Ever Lee Hairston - Blind Ambition

Blind Ambition

By Ever Lee Hairston

Houston, Texas * Washington, D.C.

Blind Ambition 2015 by Ever Lee Hairston

Brown Girls Publishing, LLC

www.browngirlspublishing.com

ISBN: 9781625179159 (ebook)

ISBN: 9781625179166 (print)

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means including electronic, mechanical or photocopying or stored in a retrieval system without permission in writing from the publisher except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages to be included in a review.

First Brown Girls Publishing LLC trade printing

Manufactured and Printed in the United States of America

If you purchased this book without a cover, you should be aware that this book is stolen property. It is reported as unsold and destroyed to the publisher, and neither the author nor the publisher has received any payment for this stripped book.

Contents

My mission in life is not merely to survive, But to thrive; And to do so with some passion, some compassion, some humor and some style.

-Maya Angelou

Growing up, I faced many disappointments, which greatly diminished my self-confidence or perhaps shadowed my self-esteem. But I had to learn that we may encounter many defeats but we must not be defeated.

Through everything that Ive endured, I believe that my life has a purpose. I have had to learn to love myself and honor myself as I am.

I know that honor, self-respect and self-love are crucial to happiness. I have forgiven others because holding onto resentment, anger, and hatred only hurts me and robs me of my lifes joy and happiness. It is also important to forgive myself. Regret is an appalling waster of energy and I cannot throw away my happiness on guilt or shame.

Therefore, I have gratitude for all of life because gratitude unlocks the fullness of life and turns what we have into enough and more. It turns denial into acceptance and turns chaos into order.

Gratitude makes sense of my past and brings peace for today and creates a vision for tomorrow. So, I have made the choice to be constantly grateful for all of life.

Thanks to my family (Biological family and Federation of the Blind Family); To my friends and acquaintances, I have been so fortunate to meet over the years; and especially to God for love, hope and determination.

I hope you enjoy my story.

Ever Lee

Chapter 1

I can hear my mothers voice as if it were yesterday.

Ever Lee!

No matter where I was upstairs in my bedroom, downstairs in the front room, or even playing with my brothers and sisters out front, I always heard my mother calling me.

Ever Lee! Get me some eggs.

Even though gathering the eggs that the chickens had laid was one of my chores, I always dreaded it. But there was no way I would disobey my mother. So when she called, I did what I had to do.

It always felt like such a long walk to the kitchen. To get there, I had to walk across the squeaky planks of the back porch from one side of the house to the other. The kitchen was on the opposite side from where I slept and the kitchen was where the chickens laid their eggs right beneath the floor. That was why some of the floor planks were left loose...so that all you would have to do was reach down and grab the eggs.

But for me, there was only one problem with that.

Snakes!

I was really scared of snakes. Whenever one got anywhere near me, I would take off, running as fast as my legs would take me. Thats why I dreaded getting the eggs. Because if the eggs were under the house, there could be a snake down there, too.

But even though I was afraid, I still had to do what my mother told me. So, I would go to the center of the kitchen and stand over the loose plank, then lift it up. My hands were always shaking as I held the plank with the tips of my fingers. Crouching down, I would get low enough to put my hand beneath the floor, but I was still high enough so that I could make a run for it if I saw a snake.

Most of the time, though, I was able to get under the house, get those eggs, drop down that plank, and give the eggs to my mother all without being attacked. But doing that chore was always so stressful.

Id been afraid of snakes and any kind of rodent all of my life. But snakes and rodents were just a part of living on a plantation in the country.

Thats where I lived...on a plantation. I was born on the Cooleemee Plantation, which was in the western part of North Carolina. The plantation was just one of many that was owned by the Hairstons, who were originally a family from Scotland. And during the 1600s, 1700s, and 1800s, the Hairstons were one of the richest slave-owners in the country, with plantations throughout North Carolina, Mississippi, and Virginia.

By the time I was born, the owners of the Cooleemee Plantation where I lived were Miss Elma Hairston and her son, Judge Peter Hairston, III. Miss Elma was a widow; her husband, Peter had passed away a few years before I was born.

The Cooleemee Plantation may have been in the Hairston family for generations, but it was also where my ancestors had lived for just as long. Even though slavery had ended many, many years before I was born, my family was still there my grandparents and parents were part of what many called the new slavery...they were sharecroppers and we all lived there on that land.

While my grandfather and grandmother worked in the fields, their primary responsibilities were in the plantation house, taking care of Miss Elma and her family. Back in the day, my grandfather, William Thomas Hairston, wouldve been called the house nigger, but when I was growing up, most people had stopped using that term at least in public.

My grandfather did a little bit of everything for the Hairstons, serving their needs;

Tending and cultivating the vegetable garden, beating the biscuits daily, which was a ritual and churning the butter. While he did that, my grandmother, Ruth (who everyone called Charmin) did most of the cooking. Then, after a long day at the plantation house, my grandparents would return home to their log cabin, which was on the plantation, too. And it was there where they raised twelve children, the seventh one being my father, Clarence.

My father and his siblings had to work hard growing up, doing all kinds of chores like taking care of the farm animals, gathering firewood (which we used for heating and cooking), planting and plowing the fields, and even getting out there in the fields during the season and picking cotton, gathering corn and wheat.

It was a life of long days and hard work, which is probably why all of my fathers brothers and sisters grew up and moved away. Every single one of my aunts and uncles migrated to bigger cities in North Carolina, and some even moved far away to the North. But, wherever they went, they all left except for my father.

I never knew why my father stayed behind. Maybe he knew that someone had to look after his parents and he just took on that responsibility. But, he stayed on Cooleemee and built his own life.

He met my mother, Arizona, in church and just a few years later, they were married. My parents had seven children: Roger, (who we called Wence) Rosie, and then, I came third. Right after me, was my sister, Rebecca. She and I were very close, primarily because I felt it was my responsibility to take care of her. Rebecca was a sickly child who had to have several surgeries growing up and I always did what I could, whenever I could to make her feel better. Rounding out our family was Mary Louise, Verona, and Clarence, Jr. who never lived in the log cabin like me and the rest of my siblings. Clarence was born in the new house that we moved into in 1952.