Bings, a dive bar near the hospital, was where a girlfriend and I often went to unwind after a tedious 7-3 shift drawing blood gases. After settling in, I glanced up and spotted Cap sitting on a stool near the entrance. He was nursing a beer, and laughing with a friend. Framed in the afternoon light, his huge brown eyes looked so kind and his demeanor appeared so gentle—even though he was huge. Not chubby huge. Muscular huge.
I grabbed my friend’s arm. “Oh, my gosh! He is so cute!”
“Who?” She turned to look. “I don’t know him, but I know his friend. Come on.” With a forceful tug, she practically dragged me to the other end of the bar. “This is my friend, Kim.”
I perched on the stool beside him, and the second our eyes met, I knew in my heart, soul, and mind that he was the one for me.
That happened in October 1988. So for over a year, my stormy separation and his tenuous relationship status (he had a girlfriend) set up a series of crises that eventually drove me to take by broken dreams to God. After that, I joined a local church. A few Sundays later, one of the choir members approached me after the service.
“Sing with us,” they said.
I hesitated before accepting because my singing talent is mediocre, at best. I hear music, but I cannot associate individual sounds with notes. I can replicate them and even memorize them if I repeat them enough, but it is so easy for me to get thrown off-key. Plus, I am not a typical female soprano-alto. It’s more of a narrow alto-tenor range, leaning closer to tenor than alto.
I attended practice sporadically in the beginning, but as my confidence grew, I went more regularly, at least once or twice a week. We had to practice that much.
Music ministry within the Black Church was much more than singing on Sundays. If a choir was good, they received invitations to sing at external events and at inter-church concerts. We received many such requests and most of our songs were based on scripture, so for over a year, singing with the Metropolitan Singers drenched me in God’s word.
Cap noticed the change in me. Especially when I offered him one last sincere and mind-blowing option.
“You don’t have to choose me. I’m good. I’ve got Jesus.”
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Don't Cry, Mishalariah: A Memoir
Some memoirists are old and close to death. Some are famous—or infamous. They want us to remember their story, and not the stories others tell about them. Others, perhaps not as well known, want us to remember something essential. Something that transcends their own lives in stories that go against the current culture.