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Middle Passages
By
May 24, 2008, 19:44

Middle Passages

Has life ever stranded you somewhere you didn’t want to be, or someplace you hadn’t planned to go, far from home? Have you ever had an unexpected misfortune? Has a tragedy ever destroyed something or someone that you loved?

Such events are the middle passages of our lives. We all face them.

You may have lost a job, a home, or a loved one. Thousands of people are displaced, homeless refugees and orphans due to recent massive earthquakes, hurricanes, and devastating floods.

Where can we go when life become grim, dreary and painful? We can go to a place called hope, and we must practice a thing called faith. Hebrews 11:1 says: Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. Faith in God and hope for the future has helped many people, including my mother, to survive adverse circumstances.

Recently, I visited the renowned National Underground Railroad Freedom Center in Cincinnati with my mother and my sister. This center, visited by people worldwide, is a museum dedicated to freedom for all and based on the history of the Underground Railroad that helped abolish slavery in America.

The trans-Atlantic voyages that brought African slaves to American soil are known as the Middle Passage. Treatment of slaves was often unspeakably inhumane. Millions did not survive the arduous journey.

There were no amber alerts for abducted slaves. Kidnapped fathers and mothers, sons and daughters, never went home again. Families would never know what happened to their lost loved ones. Those who survived were strong.

Museum exhibits included depictions of slaves packed like chattel on the lower decks of slave ships; a reconstructed log cabin once used as a holding pen for slaves at auctions; and bronze, life-sized sculptures of slave men and women huddled in chains, waiting to be sold. I saw whip-scars engraved on the backs of these figurines and tried to imagine how horrific that life must have been for the countless souls who died in slavery.

As we continued our tour, it dawned on me that I had a living, breathing example of strength and courage right by my side that day. It was my 87 year-old mother, Mrs. Shibbolethia B. (Smith) Lewis, who is a retired school teacher.

I listened as she reflected on various exhibits from the vantage point of her wheelchair. My mom was the first one in her family to go to college. She graduated from Wilberforce, a historically black university founded because segregation kept blacks from attending white schools.

Her mother, Lillian (Hoskins) Smith, had very little formal education, but did domestic work to help pay for college. Her father, Rev. Wiley Walter Smith, was a Methodist minister. Her grandfather, Emmanuel Hoskins, escaped from slavery and settled in southern Ohio. He ran a farm and a small general store to support his family.

I marvel at the irony. My mother, the descendent of a former slave, had helped educate generations of students, black and white, in her lifetime. She was a living link to a history stretching back before most of us were born.

She has faced many difficulties with dignity: poverty, the depression, discrimination, widowhood, single parenthood, multiple strokes, a mastectomy, heart surgery, severe arthritis, and knee replacement surgeries. She is my most important role model. I love her dearly and I am inspired by the courage and faith with which she has faced her challenges and persevered.

Such inspiration can help us all to navigate the middle passages of our lives. God Bless.