On September 7 we will be celebrating the eighty-third birthday of Phyllis Redd King. It will be the third year without her here with us. They say it gets easier with time, and I guess that maybe true, but it is still hard to think that on Monday we won’t be able to pick up the phone and call her to say happy birthday. I am writing today’s dignity post to celebrate my mother. Everything that is right in me is because of her. Everything that I have done wrong in my life is because I didn’t listen to her. My brothers Ken, Tracy, and I were blessed to have a mother like her. We were everything to her. Nothing came before her boys. It took me a long time to realize the importance of being a parent. Even though I had the best example, I still stumbled along the way to get to where I am today. I finally realized I was on the right track when I heard my mother say, “Son. I am proud of you.”
I vaguely remember back in 1970 we live in Boston and my father had returned home from his second tour in Vietnam. I was just about to turn six and I remember seeing my mother talking to my father and then the door closed and I was told he wasn’t coming back home. My mother made the decision to raise three boys ages 5, 4, and 2 on her own. We were blessed to have support from our grandparents and our aunts and uncles, but it was our mother who had the greatest impact on us. I remember her telling me the story of going to the state for assistance and she was told they couldn’t help her and that maybe she should go back to her husband. That was the day our mother said she was going to do this on her own.
Our mother worked hard. She sometimes had to take on 2 jobs, but I never remember her not being home and every night there was supper on the stove and every weekend she was home with us. We had the best Christmases. My mother made sure there were plenty of presents under the tree for us. She wanted our Christmas to be better than what she had as a child. We didn’t live in the best neighborhoods sometimes growing up in the inner-city, but when you walked into our apartment it was like walking into a palace. Our mother took pride in providing us with a place we could call home. We didn’t realize it then, but we do now. We were blessed.
My mother wasn’t perfect, but who is. Her love for her three boys, all her grandchildren, family, and friends, was perfect. I am glad they got to know and feel the love we felt as her sons. The greatest gift is that my mother could spend her retirement with her true love Wayne King or better known to us as “Pop”. They both were able to spend their final years in Georgia where my mother got to have her first house in 2015. Those years were challenging for both, but the love in that home was strong, and I know it is shining bright up in heaven.
On Labor Day we will celebrate the life of our mother, grandmother, wife, sister, and friend. I know I can speak for anyone who knew her. Thank you, Ma, for everything you have done for us. We will continue to do whatever it takes to make you proud.
“Loving you is like food to my soul”, Boys II Men
Charles Redd RN
Dignity Freedom Fight
Dignity Freedom Fighter 