Tag: Identity

10 Min Read, Donna Maria Thomas-Walker, Family, The Mothers

Looking for Odetta and Peoria, I’ve found almost nothing.

Regina Lynette

I am Regina Lynette, daughter of Donna Maria, daughter of Dorothy Lee, daughter of Odetta, daughter of Peoria. And I have been searching for myself in my mothers’ gardens. But what do I do when all I know is a name, some basic statistics, and a cause of death? I wish I knew if one of them had these ankles – they’re hereditary and I’ll never forgive the ancestor who passed them on to me. They skipped over my parents and none of my siblings got them so I can’t track them down.

Odetta (Cox) Thomas, my great-grandmother, is practically just a name and possibly a photograph along with a death certificate and a few census records to me. She was my great-grandfather’s first wife and together they had three daughters, including my grandmother. She stayed barefoot and pregnant having all three daughters in the span of about 3 years but lost the last of those daughters at just 6 months old. She married young, probably about 14 years old and died young at 31 years old. She died from paralysis and apoplexy (presumably a stroke) due to interstitial nephritis according to her death certificate (it only took me years to decipher the handwriting on the certificate). With this information, I can’t guarantee that she had these ankles.

The last census taken during her life, one year before she died, shows that she was divorced from my great-grandfather, but her death certificate shows she was married when she died, and no name was listed for her husband. She is listed with my great-grandfather’s name on her death certificate, and he is noted as a widower before his second marriage. What’s for certain is that she was not living with him nor her children – at the time, she was a roomer in a house with her parents. Somewhere between 1920 and 1930, my great-grandparents had some kind of separation – an undocumented/unfiled divorce – and I’m left with far too many ideas of why she wasn’t living with her children. I cannot confirm where my great- grandfather and his daughters were living that year.

Without one single family story about Odetta, it’s difficult for me to even make assumptions about the way life treated her. Even though she married at such a young age, it wasn’t atypical for the time. All signs point to her death being sudden and unexpected – her age and her immediate cause of death support that assumption. She has been laid to rest in Mt Carmel cemetery in Memphis. We visited this cemetery with little hope of finding her or my other relatives buried there. The cemetery has become an “eyesore” because the company that owned it and another cemetery where prominent black people of Memphis are laid to rest went bankrupt. There was a local group who worked to clean it up some back in 2014, but as of 2017 it was still a mess. There are broken headstones, those that are now illegible, and of course I had no access to anything with a locater for the graves. As I walked through the areas that I had enough courage to enter, I thought of Alice Walker describing her experience in seeking out Zora Neale Hurston’s resting place. I had hoped to feel the souls of my ancestors there, but I can’t say that I did. What I did recall though was Mommy lamenting that she didn’t take good care of the graves – tending to them and making sure they had fresh flowers regularly – and based on what I know now she must have meant those in Mt Carmel. She believed she wouldn’t have been able to find them.

This photo post card was found in my mother’s things and based on what was written on the back of the photo, I assume this to be Odetta Cox Thomas. I want desperately to see myself in her face and in her eyes. And I really want to know about those ankles. Where is my great-grandmother’s garden and what was in it for me? At least I know her name and her mother’s name. Perhaps in speaking her name I will find her.

Peoria Cox is my 2nd great-grandmother and I know even less about her than of Odetta. Peoria’s parents remain unknown to me except that her mother was born in Mississippi, but without any name for her mother or even Peoria’s maiden name, it is difficult to find them. Even if I did find a couple with a daughter named Odetta (and possibly a sister named Mary), I couldn’t confirm them. But if she passed on these ankles, skipping generations, I will never forgive her.

My 2nd great-grandmother was born in Arkansas and I assume she moved to Memphis with her husband and children when they were young. But the earliest address I find for her is in Memphis where she had two children, including my great-grandmother. Her daughter lived with her, likely until her marriage, and then for some time before her death. Mommy once told me that losing a child was the worst pain to suffer in the world. If that’s true, Peoria surviving her daughter also means she survived the worst pain in the world. Peoria died about 5 years after her daughter. The first census after Odetta died – the last one of Peoria’s life – listed Odetta’s daughters at two different locations. The girls obviously split their time between their maternal grandparents and their father and his aunt. Peoria died when my grandmother was a young woman and Mommy was a toddler, so I also like to think that Mommy spent some time in Peoria’s arms. If Mommy’s arms ever hugged Peoria’s neck, then those same arms cradled me and by association I have been touched by all of my known mothers.

Peoria’s immediate cause of death was cerebral hemorrhage from unknown causes – another sudden and unexpected death. She lays in the same cemetery as Odetta – Mt Carmel in Memphis. We weren’t able to find her in 2017 either.

This photo hung in my childhood home, and I know I asked Mommy who she was, but I cannot remember which relative she said. Based on the information I have I am making a guess that this is truly Peoria.  I want desperately to see myself in her face and in her eyes. And I really want to know about those ankles. Where is my 2nd great-grandmother’s garden and what was in it for me? At least I know her name and her mother’s birthplace. Perhaps in speaking her name I will find her.

DNA testing identifies us with the Bamileke Tribe of the Cameroonian peoples. This testing goes back along the line of mothers, so I like to think that Peoria passed down some traditions, recipes, and rituals from Cameroon even if the daughters didn’t know the origins. I understand that many things have interrupted the passing on of our culture – Peoria is listed as mulatto on at least one piece of documentation suggesting that one of her parents was white; slavery and colonialism worked against the passing on of anything sacred; and divorce, death, and moves across country left young girls without the ones who would have passed down anything of cultural significance. But there is always something that remains imprinted on our DNA and there is a such thing as blood memory that keeps our hearts beating to the original drums. And our souls are always looking to return to our first homes – our mothers.

I am Regina Lynette, daughter of Donna Maria, daughter of Dorothy Lee, daughter of Odetta, daughter of Peoria.

15 Min Read, Donna Maria Thomas-Walker, Family, grief, Mental Health, Parenting, The Mothers, What's In A Name?

Looking for Dorothy, I wanted to find a kindred spirit.

Regina Lynette

I am Regina Lynette, daughter of Donna Maria, daughter of Dorothy Lee, daughter of Odetta, daughter of Peoria. And I have been searching for myself in my mothers’ gardens. Even though I didn’t want to find myself in Dorothy for a long time, getting to know her as an ancestor has helped me to see some seeds of myself in her garden – because of Dorothy I am predictably unpredictable, and have a wandering spirit.

Dorothy Lee Thomas (Terry) was my grandmother. She was never known as grandmother but as Dorothy to Mommy’s children. Her given name is Dorothy Lee. Her maiden name is Thomas. And her married name was Terry. I don’t know if she ever married again after Warren Thomas Terry – never known as grandfather and causing some confusion with his middle name always listed and the same as my grandmother’s maiden name. She was called Dorothy. She was called mean. She was called unstable. And she was called unpredictable. Later I would know she was called a free-spirit and she was called independent.

I had a baby doll that I slept with from my first memories until she fell apart. I named her Sleepy Baby because she was sleeping, and she was a baby. I was never creative with naming my inanimate objects – my favorite teddy bear is named Bear. Sleepy Baby was all I knew of Dorothy for years, because the baby doll was a gift from her, and I remember Daddy telling me so. I don’t believe I ever met my Dorothy. I don’t have a lot of details about the last time she was in Memphis visiting the family but when Mommy was found chain-smoking and rocking in her bed, Daddy announced that Dorothy didn’t have to go home but she had to get the hell out of there. He drove her to the bus station and then Dorothy was gone. Mommy is the one who called her mother unpredictable most often. Most of the memories she shared were about times that started out happy and ended horrifically, sometimes ending in some kind of violent behavior.

