Eve, I fed Gus breakfast in bed.
“So you’re treating me like a king,” he said.
“I’m not doing anything for you now that I wouldn’t continue to do for you,” I said. “Don’t start it if you can’t finish it, as Mommie would say.” Gus laughed out loud. He’d been around my family long enough to know the Mommie-isms by which I governed my life.
When we walked into Watch Night Service at church that evening, every eye was on Gus. He is strikingly handsome (in my opinion) and imposing in stature. And he is as gentlemanly as he is good-looking—taking off my coat, allowing me to get seated first, taking the aisle seat. It was all noticed by my church family. There were so many audible collective mmmm’s from the members that Gus and I exchanged glances. Here we go, I thought.
During 1996 we talked so much on the phone that our bills were outrageous! I told him that I would rather use that money for a plane ticket. He agreed because he was even more of a money-miser than I was, in part due to his mathematical mind. He can figure out numbers in his head while I’m still trying to punch them into a calculator! So once a month I went to Chicago or he came to visit me. My folks were thrilled seeing me so often. Although they knew I came to spend those weekends with Gus, they were happy just seeing me happy.
We also started the art of love-letter writing. When we were teenagers, we would write each other from our summer vacation spots. Gus called my writings “The Strawberry Letters” because they were written on stationery with pictures of strawberries on it. The Brothers Johnson also had a record called “Strawberry Letter 23,” which became our favorite song from 1976 and on.
Gus’s letters were deep and very romantic. He was writing me stuff like “…The plan is to love you long, deep and forever. And for that, you can hold me accountable….”
Whaaaaaaat!!!! I screamed out loud. I would try to one-up him in my letters, but he’d come back with something ten times better. There was a letter in my mailbox every other day. To me, the letters were better than the phone calls. Gus, like me, journaled daily and was a profound thinker. So the letters were a flashlight into the windows of his soul.
“Good night, sweetie,” he said on the phone one Wednesday night. “I’ve got an early morning, so I’ll talk to you later.”
The next morning he called to wake me up, and fifteen minutes later he was ringing my doorbell. “But you called me from home and said good night,” I said, hugging him.
“Nope, I was in Ohio.”
“You drove all night?!!”
“Yes, I did, and it was worth it to surprise you,” he said, sealing the surprise in kisses.
Realizing the time, I said, “You have a choice. I can stay home today or stay home tomorrow.”
“Stay home tomorrow, it’s Friday,” he said, yawning. “I’ll get some sleep.”
I bounced off to work completely energized, happy, and grateful.
In June, I had received a promotional kit at work for an artist-development workshop run by members from the R&B group Ray, Goodman & Brown. It was an intensive course called “So You Wanna Be a Star.” I sent the package to Gus because Tony and his cousin Darren talked of nothing but becoming singing stars. I kept trying to tell Gus to tell them both that if they were really serious, they had to do their homework to perfect the craft. I asked Gus to send the boys for the summer so they could attend the class.
Not only did the boys come, but Gus took off work for two months so he could chaperone them into and out of the city. The house was alive with the boom-boom-boom of teenage boys’ feet, conversations shouted from room to room, and the aroma of good food.
When they arrived, I served them smothered potatoes and onions, sautéed apples, turkey sausage, grits with cheese, and homemade biscuits. Over breakfast the next day we had a house meeting. I told my three new male roommates that I don’t like no messy house, no pee on the toilet seats or floor, and no jelly or toast crumbs in my butter. We divvied up the household chores, and I gave seventeen-year-old Darren the keys to my new Honda Civic to drive. The boys were in hog heaven.
Tony and Darren got jobs in town at Burger King. Making money was nice, but it could not interfere with their class. Chris Curry from Ray, Goodman & Brown was very impressed with the dedication and the development of the boys. I felt like the proud mama of them both.
Tony always felt like he was my kid, too. He was born my senior year, in 1980, after Gus and I had had one of our annual breakups. This breakup seemed final, though, because I was not ready to have sex and Gus, being a year older and with raging teenage hormones, was.
“I don’t want to get pregnant,” I told him.
“You won’t get pregnant,” he countered.
“How do you know?” I asked.
“’Cause you won’t,” was all he could say.
“No, I can’t. I’m not ready for all of that. But you go ahead and I’ll look the other way,” I suggested.
“There’s no way I’m going to disrespect you,” he said. “We’ve got to break up.”
I was crushed. Six months later Gus wanted to get back together. Of course we did, but not without his admission that there was going to be a baby.
