It’s like trying to get the kids out of the house. Let’s go, already! We’ve got a lot of ground to cover.

Yes, we’re taking a break from our Air Dare. It’ll wait for us, but now it’s time to honor my Dad’s Gemini twin, Mamita, and the birthday she just celebrated Tuesday. Mamita’s only six days younger than my Dad.

“But we can’t go and have fun at a time like this,” you say. “There’s racial injustice. Just look at what’s going on. If only MLK were with us now.”

And it got me to thinking about him. He left us with a dream. If he could speak, where would that dream be now?

Really? I’m going to take on MLK’s dream? I’m not trying to be someone I’m not. I’m just a mama.

But mothers have perspective. When I was single, I never could have understood that a mother could love all her children equally. They had to have a favorite, right? And as that mother, I couldn’t accept, even yesterday, that our children are not our own. (It’s a headier concept I’m not going to get into, just trust me on it if you don’t know what I’m talking about). But once you can begin to accept these truths, you see the world differently.

You start to see that we’re all just one big family, albeit a dysfunctional one. But we’re all interconnected.

We used to talk about six degrees of separation. If not in college, sometime back in the day when the world seemed too big. Just think we could be six calls away from anyone in the world. With that theory, we could get to the White House. Once we found it an honor to go to the White House.

This wide-angle approach brings peace to me now that it means we’re all connected again. We’ve been feeling such intense separation. Six feet apart has been a mind trip we still haven’t recovered from.

But you just want the simple truths about me. I don’t see color, and I strive to love all people. I have ties with black friends who are family to me. I don’t condone injustice done to the black community.

Yet, others don’t see things the way I do. Maurice Cheeks, who played for my Dad for the 1983 World Championship team, wrote a moving recollection of getting stopped and handcuffed by police while riding his bike. As close as they are, Dad had never heard this story. Dad sent it to me, “It Could Have Been Me.”

https://www.theplayerstribune.com/en-us/articles/maurice-cheeks-nba-racial-injustice

I’d love to empathize with Mr. Cheeks and tell him the story about the time Alex interviewed to get his visa; I’d never been so embarrassed to be a US citizen. Okay, that statement doesn’t mean much today.

The officer asked Alex if he believed in polygamy. Alex said no. Then the officer looked at me and said, “He just hesitated. Are you sure you believe him?”

I didn’t know if he was joking (he hadn’t cracked a joke yet) or if he was serious, so I looked at our lawyer. The lawyer kept a poker face and refused to play along.

I turned to the officer and tried to pull it together. I said, “Yes, I believe him.”

It’s not the best story of injustice, but that’s my way of saying, “I get it. I’m right there with you.”

I’m just supposed to listen. It’s another challenge a parent must face. There’s nothing that you can say. I think this is one of those situations. We have to hear everyone out and be patient with them while they work through and heal.

It’s trying because we’re all at a breaking point. We’ve been trapped in our homes for too long. We’re trying to navigate our way in the world again. It’s not like COVID disappeared to give us breathing room on this. We’re still wearing masks, and it’s hard enough to breathe in those things.

But we’re expected to talk because our silence means we don’t care, and when we say the wrong thing, we’ll have to apologize.

We’re all crazy enough now! Agreed? But that’s the beauty of being a parent, right? It’s not like we ever get a break to let our sillies out. Okay, maybe just that once. Sometimes, we need to change things up for our sanity.

If you think I came to this easy, here’s the truth. I didn’t understand the Black Lives Matter movement. Why couldn’t it be All Lives Matter? Yes, I was one of those. My 6th Grader had to take over.

It’s that time of life when they’re stepping away from fairy tales and taking baby steps into adulthood. She came to it just in time to step in and parent me. “Saying All Lives Matter is offensive. Mr. Clark didn’t tell us why. He asked us to come up with our own reasons.”

Her reason? “A black kid was shot just walking to school. It never would have happened to a white kid. White lives already do matter. When did this happen to a white kid?”

And then she remembered the analogy Mr. Clark used. “If you go to the doctor because you hurt your arm, but then your doctor says, ‘I need to take a look at all your bones because all your bones matter.’ But your elbow is what’s sticking out and in pain.”

My oldest always takes a vow of silence every morning due to a sore throat (don’t get me started about this; she’s a teenager). She spoke. It was most surprising. No note. No throat gesture. No lip-syncing. Actual words came out of her mouth.

She said, Black Lives Matter is a specialized protest. The fifteen-year-old who got shot walking to school is part of the movement, and so is George Floyd. All the other groups who have felt injustice, too, feel left out. They’re using the Black Lives Matter campaign as their own.

So here I was right where she was just 15 minutes prior, speechless, and parented by both my daughters.

But I still felt like we’re so divided. There’s a lot of attacking going on, but where’s the communication? There comes MLK again. But I wasn’t ready just yet.

I’d been missing the point. There are only six degrees of separation between us. Remember that concept I was toying with in the beginning? Now you see why we need this vacation? Even if it’s just to remember that we’re all connected.

Let’s go back to 1943, Poland. And without a moment to spare. We’re supposed to be celebrating Mamita, my dear Mother-In-Law, today! We’re going back to her birthplace in Gdansk, Poland, to do just that.

So I come from a place of deep love and understanding to appreciate Mamita! What a beautiful mariposa inside and out.

Meet her parents.