This is the only photograph I have with Sleepy Baby. Not sure how long I thought holding her by her feet was the best idea. I have memories of rocking her to sleep in my arms before I went to bed myself.

Sleepy Baby was a doll made of a plush pale pink stuffed onesie with a pale plastic face, pursed pink lips, and closed eyelids. Her onesie was hooded, and yellow tufts of hair peeked out from underneath the seam. The pale pink satin ribbon was never tied in a bow as it obviously was when I got her but dangled the way ribbons on pigtails dangle at the end of the school day.

The vast majority of what I know about Dorothy consists of a timeline of events from genealogical research and imagining her reactions and responses to life events through a filter of my own experiences.

Dorothy was born on Halloween in 1925 to parents who were presumably married at the time, ages 16 and 22. She was the middle child of “stair-step” daughters – her older sister was just about 15 months older, and the baby was just about 13 months younger. Her baby sister died at about 6 months old. She and her older sister were just toddlers at the time, so I imagine the baby was just a family story for her. But it was one that she never forgot. We found a list of “characters” in Mommy’s baby book where Dorothy listed family members and Essie Mae was included. I think in a more positive series of events she would have been considered the family historian, always writing long notes on the back of photographs and in Mommy’s baby book. Dorothy would lose her mother when she was just 14 years old and then go on to live with her father and his aunt for at least the next two or three years.

Dorothy Lee, mother of Donna Maria, grandmother of Regina Lynette.

This photograph was taken during Dorothy’s high school years – I believe she attended Booker T. Washington in Memphis – and is the best photograph I’ve seen of her.

Dorothy has posed for at least one other professional photograph that I’ve seen and sent a few snapshots in letters. She wrote on the backs about how bad she looked or that she had been ill in the photographs.

I’ve compared my high school photographs with Dorothy’s trying to find myself in her face.

Regina Lynette, daughter of Donna Maria, daughter of Dorothy Lee

Here’s a picture of me in high school, wearing Fashion Fair Cherry Wine lipstick just because it was Mommy’s signature color.

Please excuse those ends. My ends hadn’t been trimmed for about 5 years and I was taking off 3 inches at a time that summer to avoid a short cut that I was not allowed to get. A few months later I turned 18, my father’s age of hair-cutting consent, and chopped it down to a chin-length bob – best decision ever.

From my own experience of losing my mother at age 13, I can assume that Dorothy was wounded emotionally in a way that only a girl-child who loses her mother in early teens can understand. I know what it is to be a Motherless Child and to be shattered by that loss.  Did Dorothy have suicidal thoughts when her mother died like I did? Did she make a feeble attempt at killing herself, wanting to be wherever it was that her mother was like I did? Did Dorothy have the same “slips” in her mental stability – and by “slips” I mean instances where your mind plays tricks on you rather than remaining in the rational and logical – that I did? Maybe she sat at the front door waiting to see headlights that meant her mother was coming home from an evening errand as many times as I did. She might have seen an usher at a church she was visiting who looked like her mother and imagined that she was back and would explain how she came back to tell her that she was in witness protection and had to fake her death. If Dorothy had any strong identity with a parent, it was likely with her mother and the loss would cause her to struggle going forth. Did the family worry about her yet spin out because they had no solutions for their own grief, much less hers like my family? I bet it was a critical break in Dorothy’s life that affected all the days of the rest of her life, and likely the first one of many.

I know that Dorothy sang well even though I never heard her. She sang in talent shows and was asked to join a male singing group when they wanted to add a female voice. If I remember correctly, this was The Platters – she was dating one of them – and I suppose this was before they added Lola Taylor. The dates don’t match up to the story in my head so maybe it wasn’t The Platters but whatever the group, as the story stands, I can imagine Dorothy might have gained some fame from joining this musical group. She wasn’t allowed to join them – Daddy Rod didn’t let her go – and I wonder could this have been the cause of a second “slip” in Dorothy’s mental stability. She probably lost that boyfriend and a dream of singing all in one single blow. This is the last time I’m aware of hearing her pursuit of a singing career and what a knock-out punch it must have been to have a dream snatched away from you. I do believe this happened shortly after her mother’s death and before her daughter was born but I have no idea of the dates to confirm. It’s exciting to know that Dorothy performed in talent shows all around the city of Memphis and heartbreaking to know that she wasn’t able to pursue a dream of a singing career. If a dream deferred causes the heart to be sick, what in the world does a dream denied cause? Another “slip” in Dorothy’s mental stability, I believe.

I was in second grade when Dorothy resurfaced for a matter of months until her death. This little girl had lost both her grandmothers and was about to gain a great-aunt and an uncle.

This is the first time I visited my “new” great-aunt, uncle, and a distant cousin in California. It was shortly after Dorothy’s death which effectively ended Mommy’s estrangement from her family, though I don’t think Dorothy was involved in the cause for the estrangement.

I imagine Dorothy as a wounded child who never found significant healing from her disappointments and the bitter side of the unfairness of life, causing her to act out sometimes. I believe Dorothy did the best she could often finding that it wasn’t enough, and maybe that made her stop trying. And in her hurting state, Dorothy probably did more than her fair share of hurting other people. Does this mean that if she had a different relationship with her father or with her sister or with her first husband that she would have been kinder? Maybe. Maybe not. If she had a successful singing career instead of a teenage pregnancy and unsuccessful marriage, would she have been stable? Maybe. Maybe not. If her mother had not died too young at age 31, would she have been more predictable? Maybe. Maybe not. And broken hearts don’t all heal the same way.

Because I want to find a kindred spirit in my grandmother, I look for myself in her garden and when you search for something you’re likely to find something – whether or not it’s truly the thing you were seeking. I’ve been called independent, like Dorothy, and I imagine I plucked those seeds from her garden. I’ve been called a free-spirit (even though I’m not sure I agree), like Dorothy, and I imagine some of those seeds came from Dorothy. I’ve been called mean and I’ve hurt others when I was hurting, like Dorothy. I’ve been called unstable, like Dorothy, and live with a Bipolar II Disorder diagnosis, unlike Dorothy. But my favorite and the one I’ve massaged the most is that I’ve been called unpredictable, predictably unpredictable to be exact.

My former college roommate called me predictably unpredictable, showing no surprise when I did or said something that seemed contradictory to my typical choices. Yes, I could be unpredictable in a way that negatively affected my loved ones and my close ones, but thankfully it’s often more benign. Some of my atypical choices receive a response similar to, “I would never have thought you’d ever want that one” or “I can’t believe you actually did that.” And generally, it’s about things like the time I sang at The Apollo Theater, when I couldn’t give up coffee and then just because it was a Saturday I lost all desire for it, or the time I called the floral print mug with a gold handle perfect. Why in the world would I jump up on stage at The Apollo Theater? I don’t sing well, even though I love to and give it all I’ve got. It was a fake show during a tour of the theater, but not something you can expect me to ever do. It was a once in a lifetime thing, and my hair was sassy, and I was enthralled by the fact that I could touch the stump for good luck, jumping on the same stage where Ella Fitzgerald first sang. I had spent my life trying not to become addicted to coffee but it became hard to start mornings without it. And then I woke up one Saturday and didn’t want any. It would be at least three days before I noticed that I didn’t want any coffee – even with the smell of fresh hot coffee brewed with cinnamon each morning – and that was that. That floral mug would have been the perfect balance to all the things I find rustic and casual. And it’s probably the only fancy mug I’ll ever want.

