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By Dwain Wellington Rattray & Joanne Brereton
Pride Contributing Writers
Poet Maya Angelou is dead. That sentence serves not to merely inform, but to bring to bear the definitive important truth, that a colossal giant of our era is no more. In a private memorial service on Saturday, June 7, 2014, about 2,000 family, friends and dignitaries filled the Wait Chapel of North Carolina’s Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, where Dr. Angelou had been a professor over three decades.
A combination of stunning music, eloquent storytelling, devoted friends, deep faith, and moments of laughter and traces of tears – a true compilation of what made up her life – the two-and-a-half hour ceremony was marked by standing ovations and elegant tributes.
Born Marguerite Annie Johnson on April 4, 1928, Maya Angelou, the cosmopolite passed into the afterlife on Wednesday, May 28, 2014. While the uniquely distinct boom of her voice – remarked upon and playfully imitated several times during her funeral service – has been silenced, truly the power of her words will not cease to compel, teach and challenge. With myriad works spanning half a century, Maya Angelou will continue to be the voice of a people; a people caged, but who continue to sing.
Her most recognizable poem, ‘Still I Rise’ is a litany of language that lauds not the languishing, but rather the lifting of a global nation.
Still I Rise – Maya Angelou.
You may write me down in history
With your bitter, twisted lies,
You may trod me in the very dirt
But still, like dust, I’ll rise.
Does my sassiness upset you?
Why are you beset with gloom?
‘Cause I walk like I’ve got oil wells
Pumping in my living room.
Just like moons and like suns,
With the certainty of tides,
Just like hopes springing high,
Still I’ll rise.
Did you want to see me broken?
Bowed head and lowered eyes?
Shoulders falling down like teardrops.
Weakened by my soulful cries.
Does my haughtiness offend you?
Don’t you take it awful hard
‘Cause I laugh like I’ve got gold mines
Diggin’ in my own back yard.
You may shoot me with your words,
You may cut me with your eyes,
You may kill me with your hatefulness,
But still, like air, I’ll rise.
Does my sexiness upset you?
Does it come as a surprise
That I dance like I’ve got diamonds
At the meeting of my thighs?
Out of the huts of history’s shame
I rise
Up from a past that’s rooted in pain
I rise
I’m a black ocean, leaping and wide,
Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.
Leaving behind nights of terror and fear
I rise
Into a daybreak that’s wondrously clear
I rise
Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,
I am the dream and the hope of the slave.
I rise
I rise
I rise.
In sharing her vast experience, wisdom, and her gift for the written word, this gentle woman has touched us deep in our souls. “When you learn, teach,” were her grandmother’s words to her, words by which she so graciously lived.
Maya Angelou, the name, commands respect. Maya Angelou, the woman, earned it. As dancer, singer, poet, author, teacher and, dare I say, universal mother, she earned every, single ounce of it. By explaining, in exquisite detail, what makes each woman a Phenomenal Woman; by walking the talk, by teaching her hard learned lessons, by guiding and shaping us with her profound words and turns of phrases. Lessons that made us sit up and scratch our heads, and shift paradigms, and CHANGE. Change our way of thinking, which changed our way of being, because, of course, “When you know better, you do better.”
“Everybody born comes from the Creator trailing wisps of glory. We come from the Creator with creativity. I think that each one of us is born with creativity.” Well, no wisps for Dr. Angelou. She trailed glory on a much grander scale.
Kindly, gently, she imparted her knowledge, with warmth and an absolute willingness to share, in order that we too should learn from her hard won experiences. As President Bill Clinton, so eloquently remarked, “She went from not having a voice for five years, to having the greatest voice in the world.”
Her words have saved many from certain demise, in many instances. “There’s a place in you that you must keep inviolate. You must keep it pristine. Clean. So that nobody has a right to curse you or treat you badly. Nobody.” These words are held close to the heart. These words prompt us to walk away, from that which does not nourish; that which tries to steal our joy; that which seeks only to destroy us and reduce us to nothingness, and break our souls. That pristine place is where we retreat when we need calm in any storm. That is the place we go to for comfort and strength. That is the place we go, to meet with God.
As Oprah Winfrey suggested, rather than trying to find the exact words to express the loss we feel at her parting, we should continue to live by her teachings. That should be the way we allow her legacy to live on. That should be the way we pay tribute to her larger than life presence, whose medals, honours, awards and honorary degrees are too many to list – doing better, because she taught us better.
If we remember nothing else, let us remember this from her: “People will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”
Her own words both quoted and paraphrased serve as the best eulogy to this giant of a woman. We can be – and be better – because she existed.
And so we bid her farewell, on this Saturday morning. How fitting, “The Caged Bird” being freed on a beautiful, spring morning. Fly away home Mama Maya. Safe journey.
Photo by Michael J. Edelman.