It took everything I had not to say, “See?” I couldn’t do that because I was the first person he told. Gus and I had been best friends long before we were girlfriend and boyfriend. We often told each other things that, to this day, we’ve told no one else.
So Tony felt like mine, and I treated him like mine.
Part of the boys’ training was a real-life experience in the music business. I took them to work with me to attend a press day for Donell Jones and a video shoot for the Bad Boy Records R&B male group 112.
“Today will be action-packed,” I warned them before leaving home. Gus came along, too, figuring it would be fun. I laid down a few ground rules: “There will be no acting starstruck. No photo taking until the appropriate time. No sleeping. Pay attention. Help out when you’re asked. Otherwise stay out of the way. Look interested. You are on assignment, so act like it.”
They all agreed to the terms. “One last thing: Don’t embarrass me, or I’ll kill you.”
With Donell Jones, we hit many press outlets, including syndicated radio shows and television appearances, before lunch. By the time we made our way to Sylvia’s Restaurant in Harlem, Gus and the boys were exhausted. I was relentless in trying to show them a day in the life of a star and a publicist, and I wouldn’t let them close their eyes for a second.
I caught Gus dozing off in the limo. “Oh, no you don’t,” I admonished him. “You think I have fun doing all of this?”
“No, you wanna be a star,” I would say, nudging Tony and Darren awake. “If Donell is not sleeping, y’all can’t sleep!”
Laughing, Donell interjected, “I want to, but she won’t let me.”
The video shoot took place that evening in Times Square, directly in front of the building where the ball is dropped on New Year’s Eve. Total and The Notorious B.I.G. were also featured in the video. All of the Bad Boy acts were on the artist roster I handled at Arista, and I loved my little artists to death. They had been through a lot with me, and they were so happy to finally meet Gus.
By the end of the shoot, around midnight, we were all wiped out. But the boys were then certain that being a star was what they wanted.
To celebrate the boys’ graduation from their class, we gave them a party where the guests had to demonstrate their talent. It was a blow-out! We had a snow cone machine, a hot dog machine, a nacho maker, and all sorts of goodies.
Darren showed off his abilities by singing the Donell Jones hit “Knocks Me Off My Feet,” with Gus, Tony, and I singing backup.
Gus serenaded me with an oldie but goodie that is a Chicago favorite. “You and I have an understanding…,” he crooned. Everyone screamed and clapped and cried at the very open display of Gus’s love for me. I cried, too, because I was beginning to feel the anxiety of separation from my boys and my boyfriend, since it was almost time for school to begin.
Tony took a stand. “I want to stay here and go to school. I don’t want to go back to Chicago,” he pleaded. “I don’t care what you all are doing with your relationship. I just want to stay. Can’t I stay?”
“Of course,” I said immediately.
“We’ll see,” Gus said in a what-are-you-gonna-do-witha-fifteen-year-old-high-school-sophomore tone.
Gus and I were so busy over the summer working on the boys’ development as singers that we didn’t lock down a specific date for our marriage. After hours of talking and planning, we decided that Darren would return home to take his post as drum major of the Chicago Vocational High School Marching Band, and he and Tony would move in.
They were all packed up and ready to pull out to Chicago when Gus knocked on the door and ordered me to get the calendar.
“Our mamas will never let me move in without us having an official wedding date,” he said knowingly.
“Riiiiiight,” I agreed, running for the calendar.
We decided on April 26, 1997.
• • •
The longest two weeks of my life were spent waiting for Gus and Tony to return. We got Tony enrolled at East Stroudsburg High School, and Gus took two jobs as a truck driver—for UPS and for Airborne Express. He killed himself working them both for about two months until he decided which he liked better. He settled in at Airborne.
We took a weekend trip to the city to look for the perfect ring. In the store we had an argument over the size of the ring. Gus had selected the largest ring the store had. It was colossal!
“I can’t wear that every day!” I said, thinking of the thugs who were always hanging out with Biggie, Puffy, OutKast, and the other rappers I had to work with daily.
“Why not?” Gus asked, offended.
“Because it’s not conducive to my lifestyle of running around with rappers in the streets of New York City,” I said realistically.
“Who said that will always be your lifestyle?” he said, trumping me.
I had to think about that one. I had never thought about a working life without press days, photo shoots, and 250 calls a day. My job was a dream job, but it wasn’t completely my dream. Mine was to write books, and Gus knew that—so was his, actually. He was a witness to my getting up daily at four in the morning to write. Now we stood in the jewelry store trying to buy the ring that would celebrate our love, and I was forced to consider the ultimate long-term goal of my professional career.