I am Regina Lynette, daughter of Donna Maria, daughter of Dorothy Lee, daughter of Odetta, daughter of Peoria.

10 Min Read, Donna Maria Thomas-Walker, Family, grief, Holidays, Mental Health, Parenting, Relationships, Robert Samuel Walker

I hate Mother’s Day.

Regina Lynette

As a child Mother’s Day was not a huge deal to me specifically. It was always hot that Sunday. I would usually have a new shorts ensemble. I don’t think it was a “ring curls” event but I can’t really remember and for some reason I can’t find a single photograph from Mother’s Day. And as a motherless child with a dream of parenting deferred, it was hell and now it’s just unpleasant. But I remain slightly melodramatic and declare I hate Mother’s Day.

At my church – the place where I was baptized and a member until my last year of high school, Mother’s Day events happened for my family mostly on the Sunday and Saturday before. We still attended whatever rehearsal or practice or meeting that was scheduled even though we weren’t going to be in town on that Sunday. And at the end of either the Sunday before Mother’s Day or on that Saturday just before the day, we’d go to the ladies with the trays of corsages – carnations made from tissues – in red and white. I can’t be certain, and it doesn’t seem quite right, but in my mind the ladies were selling these faux carnations. We received 3 – white for Daddy and red for me and Mommy. Remembering this transaction means this memory happened only a couple years but they were obviously poignant years. It was after Grandmommy died and before Dorothy died. (Mommy’s mother was always identified by her first name instead of any version of Grand Mother.)

And for a period of time, I remember the 3 carnations – one white and 2 red – carried a little bit of pride and a little bit of sadness. I was sad that Daddy had to wear a white carnation, but he seemed to wear it proudly. And I took on that emotion and carried it as if it were my own. I was sad that Mommy wore a red flower and as she pinned it on her left side she’d always say, “I don’t know if my mother is dead or alive so I will wear red. I hope she’s still alive.” She was sad, but hopeful to some degree and I took on that emotion, added it to Daddy’s, and carried it as if it were my own. And then she pinned my red flower on my left side, and I was proud. My mommy was still alive, and I saw her every day and I knew for sure that she loved me. I chose to put my feelings in my back pocket, carrying my parents’ emotions as an expression of loyalty. Even though she received the tissue carnations from the church ladies, we usually wore a different faux flower, a pretty one that Mommy bought, to go to Mississippi.

If my memories are accurate, we went to Corinth and Rienzi in Mississippi – the place Daddy always called home – every Mother’s Day until I graduated high school. I don’t remember the years before Grandmommy’s death vividly – just little flashes of only her like when she saved me from a grasshopper and would have to call me out to come and greet her because I was too shy to just jump in and hug her when we got to her trailer on my uncle’s land. I’d hang outside the door or against a wall, maybe hiding behind Daddy’s leg until she asked about me.

We dressed in our Sunday best, I remember Daddy wearing his clergy collar and I felt like it made him royalty for a Sunday. We’d get into the car and drive toward the country. We would make one stop before heading to church – the church I always believed my entire family for generations belonged, even though truthfully I don’t know for sure how many generations before my father’s attended that church.  We’d stop where Grandmommy was buried, beside the grandfather I never knew and Daddy would go alone. Then we were off to Mount Pleasant Missionary Baptist Church. On the way to finding a seat we’d speak to everyone – I told you I felt like Daddy was royalty that day, greeting all of the parishioners who seemed so excited to see him. I determined after all those greetings that we were related to no less than half of the congregants. Daddy preached the sermon. My aunties and cousins sang in the choir. My uncle was a deacon and usually led devotion. After the service was over we spoke to the people we missed or who arrived late. This is when I tried to figure out how I was going to ride to my uncle’s house with my uncle. Most of the time that meant finding his wife, my auntie, because she always just told me I was going with them. There was no asking permission and no risk of hearing “no”. Uncle would always call me his “pretty little niece” when we greeted and for some reason my braids and shoes didn’t feel so tight anymore. We’d head to my uncle’s house where I’d change into my shorts ensemble to play with my cousins. Sometimes we ate at my auntie’s house in Corinth and sometimes she came to my uncle’s house in Rienzi. The fried chicken – Grandmommy’s recipe – was the star of the meal for me. After filling up on dinner and getting to have sodas – pops – without permission (carbonated water irritated my system so they were off limits) I spent the rest of the day playing with my cousins. We’d return to the city (Memphis), and we’d do it all again in one year’s time. Nothing about that day meant Mother’s Day to me. It might as well have been called Mississippi Day.

When I was 6 or 7 years old, Dorothy surfaced. She was dying of cancer and the family who had been estranged to Mommy for what seemed my entire life were calling her to California. After what felt like an eternity of Mommy sitting at her mother’s bedside, she came back home to me. But Dorothy took another turn without Mommy with her, was refusing to obey some doctor’s order – like eat or something – and was calling for Mommy to return to her. I wanted to go but she was going for an indefinite period of time and I had school. Dorothy died a few days after she returned to California and it ended up being about 2 weeks from the time she returned to California, Dorothy died and was cremated, and Mommy returned home to me. The next 4 or 5 Mother’s Days, mommy wore a white flower. Even though she seemed sad, she also seemed relieved to a degree. She would shed a couple tears, but I think just knowing for certain whether Dorothy was dead or alive was enough. I also think whatever happened in Dorothy’s last days allowed Mommy some closure if not a repair of over 40 years of a challenging mother-daughter relationship and she could more easily wear that white flower.

Two weeks after my 13th birthday, I lost my own mother. That first Sunday going to Mississippi the only assertion of my own rights (as opposed to unspoken rules) was to wear a white corsage, one that chose and found beautiful, and I wore a white dress. Even though I had been sitting alone at church services for about 5 months, that Sunday felt particularly lonely. And it was the last time I would wear a white flower. The main reason was because that white flower served no purpose to me and all it did was made me angry. But the secondary reason was because people – I think Daddy was one of them – told me to wear a red flower because I had a step-monster the next year. I hated the entire system of red and white flowers and determined to leave Mother’s Day on the calendar as simply the 2nd Sunday of May and Mississippi Day. Who the hell thought I was supposed to replace my white flower with a red one because of a step-monster? Did no one see that it meant replacing my mother and dismissing that she ever existed? Why didn’t anyone think of at least saying I should wear 2 flowers to represent both women? I wouldn’t have but at least they wouldn’t be suggesting that I erase my mother completely and embrace the monster that my father married in her place.

I tried to pass on some love for Mother’s Day to the other “mothers” in my life. I tried to come up with something to honor Sissy because she was a mother. I always made sure to tell Ms. Bell because she loved me with a mother’s heart and hand, but she was gone I believe just about two years after my mother. But it soon felt that acknowledging other mothers meant dismissing my mother further. It highlighted her absence and was painful. I would be in my 20s before I realized I needed help for my grief and I was going to have to find it for myself – professional help. Until then whenever I remembered Mommy, I felt the exact same trauma and pain that I felt the moment I found her. Once I had been alive longer than I had had her in my life, I determined the pain should have lessened over the years and that it was a problem.

