What is Maya Angelou made of?
This week’s winner
MANILA, Philippines – Ma. Lourdes J. Watiwat, 43, of Las Piñas City is a engineering graduate who has studied Japanese language and now tutors Russian Embassy students in math, science and English. In her spare time she reads non-fiction books, goes to bargain sales, collects stamps, travels and treats her diabetes.
I have always been amazed by the name “Maya Angelou.” It sounds like a melody, like a song to my ears.
Maya comes from her childhood nickname and Angelou from her married name, Angelos. Born in St. Louis, Missouri on April 4, 1928, Marguerite Johnson is now a world-renowned poet and memoirist.
As I go over her stories I have come to understand that Maya Angelou is not just a melody but a gem. She is like black coal pressured under the earth’s hot temperature, pounded, and cut to shine as a stunning diamond. Through her painful past, she learned that each day is a new opportunity. She has said, “Live life fully, fiercely, devotedly… and the scars that you can’t help but acquire can be truly marks of beauty.”
Maya Angelou is a survivor. From her childhood days in poverty to fighting racial oppression, she has overcome much and learned to look at it with optimism. “What I’m interested is in survival,” she writes. “But not just bare, awful, plodding survival. Survival with some style, some faith… I love stories about survival, I’m thrilled by them, enchanted.”
Her writing is about the human condition all humans. She believes human beings are more alike than unalike. It’s that similarity that humans try to thrive not just survive, together with passion and compassion, as well with humor and excitement, including kindness and generosity. The basic theme of her work, as she tells it, is “the refusal of the human spirit to be hardened… persistence of innocence against all obstacles.” Perhaps, this is what was in her mind when she was sexually abused as a child a part of her life that left a terrible mark on her. She felt guilt, instead of hating her abuser. She even thought that she was the one who made it happen.
Another “wrong” thing that turned out right is Maya’s Angelou’s love child, born out of a single loveless encounter. In her confused sexual awareness, she got pregnant it in uncommon way: she chose a popular, handsome guy in her neighborhood and asked him to impregnate her. They never said a word and parted as soon as the act was done. It resulted in a pregnancy that she concealed for eight months. She became a mother at the age of 16.
Despite this, she loved her son whom she named Clyde. It was the best thing that ever happened to her, she writes.
Like anybody, Maya Angelou wants to love and be loved, though her love stories are often stories of despair. She dreamed of being a queen in her own palace, but none of her kings was Mr. Right. However, she was very fortunate: she became part of an international production of Porgy and Bess, and this brought her to perform in many countries. Outside America, she felt more pride about being black, as foreigners were more appreciative of Black American heritage. With her numerous works, awards and achievements she has shown what a remarkable and yet simple person she is, just like any one of us. As she describes it, “You pick yourself up, dust yourself off and prepare to love somebody. I don’t mean sentimentally. I mean the condition of human spirit so profound that it encourages us to build bridges.” She perhaps wants each of us to rise up from every fall or defeat and to connect with one another.
Her prayer is that “he or she should know himself or herself better after reading my works.” Definitely, she has touched and inspired me. I know my struggles were not as hard as hers. I was not abused by anyone, but I abused myself. Ignoring the signs of uncontrolled diabetes, I had to be confined in the hospital for two weeks. I was lucky to have a compassionate surgeon who helped save my left foot, though he had to cut off two toenails so as not to infect the others. The doctor told me if I still want to live, I have to help myself. Doctors can only tell you the do’s and the don’ts; it’s up to the patient to heal himself or herself. I had to accept the fact that losing two toenails would not make me a lesser person. I am luckier than the law student who lost two legs from a grenade blast. I also have a friend who is now in the hospital and he needs a million pesos for his heart operation. Considering their situations, I suffered less than what they had to go through.
I accepted what happened to me because of my neglect in a humorous way. When the doctor cut off the first toenail, I just had a laugh when he said I would need to buy a lot in the memorial park for it. Then a death certificate was brought to my room. The funny nurse said to my sister-in-law, “What is your relation to the dead toenail?” On the next shift of nurses, they all came in as if somebody died and in a mournful way said, “Condolences.” Add to that what my brothers said: that we should have ninth and 40th day remembrances for the toenails. I could not help but laugh.
At first, I didn’t want my mother to know about it; she would blame me, or worse, pity me. But she had to know. As for the other people I know, maybe in time I could tell them, too. Maybe it would be a warning to take care of their health. Experiencing the loss, I could connect with Maya Angelou’s difficult battles, somehow. I have to fight my food cravings, I have to discipline myself top eat only the right food for my condition. I do not have to cheat on my blood sugar monitoring. Most of all, I have to overcome my fear of the insulin shots; I have to do it on my own.
I know what Maya Angelou is made of, aside from her will to live: it’s her thirst for knowledge and, much more, she writes with determination. For her the act of writing is “dragging your pencil across the old scars to sharpen it.” I do agree with her, it is very hard to go over the hurts and pains and try to tell it again. It is to feel the agony once more. But it is a process one must go through to be able to accept and later on it will just be another story. The scars will be there to remind you went through it and have learned the lesson it had to teach… Yes, you will be wiser and not commit the same mistake again.
Just like a melody or a song, Maya Angelou poetically shared her life, dreams and hopes. She taught me the value of knowing one’s self better; that in life, we encounter many defeats but we must learn to fight. We need to suffer some of these defeats, to make us grow to be better persons and be able to help others. As we live life, we cannot help but take the pains and the scars that go with it. These too, are what make us appreciate how beautiful it is to be alive.
