May Days
It was a beautiful spring day. It was already warm as spring comes early in
Central Missouri. It was graduation day
at the University of Missouri. I stood
at the hospital window and watched the proud graduates stream out of the
Hearnes Center. A happy future awaited
them. I went to high school with some of
them. I was too far away and there were
too many to look at faces.
It was 1975. The
hippies were finding Jesus. The war was
winding down and would end. Patty Hearst
was in the news. And I had just given
birth to my third child. She was in
trouble.
I had seen her rushed from delivery by forceps to the
pediatricians. I asked, what did I
have? The doctor in his haste had failed
to look to see her gender. He went and
looked and announced it was a girl. He
looked at me and said Joyce, don’t get too excited, I don’t know if she’ll make
it.
As I stood at that window watching the happy students and
their families, I cried. I cried for my
daughter. I cried for myself. As my peers walked into their future, I
wondered what mine would look like.
I was now a single mother in a time when that wasn’t
common. I had two other children, two
very rambunctious boys. How would we
live? How would I ever feed them? The food stamp program with its Monopoly type
money, had just started and I had been first in line to apply.
My father had died several years before, and my mother had
remarried. She still was a “blushing
bride.” Her attention was on her new
life, and not her daughter. My husband,
Allen, came to the hospital with his girlfriend to ask when I was going to file
for divorce. I asked him if he wanted to
see our child, he said no. I told him
her condition. He wasn’t interested.
Life was over. I was
a high school dropout with three children.
While I did have a GED, I couldn’t type and the only job I could get was
fast food and very low-level jobs. And
then there were all the issues of childcare.
By the next May, I had finished my first year as a student
at the University of Missouri. Something
came over me in my tears the year before – it was a voice that said, you don’t
know if you don’t try. I pieced together
financial aid and welfare benefits. I
struggled and we ate a lot of macaroni and cheese.
I went to school year-round and by May 1977 I had chosen my
major and my grades were good. Between
summer classes I had a random conversation with a graduate student who would
become a father to my children, be my husband, and my life partner.
May 1978, two more semesters to go. I was married. I completed my practicum that summer, applied
to graduate school, and was dually enrolled as a graduate student. Graduation came in December of 1978. In three and a half years, with three
children, I had finished a degree, married, and was expecting. But there was no ceremony. There was no cap and gown.
May 1979 and I was back in the same hospital. I was once again giving birth to a
daughter. This time she went home with
me and was healthy. But I was done with
school for then. I’d get to the Master’s
later.
Years came and went.
Joys, sorrows, pain, success, multiple moves, the most recent from
Connecticut to Tennessee. I had a successful career and one of the highlights
was in May 1995 when I was a congressionally appointed delegate to the White
House Conference on Aging.
Our family welcomed four more children. Four of my 8 children were born in May. I now had grandchildren including the one we
buried.
Fast forward to May 2009.
The day had come that for the first time in my life, I would wear a cap
and gown. I would have my first official
graduation. And finally, I walked in a
graduation procession as I received a Master’s degree. Instead of sociology that had been my
previous goal, this MA degree was in Biblical Studies.
The baby who almost died that May in 1975 was there with her
daughter. In December of 2009, that
daughter had her first grandchild, my first great grandchild. The journey from May 1975 had been hard. And I’m often asked, “How did you do
it?” The only answer I have is by the
grace of God.
But there would come another May of significance. On May 4, 2013, I was once again a graduate
donning a purple gown and a tam. Over my
shoulders was a doctoral hood. All my
children were there for this graduation.
We threw a graduation party. For
on that day, I officially became Dr. Joyce A. Lighari.
That same May, on May 15, 2013 I got a call for my first
appointment as a Pastor with the United Methodist Church. May 2023 I will complete ten years as a
pastor and move to something else. What
that is, I don’t know yet? I know God is
leading me onward. I know my journey isn’t complete. There will be more Mays to remember and
celebrate.