After finding more peace with the loss of my mother and dealing with the associated trauma, I still found I hated Mother’s Day. For at least a week prior, everyone from the checkout counters in stores to the man who detailed my car, wished me a Happy Mother’s Day. And people who knew I wasn’t a mother came up with a list of reasons I should still be recognized as a mother – aunties and sisters and nearly all women were recognized as a mother for Mother’s Day. And in addition to highlighting the fact that Mommy was gone, I was reminded that years were ticking by that I imagined I would have had my own kids. And then I’d approached the age where I’d decided that I would give up on biological children and began grieving my children who didn’t exist and a dream I’d had since I was 11 years old. So, I started staying indoors on Mother’s Day avoiding social media, heartsick.

What happens to a dream deferred? Hope deferred makes the heart sick, But when desire is fulfilled, it is a tree of life. (Langston Hughes, Harlem plus Proverbs 13:12 AMP)

The only joy I find is knowing that my niece and nephew make sure to celebrate and honor Sissy. I hate carnations and sometimes have peonies in a vase on the day for myself – my favorite flower. I celebrate Mommy’s birthday as Mother’s Day, my Mother’s Day, instead of the 2nd Sunday of May with cupcakes and champagne and tulips – her favorite flower – when I can find them (her birthday is in fall). And I wish the mothers in my family a Happy Mother’s Day on the Monday after.

I hate Mother’s Day.

5 Min Read, Donna Maria Thomas-Walker, My Body, Parenting, Smart and Pretty, Why This Blog?

I absolutely hate having my photograph taken.

Regina Lynette

When I decided to explore my identity publicly via this blog I decided to include a photograph of myself with each post. This makes me extremely uncomfortable but I thought it was an important part of my identity – the entire topic of the blog. And I believed it would be a way to become more comfortable with my appearance and photographs.

I didn’t always hate having my picture taken. When I was a kid I photo-bombed as much as possible before it was a thing. I can remember actually crying real tears when Mommy was taking pictures of someone outside in the backyard and wouldn’t take one of me. She had one shot left on the roll of film when she finished and allowed me to pose. Did she save me the last one? Was it by chance? All of that is irrelevant because I loved the photo in my sundress, arms up and out (which seems to be my favorite pose, even now).

Above: Some of my favorite photo bombs – back when you didn’t know what you had for weeks while you waited for your film to be developed. My height worked against me but I still tried to get in there.

Below: I managed to dry those tears real quick, throw my hands in the air and work the camera.

Mommy’s insistence that I smile a certain way and pose a certain way grew old. School photos became a source of mild anxiety. If my hair was not the same as it was when I left the house that morning she didn’t understand why my teachers didn’t fix it. If I didn’t smile quite right she didn’t understand why I made that face. If flaws were shown – snaggle teeth or squinty eyes – she told me what I needed to do to correct or hide them. It sounds horrible, and it felt that way, but I do understand fully what she was trying to do. You had one shot to get a beautiful picture when using film and she believed I was beautiful. She just wanted the camera to capture what she saw.

Then as I gained weight and became a fat woman, I hated documenting that in pictures. And when I lost weight I still saw that fat woman in photographs and that was usually the end of whatever diet I was trying because why work hard if I couldn’t achieve what I wanted. And today I hate to wear makeup having struggled with acne since I’m 9, contact lenses mostly because pollen and an astigmatism, and anything other than destructed denim and graphic tees for comfort. I wear sneakers everyday and fight to cover my fast-growing gray hair that cruelly started along my hairline, impossible to disguise. I don’t like taking pictures, but I take them for one reason only – family memories. Mommy reached a point in life where she hated having her picture taken, too, and we regret not having enough photos of her to show people documentation of our memories. I know that photos are your source of remembering life events and that it’s important to have them no matter what you look like at the time.

After seeing this photo, I was literally disgusted at the sight of myself. But I didn’t demand a re-take because we were making travel memories (a family member is the blurred and deleted image beside me). And no re-takes were going to make me look smaller. And I was already convinced I could never look better.

I hope to stop avoiding the camera during this phase of peeling back the layers to expose my true self. I hope that I can ignore whatever I consider flawed and begin to embrace the things that are the charm of me. And I hope that I can look back on photos and remember the joy of celebrations, the enlightenment of travels, and the love among loved ones and close ones. For now, the way that I am working on that is by posting as many photographs as I can find and take of myself (click here for the gallery updated often) while I talk about who I truly am as a whole person. It won’t be me in every post but I’ll make a significant appearance.

5 Min Read, Brothers And Sisters, Donna Maria Thomas-Walker, Robert Samuel Walker, What's In A Name?

Rebel Gina

Regina Lynette

Why would I expect to behave just like all of my family? I was born “off-generation” – my father was old enough to be my grandfather. He was number 5 in a family of 15 children. The brother that I know he spent most of his happier times with was 20 years younger than he. My first cousins weren’t my friends because they were old enough to be my parents. My oldest siblings were old enough to be my parents. In fact, 3 nieces and a nephew are older than I. My youngest siblings were not my friends but my secondary care-givers as they were teenagers in the house when I was born. And because I was born into a blended family – the sole member in the Venn diagram of my family – my home culture was different than that of any of my siblings. The day-to-day norms of my father’s first family unit were different than those of my mother’s first family unit and different than those of my day-to-day norms. Why would I expect to behave just like all of my family?

Why would I expect to look just like all of my family? I was the only child between my parents. I have no other siblings with both my mother’s and my father’s genes combined. I don’t particularly look like my oldest siblings who possess half of my father’s genes and half of their mother’s genes. I don’t particularly look like my youngest siblings and we all have different fathers. My paternal grandfather was gone well before I was born and I never saw a photograph of him until I was an adult. I couldn’t find myself in his face. My paternal grandmother was around for the first 8 years of my life but I probably saw her about 8 times in that life. I couldn’t find myself in her face – she was in her 80s for all of my life which I’m sure didn’t help. I didn’t see my face in that of my paternal aunties and uncles. I didn’t look like my cousins. My maternal grandfather was essentially a question mark and as far as genetics from him he remains a question mark. A photograph was sent to me fairly recently that is unconfirmed but highly likely him and I don’t see myself in his face. My maternal grandmother was unknown to me except in a photograph and I couldn’t find myself in that picture. I didn’t find my face in my mother’s only sibling – my uncle has a different father than my mother. Why would I expect to look just like all of my family?     

Why would I expect to be the same person as all of my family? They are my tribe but I was not raised in my tribe. I was raised as if I were an only child. I was raised in a household of three people of three generations. I was raised by people who intentionally raised me with a different hand than the one they’d used to raise their older children. And I was raised in a vacuum of sorts – we were estranged from much of my family both immediate and extended. I was born in what has now been considered a sub-generation, not quite the generation before and not quite the generation after, a proud Xennial. I lived in what was considered “the country” to my maternal family and what was considered “the city” to my paternal family. And much of my life was presented to our community as a series of lies of omission. To be accepted by all the different sectors of my tribe, when necessary for us to interact, I had to imitate a person they would admire and value. Why would I expect to be the same person as all of my family?

When Mommy sent me out with Daddy alone, she told me not to be myself and to not let people see how I really act. I think I’ll just leave that right there for now.

The first years after college graduation were pretty hellish for me (and therefore everyone else around me). If rage could be a person, I was that person. Rage and fury kept my blood between a low simmer and a rolling boil all day every day. During that period of time my sister named me Rebel Gina. The first time she gave me that name she explained that she was confused by my behavior and even pointed out that I looked like I was dressed for combat – I wore Army green and black when I wasn’t wearing heather gray and black which I associated with grief, funeral clothes. My hair was short and red and wild – it was chemically relaxed but I didn’t straighten it with heat and let it dry by holding my head out the window speeding down the highways. I listened to rock music – an unofficial no-no for my family and according to what I’d been told, not intended for black people in general. I wasn’t in church every time the doors opened. In fact, I didn’t have a church home for the first time in my life though I generally attended my sister’s church at the time. And things considered New Age and Occult captured my interest. What was happening was I was experimenting with the “real” me who was screaming to be released from oppression.