“A ring is simply supposed to be an ornament to show your love for me,” I said, trying to give him a lesson on what engagement rings mean.
“There is no ring in this place big enough to show how much I love you,” Gus said loud enough for everybody in the store to hear.
This scene reminded me of another time we had a squabble, and it was over who loved whom more!
Examining the ring he wanted to buy, I thought of the price; it looked like five carats. “Something like this is too expensive,” I said, remembering the ring I got from my first husband, payments for which became one of our monthly bills.
Gus fumed. “Don’t count my money. I’m paying cash,” he said. “I know what you’re thinking.”
I laughed out loud because only Gus would know that at that moment I was thinking about how I ended up paying for my own wedding ring the first time around. In that instance Gus made me sick, because he knew what I was thinking next year already. I wasn’t walking out of the store with that ring, but I needed to find another way to tell him.
“You know what, honey? It looks like a cocktail ring—something you wear only for special occasions. It doesn’t look like a ring to wear every day.”
He conceded and picked five stunning rings and had me select three. The salesman said the ring would be ready in a week. So it would be a surprise, Gus made the final selection when I wasn’t looking. We left the jewelry store laughing hand in hand because all of the disagreements we’d ever had had been over the measure of our love.
In December of 1996, Gus called me at work to say the ring was ready.
“Do not open the box,” he ordered knowingly.
“I wouldn’t do that….”
“Mmmmm, okay,” he said, laughing. “Leave the box on the counter.”
When Gus got home from work that night, he woke me from a deep sleep and asked for my hand in marriage. On bended knee, wearing a tuxedo shirt and bow tie, he presented me with a whopper four-carat pear-shaped diamond ring with baguettes. I was screaming and laughing like a little kid.
Our ivory wedding invitation was embossed in gold, with a boy angel kissing a girl angel. It read:
THE BEGINNING OF A HARMONIOUS LIFE
will commence on
Saturday, April twenty-sixth
nineteen hundred and ninety-seven
As I will finally marry my childhood sweetheart
my Soul Mate in Christ
and my first best friend.
Come rejoice and witness the wedding of
LAJOYCE CELESTE HUNTER
and
GUS WILLIAM BROOKSHIRE, JR.
One o’clock in the afternoon
Reaching Out For Jesus Christian Center
Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania
We invited two hundred guests from everywhere to celebrate our special day. I had the dress, a champagne-colored gown from Nordstrom, shipped to my office to keep there. Gus was seriously trying to break all the rules and get a peek at what I was going to wear.
One day at work during a Black Music meeting, the fire alarm went off. We were so used to the false alarms, no one moved. The office manager came into the conference room out of breath. “Get out of the building! The sixth floor is on fire!”
We all rolled onto Fifty-seventh Street, and word circulated that the fifth floor had been damaged by water as well as by fire. I worked on the fifth floor. Oh no, my wedding dress, I thought. I shook that off and looked up into the sky: “Lord, I know ain’t no way a burnt wedding dress will happen to me twice.” A peace enveloped me in the midst of the madness, and I quietly slipped from the crowd into the Limited Express store next door and went shopping.
When we were allowed to re-enter the building, we learned that the sixth floor was indeed charred and several offices on the fifth floor were waterlogged. But not mine! My office and my dress were untouched. Hallelujah!! I had had the office consecrated with anointed oil and had offered many prayers before I ever stepped foot inside, just like God had instructed me. Now, He was rewarding my obedience. I thought of one of my favorite scriptures: He who dwells in the secret place of the most high, shall abide under the shadow of the almighty. “God keeps covering me,” I said when I entered my dry office.
In March, just before the wedding, I had to take a ten-day trip to Los Angeles with Biggie to complete publicity for his Life After Death album. He would make an appearance on the Soul Train Awards, and there were also several must-attend parties. Biggie had broken his femur in a car accident, so he was walking with a cane. It was decided that the most comfortable mode of transportation for him would be an SUV.
We made the rounds in Los Angeles for lengthy press days. Biggie had a new attitude, and I was happy. Our relationship couldn’t continue if the entourages of I-don’t-know-how-many folks needed to be accommodated to get his business conducted. We had one serious conversation, and Biggie surprisingly put an end to the mess I had endured since our working relationship began. With a lean crew of two in tow, Biggie became the darling of Los Angeles, or so it appeared.