When we go back to World War II, Mamita wasn’t born just yet, from my recollection (we all remember it differently, but that’s what makes it a classic). Papa Kazio was still fighting the war while Mama Zosia housed a Jewish couple in the attic.

She couldn’t tell the help or her other three young children. It was too risky to talk about it. The couple lived there undetected for three months. Mama Zosia would slip them food morning, noon, and night.

One act of kindness changed everything and how two unrelated families came together. Unfortunately, the husband died soon after. His wife survived and fled to France. She was pregnant (hint: we’ll see her daughter soon).

Years later upon graduation in 1966, Mamita was able to leave communist Poland and stay with her “aunt” in France. Remember the woman who Mama Zosia saved?

The plan was never to renounce her citizenship; she’d go to the Alliance Francaise for a year and learn English, put aside some money, come back to Poland, buy an apartment, and she intended to work as a chemical engineer and give French lessons.

But she had fled Poland and there was no going back. That part of the plan changed when she met Papito and stayed true to her name and followed him to Bolivia instead.

It just goes to show, our family grows with time when our hearts open up to others, and we let them in our circle. It only takes one act of kindness. And Alex always says, if you do an act of kindness, it feels selfish because it means more to you than to the person you did it for. I wonder where he got that idea?

And this is also a great example of actions speak louder than words. Mamita’s family couldn’t protest the atrocities happening to the Jewish people. They didn’t say a word. They saved lives.

It’s hard to believe that in 1966 while Mamita was leaving the family in Poland for France, Dad was making a family with his 76ers teammates back here in the United States.

“The great thing about sports if you didn’t like somebody it didn’t have to do with race or beliefs, you’re over that in a locker room. You don’t see color, and you understand how to treat people like individuals.”

Dad had learned that from an early age. He’s still friends with guys he went to High School with. He remembers Grandma having them over to eat. “Grandma would have all the food out.” Actions, again.

Dad never stopped thinking of his teammates and players as family. They still keep that bond even to this day. Just think of how Dad sent over the article that Maurice Cheeks wrote.

But the truth is I’ve had the parade on my mind from last week’s muse. And a week after that, the 76ers went to the White House. I found the 76ers newsletter with the pictures. I couldn’t help but wonder if they did the same thing for the 1967 76ers World Championship team.

Dad laughed. “Go to the White House? I don’t think the mayor even came out. When we landed a few hundred people were there at the airport.”

So I couldn’t help but ask about a parade. “A parade?” He laughed again. “I still remember we got more than half my salary for winning, “$7200. I wouldn’t have given it up for anything. I had a wonderful time, and I enjoyed every minute of it.”

There’s the point again. When Dad played, they didn’t play for the money, fame, parade, or visit to the White House. He and his teammates came together for the love of the sport and built a family without knowing it.

But I wanted to go to the White House today. Maybe it’s just leftover from my single days when I knew I could get there with six degrees of separation. And I found the old photos from 1976 that survived the fire that proved they went. So we wind up here at last.

President Ford invited all sorts of sports personalities. It happened during the basketball season so the only reason Dad could go was because he had his injury. Mom said that Ford was a football player at the University of Michigan so he was into athletics.

We toured the private parts of the White House and had a lovely luncheon,” Mom said. She was even in conversation with Betty Ford.

It’s a coincidence that we ended up where the Emancipation Proclamation was signed. One small step towards justice.

Like any vacation, it’s hard to come back home and adjust to the real world again, especially when that real-world feels more like science fiction. We’re still feeling so separated. Remember six feet apart?

We’re integrating back into society, and trying to figure out how to come together again. The coronavirus hasn’t disappeared. It’s confusing times. Our nephew graduated from high school today. Mamita and Papito should have come to visit from Bolivia as they had planned. We should have been together. Now we can only reunite on What’s App.

So maybe we came back too soon. We time traveled and never even got to see MLK. That’s okay. His words came to me the other day.

Imagine him at a massive podium in the sky. He could be standing just like this photo.

And now, here are the words that you hear…

When I look out to you, I don’t see the race of God. It’s glorious from my standpoint, one day you’ll join me. From here, all I see is the face of God in each and every one of you. It’s time you recognize that in yourself and in one another. It’s also time to align what you see with what you do. To be the example and live these ideals and lead our brothers and sisters and show them the way out of the darkness so they can see from this vantage point too.

Dying didn’t make me lose sight of my dream for humanity. It’s made it all the grander. I pass the mantel to you. Now you must make it your dream. You must go out and see it in the face of one another. I can’t do that for you. You’re the one who can make that dream come to life now.

I’m just a mama who’s been pent up too long. Now I hear voices in my head and I’ve got MLK’s dream close to my heart.

What do I know? But we’ve gone this far. Why not take it one step further and bring back the spirit of Mamita’s dear Mama Zosia who hid the couple in her attic, just because it was the right thing to do.

In a time and a place when she couldn’t speak out or protest, she was able to take action, and that kindness was far greater than all the devastation and injustice going on around her.

Today we don’t have to be silent. We can use our actions and our words to make a difference if we open our hearts to one another, one person at a time.

Let’s renew MLK’s vow to let freedom ring!

“…when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God’s children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual:

Free at last! Free at last!

Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!

excerpt taken from Martin Luther King Speech
https://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/mlkihaveadream.htm

Let’s vow to be there for one another. Until we start seeing God in our fellow brothers and sisters, we only see the world in black and white.