I miss Rebel Gina even though she was too angry for me to embrace with joy. And Rebel Gina was not intended to be a compliment of any kind – maybe not quite an insult but it was not intended as a good name. In my rage I loved the name she gave me. It fit what was happening; I truly was rebelling against everyone and everything all day every day. If Rebel Gina wants to come back wearing graphic tees and destructed denim, teaching me how to relax, she’s welcome. If she can simply revel in the joy and charm of Regina Lynette, she’s very welcome to stay.

10 Min Read, COVID, Donna Maria Thomas-Walker, I Am Not My Hair, Robert Samuel Walker, Smart and Pretty

I am Regina Lynette, the girl with unspectacular hair.

Regina Lynette

I can provide you a list of people who would disagree, some vehemently, that my hair is unspectacular. I can provide you a list of people who would agree with that statement. I like my hair. It’s coarse and curly, oily yet non-porous, and it is soft and shiny. It’s thick and grows relatively quickly with little breakage and requires very little product to do what it wants to do – which is be free.

The first thing said about my hair was when I was born and Mommy said to Daddy, “Oh, Bob, she has your hair.” She was happy that I had hair like the Walker side of my family because she found it beautiful. Based on my paternal grandmother and her children and grandchildren, our hair is coarse but soft to the touch; it’s curly when we’re younger and loosens into waves when older; we begin to gray young (usually stark white); and men keep it short while women keep it long (unofficial rules). My mother’s hair was very coarse and relatively thick. Her hair started turning gray at a relatively young age – she kept it colored so I don’t know when it started. And she kept it short – above the shoulder – and kept going shorter. I don’t know the reason behind the length, so I don’t know if it had anything to do with the hair growth itself.

Just months old, Mama had to tape ribbons in my hair – no velcro available in my day.

I’m grateful that the combination of my genes totals what I have today. Daddy would tell me how pretty my hair was first thing in the morning, before it had been combed and styled for the day. I asked him what he meant because my hair was wild and fuzzy, and he said that the hair in and of itself was what he found beautiful. Mommy would style it in plaits or ring curls, and I was to show it off to Daddy when she was done for him to say how pretty it was, loud enough for her to hear. People at church made complimenting my hair a part of the greeting. And whenever my kiddie hairstyle wasn’t quite what someone expected, it was voiced, quite pointedly, that Mommy needed to go back to the standard plaits or ring curls and never waiver again. And what I learned in third grade was that the plaits were supposed to be free to swing. My assistant principal asked if my mom tied my plaits together in the back because she didn’t want them to fly away when really they were connected because it required finding fewer matching barrettes. He was being silly but the element of truth in his joke was that he noticed I’d been wearing the same style a very long time and felt the need to comment. And the culmination of years of peoples’ opinions during my childhood taught me that my hair was part of my overall value.

Ring curls for Easter Sunday – EVERY Easter Sunday

I was not allowed to cut my hair before I turned 18. And when I turned 18, I cut my hair into a chin length bob. I cried. I loved it but I couldn’t stand looking at all the hair that was piled on the floor. And I didn’t touch it much at first – it was so strange not to have enough hair to pull into a ponytail. My stylist wouldn’t do the cut until she received express approval from Daddy. I tried for years to convince a stylist into cutting my hair and just risking whatever punishment I might get but not one of them would do it. And he gave approval because it was promised, not because he thought cutting my hair was okay. And while it wasn’t specifically stated that bob was truly the shortest I would have been allowed to go.

Cutting my hair then, for me, was about looking more mature. I thought a ponytail was for the young. Cutting my hair then, to Daddy, was part of my “wandering spirit”. It was something to experience because I could, and he fully believed I would prefer to return to wearing my hair long. Cutting my hair to this one old lady from my church was a sin and I was on my way to hell along with my parents who allowed it and my stylist who did it. Cutting my hair to other people was wrong because there are women in the world who cannot grow their hair long.

A chin-length bob has always been the shortest length acceptable to Daddy and many of his relatives.

As an adult, I took interest in learning to take care of my hair so that I would have the freedom to wear it however I felt. In college I considered going relaxer-free for the first time. I did it without any education or planning so it wasn’t successful. When I started transitioning, I wore my hair in two braids a lot and sometimes in a bun. After giving up and getting a relaxer touch-up because I truly had no direction, I was scolded for having waited so long before getting a relaxer and was told to never do that again. After trying different cuts and different hair colors I hit a sweet spot with tri-color highlights and long layers on relaxed hair. I was so excited to have found what I judged the perfect style. Unfortunately, it was not maintained by the perfect stylist and a combination of too many chemicals and trying to exercise outdoors in triple-digit temps with no hat created breakage in my crown. Breakage in the crown meant a significant cut so I took some time to figure out what I wanted to do.

A timely visit to my father’s family made me wonder if I had what they had – I’d worn my hair chemically straightened since I was nine so I didn’t know what my curls or waves would look like twenty years later. So I decided to cut off all the chemically treated hair and go completely natural. I literally went to three shops, including a barber shop, and literally no one would cut my hair. I didn’t necessarily want a particular style, I just didn’t want it to look like it was cut with safety scissors and edged with a butter knife. And they all refused. I made my way to a natural hair salon and during my consultation she told me that the front of my hair should grow a little longer for the cut to look good and to wait three or four months before cutting. I kept it in a protective style for those months and I did the big chop as soon as I could. I had a teeny-weeny afro with tighter curls than I imagined, and I absolutely loved what was on my head. And I learned how to take care of it, and I focused on the care and treatment of my hair intensely. I didn’t necessarily show off my new cut – especially to my father’s family – because I wasn’t interested in anyone’s opinion. But that doesn’t stop people from saying what they want to say. I was told that it was unattractive and to never cut it that short again by relatives on both sides. I was told by people I worked with that it made me look thinner. And I was approached everywhere I went by other black women who asked me about my stylist and products I used.

The first four years chemical free starting with my Big Chop. I didn’t even put any heat on it during that time other than a blow-out in the first year for trimming and to check out my ‘fro.

Cutting my hair then for me was a change I made primarily because it was damaged, and I wanted to try something new. Cutting my hair then for my relatives was just a temporary solution to a problem and something to endure until it was long and straight again. Cutting my hair then for “society” was a statement of my blackness and my woman-ness and my American-ness. I wish I could have photographed the faces of all the people who had made various assumptions about me based on my hair the moment they learned they had me all wrong. And it’s funny that out of all the misconceptions, no one had the same misconception. Cutting my hair then had nothing to do with me as a person. It was the first time I didn’t think my hair was part of my overall value and I was irritated when other people continued to push that message (and burden) onto me.

Along the way, in addition to releasing the idea that my hair was somehow associated with my value as a person, I realized the significance of changing your hair after certain life events. I know there are many cultures who cut their hair after deaths and other losses and to symbolize new beginnings of all kinds. I was only ever advised to never cut my hair. No one told me that the urge to cut that man out of my hair after a breakup was primal and a wonderful release. And when I gave in to that urge, just wow! And no one told me that the urge to go red was a sign of strength – whether you are strong or need to be strong, red hair can embolden you for anything that comes your way. After I graduated college, my sister called me “Rebel Gina” because I was angry and saying “no” to everything I’d ever been taught in life. The hair during that time? Short, red, and wild.