At the Soul Train Awards, the crowd in the rafters booed relentlessly throughout Biggie’s acceptance speech. That’s not good, I thought. The East Coast/West Coast rapper rivalry was supposed to have simmered down.
Deep in my core I knew something bad was going to happen. I decided to leave Los Angeles two days early. I called Gus and told him my calendar indicated I was staying after the awards only to attend two more parties.
“Come on home if you don’t want to stay, baby,” he said soothingly.
“It just doesn’t make any sense to stay for some party. Mommie always said, You’ve gotta know when to leave the party. And something just doesn’t feel right.”
I didn’t really want to articulate exactly what I was feeling.
“Come on home,” Gus reiterated. “It’s never right when it doesn’t feel right.”
I gave Biggie the tickets to the Vibe magazine party.
“I’m leaving L.A. early on the first thing smoking,” I told him.
“Aw, Ma, don’t leave me out here. We’re gonna have some fun,” Biggie pleaded.
“You need to go on to London like you’re scheduled to do,” I reminded him.
“I’m having too much fun out here. I’m even thinking about getting a house. They love me in Cali!” he exclaimed, opening his arms wide.
“No, Big, they don’t love you. They booed you tonight.”
He pooh-poohed me with a wave of his hand.
“I’m done,” I said. “Can’t I go home and get some stuff done for my wedding? I’ve been here with you eight days taking care of you. Can I please get married?”
He gave me a bear hug and asked for my tickets to the Vibe party. I left him with a Los Angeles Times journalist who was writing a feature article on Biggie that was long overdue.
At four in the morning the next day, Michelle Joyce, Bad Boy’s marketing director, called me, screaming, “Thank God, you’re safe! Thank God, you’re home!”
“Yes, I’m home. MJ, what’s wrong?” I asked, trying to calm her frenzy.
“Everyone is looking for you. Turn on CNN. Biggie is dead!”
I freaked!
There on CNN was the truck I had been sitting in for the last eight days. It was all shot up. “Sweet Jesus!” was all I could say. Then I went into a cold shake. Gus held me close for the rest of the night. I couldn’t sleep. I kept waking up from nightmares of being in the truck. If I had still been in Los Angeles, no doubt I would have been in the truck with Biggie when he was shot!
God saved me yet again. That bad feeling I had while in Los Angeles? Well…this was it. I was shown once again the importance of moving when the Spirit says move. The delayed obedience on this one could have meant my life.
I took off that Monday from work because I was depressed with a capital D and that recurring nightmare had kept me up all night. I was in no condition to field phone calls, let alone the volume of calls that were bound to be tripled due to Biggie’s death. Some people who really cared about me suggested that I was traumatized and advised me to seek counseling. I flipped them off, telling them that God and I would handle this one together, just like always.
My record business mentor, Terri Rossi, finally got through to me, threatening to call Arista’s human resources director if I didn’t get a counselor over to my office. Reluctantly, I made the call. I knew I needed to, because I was filled with conflicting emotions: elation about my nuptials, which were going to happen in less than four weeks, and sadness at the death of my premier artist, whom I’d raised up from the beginning of his career. Yep, I needed a counselor.
The little woman who came right over was way too perky for my taste. I was crying, falling deeper into depression as she sat there telling me how I should feel, when my assistant, Peri, interrupted to say that Marie Brown was on the phone.
Miss Marie was my literary agent who was helping me to, very quietly, get published. Peri was instructed to interrupt me any time she called. I stopped the perky counselor from speaking for a moment while I took the call. What Miss Marie had to say changed my life.
“I know you’re busy with Biggie’s death and all, but HarperCollins wants you to write Soul Food based on the movie. Have you heard about it?”
“Of course. We’re doing the soundtrack,” I said, drying my eyes.
“Well, my dear, I’ve been going back and forth with them for the last couple of weeks over the money, because you deserve it, but you only have five weeks to do it. Can you?”
“Whhhhhhhaaaaat?!!! Of course I can!” I screamed in jubilation. Little Miss Perky was scribbling madly in her notepad. This display of elation after a fit of tears needed to be documented, no doubt. “When do I start?”
Miss Marie calmly stated, “Today, dear. I’ll send over everything.”
I stood on the side of my desk, did my hallelujah-shout dance, shook Miss Perky’s hand good-bye, and slammed the door. I praised in my office for a half hour straight, because right when I was about to walk down a deep tunnel of depression, God said, No! Right at the edge of an ultimate depression, God manifested my ultimate dream.
