We drove an hour from home to Folsom so Zach could have hippotherapy. I was surprised that he remembered both his physical therapist’s name and the name of the horse we met on our first evaluation visit.
Zach was adamant and vociferous: vehemently opposed to riding a horse, this horse, any horse, any day until forever. He was not doing it. “Don’t force me to ride a horse,” he said. He cried and cried and screamed in protest. Zach is 5.
I put the safety helmet on his head and his therapist helped me to strap it under his chin. I told him that we had come a very long way to see a horse today and he was going to ride it. I told him that I understood that he was afraid and that it was ok. I was afraid too sometimes. It’s hard sometimes and sometimes we have to do what’s hard.
I will try follow my own advice and to keep my own counsel.
Pete the horse, Ms. Eddie, Mr. Jeff and Ms. Alison were patient with him. And I was there through it all. He probably spent about 15 minutes on the horse although it felt like an hour. I set the timer for the last three minutes so he’d know when it was time to get off the horse. He complained. I let him do the final 20 second count down. Then we thanked everyone who helped while I held Zach to calm him down a bit. We transitioned to the therapy room where he spent another 30 minutes with Alison after. On the way home, Zach renamed Pete the horse. His new name is “Peter Parker”. Next week Zach will have another run at riding Peter Parker.
Last Friday I attended Georgiana Williams’ homegoing service with her son, Rev. Kevin Williams, presiding. I offered personal reflections with the through line “difficult and necessary”. I had witnessed Mrs. Williams and her son setting aside personal comfort and preference in order to serve the greater needs of their family and of others. Kevin performed well the difficult and necessary task of preaching a final tribute to his mother’s life.
Between ages 5 and 13, my mother and I lived at 2318 Tupelo St. between Tonti and Rocheblave streets in the Lower Ninth Ward, “backatown”. On Thanksgiving day, when I was 13, Momma cooked dinner early in the morning and we left to visit a cousin, Julia, on Spain St. Late afternoon we returned to find that our house had been broken into. Some of our belongings were in a pillowcase on the floor in the hallway between the bathroom and my mother’s bedroom. On her pillow there was a large footprint where the man had stepped in from the window. A half eaten pie - either custard or lemon meringue no doubt as those were my mom’s favorites from McKenzie’s bakery - sat on her nightstand. Not only had the man (or men) broken into our home, they had taken time to eat our dinner! She threw it all away.
My mother called my grandmother to tell her that we were moving back to her house. She had had enough. Over the years this was the third or fourth break in of our home. I had recurring dreams about someone climbing through my bedroom window. My grandmother said that it was due to the fear and trauma of witnessing those events. That Saturday Kevin Williams (who may have been one of my mother’s students but certainly knew her from McDonogh 19 Elementary School) rounded up a few of his friends and moved my mother and me to my grandmother’s house. He didn’t have to do that and I appreciate his help to this day.
Last night I learned that Claude Steward had passed away at the end of June a few days before Kevin’s mom. I hadn’t heard the news and missed his funeral which was held the day after Mrs. Williams’.
I met Claude when our offices were located inside Trinity Lutheran Church. He was director of the Lower Ninth Ward Senior Center and they had lost their space at the Sanchez Center as a result of Hurricane Katrina. We shared the church building for several years until the new center was rebuilt. Then the seniors moved and we saw each other less frequently.
Over time we grew fond of each other. When my granddaughter visited the building, she enjoyed coloring and painting with him in his office. He always had arts supplies for the seniors and shared paint and time with Niyah. When I was expecting my son Jamie, he told me how much he loved pregnant women as he came to the car to help me unload my bags and carried them up the stairs for me. After I delivered my son, he told me that our affair had to come to an end. It was over. He joked after Jamie was born and said “You’re strong. Certainly you can have one more!” Little did I know when I gave him my side eye that Zach, my last, would follow in three years.
I had no idea nor reason to know how old Claude Steward was. And all this time, he was advocating for the needs of “his seniors” while he was a senior himself!
I remember speaking to him in 2016, while I was in Paris, about the former Semmes Elementary School building that a nonprofit under his direction owned. He said that his wife was pickpocketed on the subway once when they had visited Paris. As our call came to a close, he told me to be careful, referring to both the political unrest and crime he associated with the City. I responded, “I can get shot at home.” He laughed and said, “Yeah I forget where you’re from.”
Only after reading his obituary did I become present to all that he had done and been professionally. He had given me counsel time and again as I faced challenges running my organization. We joked about conflict among the seniors and challenges running nonprofits. He took a lot of it in stride and now I understand why. Mr. Claude had seen and done it all.
I will miss our conversations once or twice a year. I will carry the memory of who he was and is in my heart where we can visit more often.