Maya Angelou/Marguerite Ann Johnson

(April 4, 1928 – May 28, 2014)

---

My heart skipped a beat when I first learned of her departure. She has been so inspirational to me. As a single teen mom growing up and experiencing things I never would have imagined, her motivation, intelligence, and divine courage wrapped up in the love for God and humanity is what kept me sane.

She was and is an epitome of motherhood, unity, and for me a messenger on life ~Living In Faith Everyday.

Reading was an escape for me coming up and still is today, and her books were pages that I absorbed in essence of struggle overcome with DIVINE STRENGTH, CHARACTER, COURAGE & LOVE, all via an ethereal transcendent nurturing.

I write publicly today because one of the life’s lesson she spoke once was “Write it so that people can hear it and it slides through the brain and goes straight to the heart” (Angelou, M., American Poet, b.1928).

Dr. Angelou had panache for the “Tongue” in the sense of linguistics, language, culture, and unity. In a world where racism was born and still is present today, she embodied freedom in a literary song of an extrapolating melody. It sang of change, newness, oneness and mostly that of spiritual liberty.

“Speaking to yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord; Giving thanks always for all things unto God and the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ; Submitting yourselves one to another in the fear of God”

(Ephesians 5:19-21 KJV).

When you read her dialogue, automatically it captivated you, and whisked you off to the era of experience whereby you FELT the pain, joy, sadness and BURN via perseverance and vigor.

I salute her departure with love because, no longer does the song of freedom lie in this Ladybird’s belly, for freedom has taken her to the promised land where she has been journeying towards for eight and half decades. That says a lot! You know there is a promised seventy years for us if we would but live right, but you just know you must have done some pretty amazing things and exuded a far greater love to have an extra sixteen or more.

“The days of our years are threescore years and ten; and if by reason of strength they be fourscore years, yet is their strength labour and sorrow; for it is soon cut off, and we fly away”

(Psalm 90:10 KJV).

This woman as a child began her tests of faith, with abuse, neglect, prejudices, bias and self-esteem issues. Nevertheless, she had the stanching approach of a lion’s courage to deter or cauterised her own bleeding heart via her writings. She doddled around this universe as if she knew what lie ahead…traveling to other countries and embracing multiple cultures and languages like it was her second skin. That fascinated me.

“Delight thyself also in the Lord: and he shall give thee the desires of thine heart. Commit thy way unto the Lord; trust also in him; and he shall bring it to pass”

(Psalm 37:4-5 KJV).

She started out doing music, playwriting, acting, song and dance, but her gift that would make plenteous more room for her came as her life’s canvas of penmanship and voila “Woman became Phenomenal, Freedom had a different chime and love’s escape was through rhythm and rhyme.”

I am blessed that I took a sabbatical of reading a couple of months ago to get in some more reading of her last book Mom, Me,and Mom and even re-checked “Letter To My Daughter”. The only book of hers that I currently own or still have in my possession is the “Heart of A Woman”.

On March 4, 2014 One of my Brand New Mercies Post reads:

3rd Month Day 3 & 4 Brand New Mercies Day 3 I finished my last piece of Letter to My Daughter and just as thought it was worth it (saving the best for last)…she quoted her grandmother saying “she didn’t know quite how to find the things they needed but how she would just step out on the word of God” (Para, Angelou, M., 2008 |Excerpt from Maya Angelou LETTER TO MY DAUGHTER. p.166).

Funny though how in prayer I stated the same thing recently and GOD delivers! Thinking on the poem “Surviving” from Chapter 23, pp.135-137 and the stanza which talks about true love, friends, family, and heartbreak, are just one of many tests of faith and fights in which love is undying as we so commandeer the vitality of our youthfulness (Para, Angelou, 2008).

[“Each time my search for true love leads me to the gates of hell where Satan waits with open arms I imagine the laughter of women friends, their souls tinkle like wind charms urged by a searching breeze I remember the sturdy guffaw of happy men and my feet, without haste, and with purpose move past the threatening open gates to an area, secure from the evil of heartbreak. [sic] The emotional sway of events and the impermanence of construction echo the ways of dying love. I have found that platonic affection in friendships, the familial love for children can be relied upon with certainty to lift the bruised soul, and repair the wounded spirit and I am finished with erotic romance. Until….”] (Maya Angelou, American Poet b1928).

Day 3 (later that evening) I ran across a blessing heaven-sent, good & perfect, and I too was stepping out on the solemn word of God. Day 4 Confirmation of yesterday: “God does not tempt you but he will test your faith”…. HE never fails, sometimes, scratch that ALWAYS, we have to be bold enough when being tried in the fire (tests of faith) to walk circumspectly as RECEIVERS (in expectation ~ speaking, trusting and knowing “HE GOT YOU”). Our Father is a WEALTHY King and as heirs, we have access to the kingdom and all within it. Speak those things, as not as though they were is all I am saying. HIGH-STEP in an all-encompassing prosperity. HE takes care of all (every one) of our needs! I am walking in the realm of prosperity and GOD is providing! I am so thankful for true LOVE (GOD)! Hallelujah! Hallelujah! Hallelujah! Hallelujah! Hallelujah! Hallelujah! Hallelujah!]

Who knew nearly three months after this literary sabbatical, I would be saying farewell, in my own words.

I once had a small collection of her writings but they were lost in a fire. Thank God for Libraries though, because books are expensive and with good reason. They are the transference in soul essence of the writer where experience and emotions are. In Jr, High School, I began to search through black history and her book “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings”, just happened to be one of the first black authored books I read, along with literature from Langston Hughes, W.E.B. Dubois and other books on black inventors. They were not teaching the truth about black history then and I wondered, “Why are these things in the library but aren’t taught in class”.

“Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth”

(2 Timothy 2:15 KJV).

It was at that moment when vicarious travel through time took flight in my life and my love for reading, writing, drawing, singing, and dancing became my nemesis to the abuse I was suffering. Dr. Angelou’s journey to numerous countries and marrying into different cultures was astonishing for a little girl (me) who so wanted to travel to distant shores. She embodied a phoenix, a butterfly and a lion to me. She always arose from whatever adversity she faced and if someone tried to cocoon her [box her in] she transformed into something newer, and she was fierce in zeal, devotion, and had a courage of “CAN DO” and equated all things to her belief and love for God.

“I can do all things through Christ which strengthens me” (Philippians 4:13 KJV).

I could go on and on about Madame Maya Angelou, but I will stop here. Thanks for sharing my memory of her life and its effect on mine.

To Guy Johnson, Oprah Winfrey, and all other “adopted children” of hers….

May we always remember the effective heart and affective spirit of this “Phenomenal Woman”…I know I will.

LaSonya

Maya Angelou/Marguerite Ann Johnson

(April 4, 1928 – May 28, 2014)

“If you’re always trying to be normal, you will never know how amazing you can be”

~Maya Angelou

American Poet.b1928

“Never will I forget the Lessons You Taught” ~LaSonya

“You may encounter many defeats but you must not be defeated”

~Maya Angelou American Poet.b1928

“FREEDOM”…no longer the song of this once caged bird…For she has taken flight on Angelic Wings and writing heavenly stanzas that the sky now sings: “Welcome Home, Madame Angel You”

With Love,

~LaSonya