And I Was Struck All At Once

So Few People Know What They're Capable Of.

I Watched Him, Filled With Tenderness And Ache, Wondering What It Was That Connected Us. Was It The Wounded Places Down Inside People That Sought Each Other Out, That Bred A Kind Of Love Between Them?

I Could Even Feel How Perishable All My Moments Really Were, How All My Life They Had Come To Me Begging To Be Lived, To Be Cherished Even.

This Is The Autumn Of Wonders, Yet Every Day, Every Single Day, I Go Back To That Burned Afternoon In August When T. Ray Left. I Go Back To That One Moment When I Stood In The Driveway With Small Rocks And Clumps Of Dirt Around My Feet And Looked Back At The Porch. And There They Were. All These Mothers. I Have More Mothers Than Any Eight Girls Off The Street. They Are The Moons Shining Over Me.

I Vividly Remember The Summer Of 1964 With Its Voter Registration Drives, Boiling Racial Tensions, And The Erupting Awareness Of The Cruelty Of Racism. I Was Never The Same After That Summer.