This is NOT “Rebel Gina” but this is a short and red phase of life. It just so happens I regretted this cut myself, but I loved the color.

But just like when I was looking for that fat girl in old childhood pictures, I looked for the girl whose hair was supposedly spectacular. I looked for the girl who was identified in a crowd because of her hair. I searched out the girl who was somehow made better because she had something regarded unique on her head. And all I can see is that there were many other people around me who had hair that was significantly more spectacular than mine. I saw nothing particularly special about my hair. And I have the courage to admit it, the freedom to accept it – my hair is utterly unspectacular. But I understand that when it’s viewed through the lenses of others who don’t have the same kind of flexibility of styling that my coarse, curly, shiny, graying hair allows me that it appears to have some additional value. I no longer internalize that view because it says nothing about me and everything about them. My hair is not a part of what makes me valuable and I’d go as far as to say my hair has nothing to do with my identity. Sure, I can see where I inherited what I have from my ancestors, but apart from genetics, it has nothing to do with my identity. I use it as an expression of something or an accessory sometimes but it’s no more spectacular than my earrings and graphic tees.

Fourth Grade, Oakshire Elementary School – Memphis, Tennessee

Thank you, everyone, who has complimented my hair. I feel good when you agree with me that what I have on my head allows me to be free. And it’s okay if you don’t like the style I’ve chosen – you don’t have to remind me of better styles or try to drill it in my head that you don’t like my choice. Sometimes I don’t like my choice either. All of that is good but there is no value, uniqueness, nor importance in my hair.

March 30, 2020 – Just before my city went to COVID related Safer-at-Home orders. And I miss my stylist!

I am Regina Lynette, the girl with unspectacular hair.

5 Min Read, Mental Health

I love my therapist.

Regina Lynette

I am a black American Christian woman who believes in having a full-on mental health team. I also know that while I am not the only one, I know that it’s not exactly commonplace yet for my demographic. Since I began my mental health journey in college, I have kept my path pretty quiet, sharing information only with people I deemed either safe spaces or emergency contacts. But I think the time has come to say more and say it publicly. This is another reason I decided to do this blog in this manner. Part of who I am includes details about my mental health journey. But you not gonna get the juicy stuff today. Today, I celebrate my current therapist.

I am a black American Christian woman who has a white American woman in charge of her *talk-therapy. And I love my therapist. This year, while watching horrific news about white people killing black people, I found myself in a mental state about racism I’d never been in before. I simply didn’t want to talk to white people about anything and I didn’t want white people to talk to me about anything, simply because they were white people. I didn’t want apologies. I didn’t want questions. I didn’t want greetings or terms of endearment. I turned my nose up at the idea that a white person had words to say. And about a week before my next therapy appointment – the one that came after I realized my sensitivities to white people just because they were white – I needed to decide how I was going to talk to my white therapist. Other than the awareness of her being a white person, I didn’t feel the same animosity or angst about talking to this particular white person and I tried to unpack that some before my session. I didn’t do a great job.

My therapist has an artistic background, has lived in other countries, and has lived in large American cities known for diversity as well as smaller southern cities known for lack of diversity and that was enough to remind me that she was a safe space. During that session I told her that I do not want to talk to white people. She paused the session to make sure she understood what I was saying – because she’s a white person and I was talking to her. Then I tried to say I still felt she was a safe person despite my current feelings about white people and hoped I wasn’t offensive. A few weeks later she reached out to me to ask if I’d heard about a therapeutic product made specifically for people of color designed by an African-American therapist.  I thanked her for seeing my color. This was summer 2020. She is still my therapist and I still love my therapist.

That anecdote says nothing about how I’ve come to love my therapist, nor does it specifically promote therapy. But that anecdote is the demonstration that a therapist to love is a therapist who is right for you and your needs. A therapist to love is one who can handle what life throws you both and can still guide you through those challenging times. A therapist to love is one who sees you clearly and respects you completely. And my therapist is a therapist to love.

When I met this therapist, I was having complications and my chronic mental illness was out of remission leaving me unstable. She was referred to me by my psychiatrist along with a nutritionist. Having had therapy for more than 20 years, I had long developed a process to make sure I got the most out of my sessions. This included self-awareness of issues that surfaced, recognition of things that just weren’t working, and an acknowledgement of the level of disfunction my illness caused versus the level of disfunction my unresolved issues caused (which means I had to accept that sometimes I needed a pill and not only behavior changes).

There were a couple of problems immediately apparent to me in the first few sessions with this therapist. First, I wasn’t going to be in control of this process in the way I had been with previous therapists. Second, I didn’t have the energy, courage, nor foresight to take the reins of this process in the way I had done with previous therapists. Bumping up against that those first few sessions made me reconsider being under her care. I always had an introductory session or consultation before choosing a therapist and could establish my needs at that time. I just made an appointment with this therapist based on my chosen psychiatrist’s referral. But I decided to continue because in this case, my psychiatrist, talk-therapist, and nutritionist – my mental health team – all knew each other and could discuss my progress together and I wanted to see the benefits of that arrangement. So, I decided to “let go” (which ended up being the focus for at least a year) and stopped planning for my sessions. I would just show up and follow her lead. I found that the sessions where I had absolutely nothing planned to discuss were the best sessions. We were still getting to know each other, and I wasn’t really giving her much to work with – I wasn’t showing up and presenting myself to her in the sessions but was open enough to let her sort of rummage around and see what we could work on. And in time, she got to know me. She got to know the characters in my life. She knew when to pause a long time because she could see me thinking. She learned when to either re-direct or end the session because it was just too much to handle. And she learned how to check in with me at the start of each session to see how to best direct our time. Now she has a better handle on me than I have on myself in some ways and I trust her with my everything. That’s a therapist to love. And I love my therapist.

Only you know what you need from a therapist and only you know what’s most important to you in a therapist. However, when I am asked about what I’ve learned I need from a therapist and what’s important to me in a therapist, there is one thing that I consistently note first – the best professionals are artists. Creatives approach medicine with the idea that every human is different and that every human may respond differently to therapy – both techniques and medications. They understand that the patient knows more about their body and mind than anyone else and therefore require that a partnership be forged to determine a treatment plan (you’ll see this in the agreements in your intake paperwork or it will be discussed during your consultation and/or first appointment). Artists use their passionate natures to fuel their progress. And the patients of creative and artistic medical professionals benefit from getting a partner who holds their hand along the very customized treatment plan to reach the pinnacle of the individual’s health. They lay out a plan based on their education and experience and then stand back and look with admiration and pride at the mixed bag of tricks that the plan actually incorporates as it’s executed. My first artistic doctor beamed with pride with every success I had – we had. He fought to the death my insurance companies and got pissed at the pharmaceutical companies when they caused problems with getting my prescriptions filled. He was very invested in me and taught me to be very invested in my health.

I just wanted to tell the world that I love my therapist. And I know that it is critical that African-Americans seek therapy, and that African-American issues can often only be understood well by African-American therapists – so much so that I want to acknowledge it as fact. And I’ve had both black and white therapists and had positive experiences with both. Have the courage to seek the right therapist for you whether it’s gender, race, color, or any other identifiers and experiences.

I love my therapist.

*I use the term talk-therapy to refer to the sessions provided by my medical professional that rely mostly on talking. There are many different kinds of health professionals who take on this role so I use a broader term to focus on the process rather than the person’s credentials. When I use this term, usually I am separating doctors who prescribe medications from other medical health professionals who focus on a myriad of other techniques.