I thought, What, was Gus prophetic? With a marriage and a book, my whole life was about to change.
• • •
Bishop Sam married us, and Pastor K.P. conducted the Inclusion Ceremony, in which we married Tony into our union. My Nordstrom gown and gloves were accented by bouquets of calla lilies that my maid of honor, Tyger, and I both carried. Gus was all GQ’d up in a suitlike black tuxedo. His lifelong best friend, Phil, was our best man, and Tony walked me down the aisle. Our parents only needed to sit and enjoy the ceremony.
Gus and I did a lot of crying leading up to the day of the wedding. We would just look at each other and cry tears of joy. Mommie, Bo Daddy, Mama, and Daddy Brookshire were also overjoyed at our union. Daddy Brookshire—blind and all—sat in the front row shouting his approval with Amens.
My longtime friend and former client, R&B crooner Eric Gable, sang the BeBe Winans song “Searching for Love.” His rendition was so stirring and Spirit-filled that he got a thunderous round of applause in the middle of the song. Gus and I exchanged glances; his vocals had far surpassed our expectations. Eric set the tone for the rest of the service.
The service concluded with Holy Communion, and we were pronounced man and wife! There are people from our childhood who still can’t believe that Gus and I are really married…finally. Neither can we.
Because of my friendly relationship with members of the press and the amazing story of our reunion, our wedding was featured in a full-page story in the Vows section of the New York Times! We were also in Jet magazine, Sister 2 Sister magazine, and The New York Beacon News. Miss Lucille even gave us another wedding reception at Wells Restaurant in Harlem for those who couldn’t make it to the Poconos, and she demanded I wear my gown, to “recreate the moment,” she said.
Gus and I did not have any issues with the name change, because I had been writing “LaJoyce Brookshire” since I was twelve years old. In the back of those diaries Gus gave me for Christmas, I had written the names of the six children we wanted to have. And of course, “LaJoyce Celeste Brookshire” was written in script, print, boldface with a marker, and crayon!
I reclaimed the love of my life by keeping Jesus preeminent in mine. Where Christ is in the center, he holds all things together, as it says in Colossians.
Gus and I enjoyed a deluxe honeymoon at the five-star, all-inclusive Grand Lido Resort in Negril, Jamaica. (Let this be my shameless plug for what we feel to be the most romantic destination on the planet.) Very early every morning I would rise to work on my Soul Food manuscript. I was in complete bliss, waking up next to the man I’d loved my whole life and writing books, as I had always wanted to do. It was a true blessing to have both. I remembered what God told me when I could have done something wrong: “I’ll bless you.” No one but God could have given it to me a hundredfold like what I was experiencing.
While Gus and I don’t have the six kids we dreamed of in our teenage years—because we wised up—we are blessed with one amazing little girl, Brooke Angel. We waited three years before praying and actively working toward having a child. Then it took two years more before I became pregnant. In the back of my mind I thought of the little trip to the clinic that I had taken ten years earlier and wondered whether I had fully repented. The pregnancy was proof that I had. This was an awesome blessing for us.
I was ordered to get bed rest and to work only a limited schedule. After doing national book tours for Soul Food and Web of Deception, I once again settled in with Debra at the National Black Leadership Commission on AIDS in my old post as director of communications. The BLCA staff was overjoyed with the pregnancy, as they had not had a baby on board to spoil in many years.
I had also taken on the task of earning a doctoral degree in naturopathy. I wanted to pursue another lifelong passion, holistic healing. I was living an organic lifestyle that I tried to share with others, but I had no official credibility in the field. Being on a limited work schedule for the baby would give me just the time I needed to complete the courses through a local accelerated-study group.
I was so busy at work trying to get everything in order before early maternity leave at seven months that I defied the doctor’s order to stay home every other day. I worked only a four-day week: Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday in the office, and Thursday at home. My doctor wanted me home on Tuesdays.
“You’re going to be forty when you deliver,” the doctor warned. “You don’t need all of that bumping around on the commuter bus and the bustle of the city every day.”
I looked at having a baby at forty as a blessing, not a curse. But everyone in the medical field was looking at me like I was a nut for waiting to have a first baby so late.
Mommie would call me every Tuesday at work and tell me off for being there: “You better not let anything happen to that baby! Why are you even working today?!!”
The first Tuesday that I actually listened to the doctor and stayed home was on 9/11. The events that transpired in New York City that day would have been no place for a pregnant woman. See, God saved me again!!!
