I followed the winding trail to the pond and sat down on one of the trees felled during my childhood so many years ago. I sat there just gazing up at the trees, up at their needle-laden branches, up to the peaks of their majestic splendor as the sunlight quickly faded, and I murmured, “Dear, dear old trees . . . dear old trees . . .” There was so much, so much I wanted to say, and that’s all I could think to say. A gentle wind stirred and the branches began to sway, swaying like giant green fingers strumming at a guitar. I felt Papa with me. I looked around, remembering all the days past, all the days sitting here with Papa, all the days of walking to the pond with Mama and Big Ma, all the childhood days of running and playing in the forest with Stacey, Christopher-John, and Little Man. I would be staying now, but nothing ever again would be the same. Finally, I stood, my hands clasped together, looked upward once more, and, as the teardrops flowed, I watched as the last slivers of sunlight slipped from the trees.
EPILOGUE
(2009)
In 2008 Barack Hussein Obama was elected the first African American president of the United States. Great Faith Church chartered a bus to go to the inauguration. Leaving Mississippi for Washington, D.C., the bus traveled through Alabama, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, and Virginia, the same states traveled by the 1961 Freedom Riders.
I was on the bus.