Originally published 11.9.09
by Callie Robinson Lee
My name is Callie Robinson Lee, I’m a native of Cincinnati, Ohio. My birth family, long deceased, hailed from the South, mainly Montgomery, Alabama. I am writing this on November 4, 2009 on the occasion of my youngest son, Bruce Lee’s, 18th birthday.
I am the mother of three Black sons born and raised in the inner city. My oldest son is Damien and my middle son is AJ. Suffice it to say, we are the entire family, the sum total to one another. I don’t know of any other family in my neighborhood who has no extended family, nowhere to send the kids for the Summer, for a break, etc.
I was always at the wheel, so to speak. My boys needed uncles, grandfathers, MEN in their lives like air and water. As young adults they still manage to remain outside of the prison system and off street drugs.
If I can have one wish, I wish above anything else to precede my boys crossing over. I’m not morbid, I’m unafraid and I’m a realist. I, like many other good parents, do not want to bury one of my seeds. I humbly say that I feel I have a covenant with our Creator regarding my sons living on past my time. So we try not to live recklessly, tempting the Father with blatant disregard knowing that God is Holy and requires obedience. No one is perfect but thankfully we have Grace. ALL of us human beings have that. What wonderful news! It gets better.
With Hope and Faith, our paths do sometimes cross with exceptional human beings like the people involved with this watershed film, ‘Raising Boys’. Social media has given me/us the ability to contact people quickly who do positive things, who can tell the Brothers and Sisters we need a “hand up“.
I’m not too proud to say…I need a lifeline, a support group to get on my feet in the workforce and use the same skills I used as a diligent mother. I remained academic from my childhood beginnings and I passed the value of education on to my sons as it was told to me by the “old folksâ€.
Anyway, I feel in my Spirit I have a lot of LIVING to do! There are so many places I have never visited even in the U.S., not to mention abroad. I know I’m not by myself on this topic because many are forced to postpone vacations. When we meet, and we will, I love to laugh. A merry heart does good like a medicine and my smile is genuine. The evil forces that be probably thought I would be a casualty, a victim after this long journey in the wilderness.
And Still I Rise…
Related articles:
- Part 1 of Black Women in America: “Raising Boys†by Malaika Gardner
- Part 2 of Black Women in America: “Raising Boys” by Jordannah Nathan
- Part 3 of Black Women in America: “Raising Boys†by Alisha Muhammad
- Part 4 of Black Women in America: “Raising Boys†by Mavis Jackson
- Part 5 of Black Women in America: “Raising Boys†by Attorney Sadiyah Evangelista
- Part 6 of Black Women in America: “Raising Boys†by Alicia Jackson
- DOUBLE DUTY: The Black Woman’s Struggle Raising Boys Alone
- “Raising Boys” Documentary Houston Premiere November 5