That morning I was actually enjoying Harry Belafonte on the Today show, marveling at how well he looked for his age and eating oatmeal with sautéed apples and blueberries. Following Harry was some new author. I was looking forward to seeing who would be interviewed, since I had not been able to get the attention of the Today show producers in spite of two bestselling books.
The program was interrupted to show the plane hitting the first tower.
“Whaaaat? Are the air-traffic controllers asleep?” I wondered aloud.
When the second plane hit, I pushed my oatmeal bowl away and screamed, “That was no accident!”
Right after the second plane hit, the first call was from my mother.
“You’d better have your behind home today…”
The phone started ringing off the hook. Everyone wanted to make sure I was home. The bedlam of people running in the streets was too much for me. I turned off the TV and kept my 11 A.M. hair appointment. Even downtown Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania—ninety minutes away from New York City—had turned into a ghost town. Everyone had canceled their appointment, and I was one of only three people in the salon. While I was there, the news came in about the Pentagon also being hit.
Gus was so exhausted that he kept calling to be certain I wasn’t trying to make my way to the city to see if I could help.
“I have this vision of you standing on a street corner with your pregnant self handing out money because that’s all you can do,” he said, worried.
I was a wreck. I was worried about my friends. The vision of those planes was embedded in my mind. I decided I would not pass on grief to my baby. Two days after the attacks, I had seen all I needed to for a lifetime. I turned off the TV and left a videotape recording that I labeled “For Brooke,” and went to Debra’s house.
I guess I had a strange look on my face, because she shouted, “Oh my God, what’s wrong!”
I started to cry. “I have to be someplace other than my house watching television. I can’t take any more.”
“C’mon in here, pregnant woman,” she ordered. “Hungry?” she asked, then answered: “That’s a stupid question. You’re pregnant. Sit down. I’ll cook.”
We did not talk any office talk for an entire day. Debra fed me the best fried fish ever—for hours. We sat on her deck and enjoyed the beauty of the Poconos and wondered if the ugliness of the city would ever disturb the lushness of the vegetation on the mountain that we had come to love.
Those devastating events inspired Gus and me to cling to each other even more, to proclaim our love to each other even more, and to worship God even more.
On Friday, February 1, 2002, at 7:32 A.M., Brooke Angel Brookshire was born by C-section, weighing in at eight pounds, ten ounces, and measuring twenty-one inches. The doctor and nursing staff had marveled at the detailed Birth Plan I had written. A scheduled C-section is a well-coordinated event. The pediatrician knew that he was to administer no vaccinations to the baby, introduce no foreign nipples—as I was going to breast-feed—and use antifungal ointment instead of drops in Brooke’s eyes. Gus’s job was to follow the baby. Mommie had me covered.
The birthing event had left Gus so emotionally drained that by the time I reached my room he had lost his voice, had blazing red eyes, and was experiencing flu-like symptoms. I sent him home for bed rest at least through the weekend. Our lives would be high octane once I got home.
When I first held Brooke and sang the songs I always sang while pregnant, she stopped crying as if she recognized them. What a miracle God had given to us. And it was only because the Lord had made it possible for me to trust and love again.
He brought me forth also into a large place;
He delivered me because he delighted in me. The Lord rewarded me according to my righteousness, according to the cleanness of my hands in his eyesight.
…As for God, his way is perfect….”
—Psalms 18:24–25
God indeed is perfect. I trusted Him when I was at a terrible crossroads. When I took the time to listen to Him, He said, “I’ll bless you.” I’m living that blessing each day with a husband who loves the Lord, and a daughter, too. I am additionally blessed to be HIV-negative and still in the game of life. And I am certain that the only way to play the game of life is with God before you.
Our mission statement in the Brookshire home is:
“Every day in every way, present God’s Word as a dying man to dying men, as we seek the Kingdom of God first because all things, not just some, but all things will be added unto us.”
When you seek God, many truths will uncover themselves. When you seek God, you may not be inclined to harbor a horrible secret of your son, your brother, your friend, or your spouse. When you seek God, only the truth will make you free. When you seek God, you will know that secrets are just lies not spoken that can steal, kill, and destroy like the enemy who walks the earth seeking those whom he can devour.
My final thought is one from Bishop Sam, with a little addendum from me: “Wherever you go, whatever you do, and whomever you do it with, if God doesn’t give it to you, it’s not worth having.”
And if I had to say Amen, I think I’d put one right there.