10 Min Read, Bookish, Brothers And Sisters

I am Regina Lynette. I am a Silver Sparrow.

Regina Lynette

Silver Sparrow is the title of a novel by Tayari Jones about two half-sisters, their shared father, and how life unfolds for them and their families*. I went to see her at the Decatur Book Festival and while discussing her book, Tayari Jones asked if there were any Silver Sparrows in the room. I raised my hand. The feeling of pride that accompanied that acknowledgement surprised me.  

The story of me and my half-siblings has always been shrouded in shame. I never took on the shame directly, but some people look at me as the shame – I was a catalyst for change in my parents’ lives. But I never even remotely accepted the blame for my parents’ decisions.

My father was married with children at the time he met my mother, and she was divorced with children. They began their relationship while my father was still legally married. I have 3 half-brothers and 4 half-sisters. I shared one half-brother and one half-sister with our mother. I shared two half-brothers and three half-sisters with our father. I’m the only and last child between my parents and all my siblings are “half”. No one in my immediate family used the term “half” so I’ll be dropping that now.

It was easy to share my mother with my brother and sister because they lived at home with me and neither of their fathers were involved in their lives. It was a little more complicated with sharing my father. His oldest children were close to my mother’s age, so he wasn’t co-parenting young children but adults. They were married and having their own children – I have three nieces and a nephew who are older than I am. So, while I was technically sharing my father with his older children, what was happening day to day was that I had a father (and in some respects my mother’s children had him as a father), and his older children were abandoned. With young children, fathers typically make some legal arrangement to share custody with mothers and all the children manage to grow up together in some manner. With adult children, what happened in our circumstances, is that I became a secret.

I didn’t realize I was supposed to be a secret, mainly because I knew the truth about my family structure and we never treated it like a secret. But when I spent time with my father’s children and I met people from their everyday lives, I had to be explained. “Who is this small child with you – too young to be friends with your own children?” people would ask. “This is my baby sister. Yep, there was one more who came much later.” Or if my nieces were asked then it was often, “This is my baby Auntie.”

And I almost got pleasure that we’d shocked someone because our family was a little unexpected. As a teenager and young adult I started to feel more sensitive to other people’s reactions.

The moment I felt for certain that I had been a kept secret was at my niece’s wedding. I was a bridesmaid and was approached at the rehearsal by two ladies I didn’t know. They asked who I was, and I told them the bride was my niece. They assumed I’d sort of adopted my way into the family – not that she was my biological niece. I explained – no, her father is my older brother – and the look on their faces, the sudden silence to me, and the whispering behind my back but in front of my face felt shameful. That is what I felt.  

I feel compelled to provide some disclaimers. First, I do not know those ladies and if they were standing in my face this minute, I wouldn’t know they were the ones with whom I spoke and couldn’t tell you what the significance was of them being at the wedding rehearsal. Second, there could have been any number of reasons they weren’t privy to details about our family that had nothing to do with feelings or opinions on how I came to be – I have no idea what the relationship with these ladies is between my family. And third, though it’s no secret that this brother had a difficult time with our father and his choices, neither he, his wife, or his daughter ever made me feel anything less than precious when I was with them. This is just a recollection of a moment in my life where I felt shame and realized I was a secret – not a factual account of anything done to me by anyone. I was old enough that I could understand that my existence and the circumstances around my conception was not necessarily something to boast about and not necessarily information that just anyone needed to know. Yes, I am very aware that the compulsion to offer that disclaimer speaks rivers and yes, you likely will hear more about that later – I’m trying to keep these entries brief.

The first time I noticed how easy (and benign) it was for me to have become a secret was the first time I realized my siblings had become my secret. Years ago, an associate at work was leading a professional development workshop and as part of his intro and opening comments he would ask if anyone in the room had older brothers. This was much more about a segue into an anecdote about him having older brothers and less to do with getting a census of the participants. Though I had been in the room when he did this presentation several times, this was the first time I was a participant in the workshop, and so this was the first time I raised my hand. He was so startled that I felt a little embarrassed. He was silent for just a beat too long before he said that he had no idea that I had brothers. I said something to try and explain that there was no reason for me to have mentioned my brothers in our previous interactions – we had a professional relationship that was also relatively friendly – and before it became too awkward, he moved on. This would be true for most of the people I interact with on a daily basis. Just because I see or speak to someone everyday doesn’t mean that I’ve had any interactions with them that require them to know anything about my family structure. This has absolutely nothing to do with how I feel about any member of my family and everything to do with the point of whatever I am trying to say at that moment.

So since that revelation, I look back on my memories with a different lens and with much less sensitivity than I used to. If you call me Regina, you do not know the whole story, trust me (even if you already knew everything I just shared). And there are no secrets – just rooms to the house you haven’t been invited to enter, so to speak. If you know me well (likely you call me Gina) you probably get the explanation of my family structure because you probably need it – anecdotes can get complicated if you don’t know the key players. But if you were introduced to me as Regina, and now call me Gina, (or vice-versa) you are missing some details – they aren’t secrets but you find out things on a need-to-know basis. And I determine when you need to know.

The pride in raising my hand at the book festival to identify myself as a Silver Sparrow was because it was a pretty name for something complex that I now find beautiful. My parents made the choices they thought were best at the time. I say that they weren’t always the right choices. Maya Angelou said “Just do right. Right may not be expedient, it may not be profitable, but it will satisfy your soul.” Some of their choices were expedient at the cost of being right. Some of their choices were profitable at the cost of being right. And some of their choices were easy and comfortable at the cost of being right. I know my parents sometimes didn’t consider – and at times didn’t understand – the impact that their decisions would have on the generations to come after them. And there is a lot of pain associated with all of us who suffered consequences of their choices. But, the day I raised my hand proudly declaring myself a Silver Sparrow was the day I saw the beauty of what they gave me. I was exposed to many different philosophies of life – all my siblings were adults and I was often in a position to be taught by them as parents to children. The brother who I mentioned earlier in the wedding story taught me how women should be treated by what I saw in how he treated his wife and daughter. All my sisters wanted me to look and behave ladylike, even though they all had slightly different ideas of what that meant and different deliveries of the message. Everyone expected me to be studious and ambitious and encouraged me to be the best they thought I could be – whether they really knew what that was or not. If I had not been a Silver Sparrow, I wouldn’t have had the siblings I have, and we wouldn’t have had the life experiences that have made us all more intentional about our life choices and aware of what we are contributing to the following generations. And while my life experiences range from horrible enough to repress to so joyous it is heartwarming, it’s that spectrum that gives me pride.

I have 3 brothers. I have 5 sisters (fictive kin included). I am Regina Lynette, and I am a Silver Sparrow.

*Silver Sparrow by Tayari Jones is one of the books that I hugged after I finished reading it. I have read all her books and have recommended all of them at one time or another to friends and family – and now to you.

My Tayari Jones books are enjoying a sunset on the lanai.
Pictured from left to right – An American Marriage, Leaving Atlanta, The Untelling, Silver Sparrow.
5 Min Read, What's In A Name?

I am Regina Lynette.

Regina Lynette

With intention and on purpose, my parents named me Regina Lynette. I didn’t choose my name – none of us does. But I learned to love my name at a very young age. And eventually, I began to make some choices about how my name was documented. The first choice I made about my name was in high school because that’s when you start signing documents and applications that will follow you for several years of higher education. I would go through several iterations over the years.

I first decided to document my name as Regina Lynette Walker. No middle initial for me – please spell my middle name. There were some limitations of course but I fully embraced my name in its entirety as given to me by my parents and documented on my birth certificate and social security card.

At this time in my life I had lost my mother, was living in hell with a step-monster, had lost my auntie/godmother and therefore had lost my little sister, and my name was all I had left in some ways. Mommy had a reason for naming me Regina – a hope for elegance. Daddy taught me to wear the royal crown that is the name Regina. My little sister was forever connected to my heart through our shared middle name, even though we were separated when my step-monster imprisoned me and my father emotionally abandoned me. After I graduated college, I eventually made another choice about my name.

The second choice I made about using my name was to “change” it to Regina L. Walker. Practically, it was a bit shorter and I had room for the flourishes I used for my cursive capital letters. It looked mature and was a nod to something my mother told me about her name.

My parents were older – I was called a “pleasant surprise” and there was a gap of 24 years between them. So, they had been educated in a more formal and what might be called sexist way of using married names. I think the form she’d been taught was First/Given Name, Maiden Name, Married Name. For her, this meant sacrificing her beloved middle name. She decided to go against that rule and used First/Given Name, Middle Name, Married Name. And most often she only used her middle initial rather than her full middle name. So now, my name format matched hers and I’d planned to completely drop my maiden name upon marriage just the way she did. Honestly, I lost all emotional connection to the name Walker during that time. My father had died and if I married, there was no one in his place to honor or pay homage to with a surname. And then something painful happened that I don’t fully comprehend that brought forth the most recent choice I’ve made about my name.

I made a third choice of documenting my name by dropping my middle name and initial altogether – Regina Walker. I don’t know what happened to provoke this change but I felt passionately about dropping that initial. I wanted my name to total 12 letters because the number 12 is ubiquitous in my life – for example my birthday is December 12 or 12/12.

 I didn’t want to discuss my middle name with inquiring minds. I felt guilt about losing my baby sister and wondered where she was and how she was doing. I felt like I’d betrayed my godmother. My heart was broken, and I had stopped speaking along that gold thread to my sister’s heart nor did I hear anything from the other end. I would cringe when I saw my middle initial and changed it everywhere I could.

I’ve covered the three times I made a choice about my name and never mentioned how I got to Regina Lynette – the name of this blog. Well, that was chosen specifically for the blog and is not a name I use on documents nor is it a name I particularly want to be called. I continue to use only my first and last name for documentation. I continue to be called Regina or Gina as appropriate (and one other name that is only for one other person, and he knows who he is). But as I go along this journey that I’ve named Identity, I am using the two names that were given to me, selected with intention and purpose. While it has significance, I don’t include my surname here because I got that by default and there is no journey to follow to figure out who I am as a Walker – my temperament and some physical features have done that sufficiently.

I am Regina Lynette. The name Regina is of Latin derivation and means Queen. The name Lynette is of French origin and means Pretty One.

*Technically the name Lynette has many different origins and meanings. The American/Anglo Saxon is “bird”. The Celtic is “Grace”. The Latin origin means “mild”. And the French-Welsh/Welsh meaning is “nymph” or “idol”. I’ve taken a simpler definition with heavier influence of the French and use the definition “Pretty One”.

5 Min Read, What's In A Name?

My middle name is Lynette. Not many people know that.

Regina Lynette

At birth, my parents documented my first name as Regina and my middle name as Lynette. I didn’t get to choose any part of my name – none of us chooses what’s on our own birth certificates. As a very young child, I loved that my family called me Gina. Later, I learned to love introducing myself as Regina. But I wasn’t much interested in my middle name, Lynette. Then something magical happened during ages five and six, and my middle name had considerable significance to me.

Mommy had a friend who she met through the church my parents joined when I was a toddler. Of all her friends, this one was the most like a sister to her. So she was more like an auntie or godmother to me. I thought her name was absolutely perfect – Lucy Bell. It sounded just as sweet as she was to me.

My earliest memories of being a part of Ms. Bell’s world include the smells of her home – I couldn’t tell you what it was exactly, but it was unique to her and her home and made me feel safe. And she smelled just like her home. As an adult I can guess it was the usual blend of perfumes and/or soaps, hair products, moisturizers, maybe a favorite candy or gum, and she was a smoker. I would breathe her in while I sat next to her at church, wanting to lean on her but knowing somehow that it wasn’t quite appropriate even though I wasn’t really sure why. But she would put her arm on the pew behind me and I would scoot in a little closer to her. Ms. Bell felt like a treat, just in and of herself. And Ms. Bell was mine and I was hers. She made me feel like I was just as much hers as her son was – something that only true mothers, good mothers, natural-born mothers can do.  

I remember visiting her one weekend and she was suddenly pregnant. I was five and I swear she just all of a sudden was pregnant to me. And I was struck, staring at that belly while inching as far across the room away from her as I could. She and Mommy talked and random words floated by my ears – “middle name”, “spell it”, “girl or boy”, “good hair”, and “her daddy”. I know now there were conversations about the unborn baby, my hair, and my middle name. When I heard Ms. Bell say my name, I was snapped out of my stupor and was immediately present. She said to Mommy, “Gina won’t come close to me anymore.” I wondered how she noticed and at the same time I felt sorry that she noticed. Mommy said something about it – I don’t remember – and I was silent for a long time until I was prodded to respond. After I explained that I was afraid she would have the baby while I was close to her, I was assured by both of them that it would never happen that way and that the baby wasn’t due for what seemed like a long time. But I trusted what I saw on sitcoms where women were startled by sudden labor more than I trusted their words of assurance – parents said what they thought you needed to hear and not always the unadulterated truth (like I got from The Jeffersons). Ms. Bell was mine and I was hers and I had hurt her feelings by my distance so I stayed as physically close to her as I could stand but with anxiety. It wasn’t quite close enough to breathe her in nor did I wish I could lean on her.

On another visit I heard more of the conversation around the phrase “good hair” that I remembered hearing my mother and her friend mention. Ms. Bell told my mother that she’d heard that if you rubbed someone’s “good hair” while you were pregnant, your baby would have “good hair”, too. Even at five, I thought that was untrue. I think both Mommy and Ms. Bell thought it was unfounded, but Ms. Bell didn’t want to take any chances in same the way you don’t take any chances with your money by making sure to keep a black-eyed pea in your wallet. It definitely couldn’t hurt anything so whenever we were together, she stroked my plaits and smoothed my scalp. It was okay – we were having our own special moments. And if she could reach my head, I was successfully sparing her feelings while set to run away when labor hit.

Just as the grownups promised, Ms. Bell did the whole labor and childbirth thing outside of my presence and one day there was this tiny little brown baby girl at her house. I remember just staring at her, taking in all her beauty, almost trying to memorize her. Ms. Bell declared us sisters and told me she had given her daughter my middle name to seal the deal. Quietly, along that special gold thread that connected my heart to hers – our middle name, Lynette – I made a six-year old’s sisterly promises to her. Ms. Bell, from that day until the days just before she died, reminded me that I was her daughter’s sister. And her daughter was my sister.

I first embraced Lynette when I saw the importance Ms. Bell put on it by using it to connect two hearts in the same way that nature connected by blood. So I finally learned to spell it and pronounce it correctly. Neither of us sisters chose that name, nor did we know beforehand the significance of that name. But Lynette is like spun gold to me.

My middle name is Lynette. My sister’s middle name is Lynette.