Dreams Lived Boldly

"The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists on trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man” George Bernard Shaw.

Your grandpa loved his wife and kids with everything in him. He used to follow your grandma around the house from room to room as she cleaned the house, and sit by the garden as she tended her garden. He would take her with him everywhere he could. When she was in her last trimester of her pregnancy with Aunt Chenai he had to go to London England for three months for work, he missed her birth, but as soon as was possible he flew them to him. He didn’t want to wait. When he had to travel for work he always bought home the best looking dresses and outfits for grandma. For himself he had no style, for grandma and his girls he was style savvy.  As a little girl I spent hours just sitting in her closet smelling and feeling her clothes and shoes. A couple of times I took a book to read. Grandma didn’t like it when I did that but I didn’t stop. When I got older I convinced her to give me one pair of 70’s knee high boots. Major score! I “assigned” myself a 60’s suede leather boho handbag with fringe. It was to die for and I had asked too many times and gotten nowhere. It took a while before she realized it but let’s just say, it wasn’t pretty, but I got to keep it. Another Major score. When they would go to dinner for his job she looked like a million bucks and grandpa looked at her like she was a billion. I loved how grandma loved grandma.

He called his kids Stars. In his eyes we were stars and there was nothing we couldn’t do. And when we occasionally forgot that he’d remind us the only way he knew how, forcefully. He could be a very intense man especially when it came to his kids and their future. Aunt Chenai and Danai were in addition to being stars his flowers. It used to warm my heart on a Saturday morning when he went around the house looking for his flowers and then once he found them, he’d take them for a ride and stop by a grocery store and buy them whatever their hearts desired.  He used to have a regular ritual when he got home when we were younger. He’d say his hello’s in the kitchen and then tell us to wait for his call. Five minutes later we’d line up at the end of the hallway that led directly to their bedroom where he stood waiting , and he’d call one by one to run to him and he’d pick us up high, pluck a kiss on the cheek and ..next! I loved that so much I was crushed when I got older and it wasn’t appropriate anymore

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 With each one of us he had a theme of similar interests. With your mommy we would talk about business and later his businesses in particular. We’d talk about how I would one day take over. We bonded over our intense love for watermelons (cracked open by him throwing one to the floor and then digging in with our hands...heaven) and literature. We loved the same authors and would have discussions about themes in my assigned literature at school. The funniest was how when he travelled he’d buy books to read in the hotel, and when he came back he’d give them all to me. The funny part was some of them were probably inappropriate for a thirteen year old but he just loved to see me read. As the first he was hard on me so for years the love was mixed with a healthy dose of fear, occasional frustration, and desire to make my father proud.

With Uncle Shingi, they loved to talk politics and sports. They joked and laughed a great deal together. Even though he was hard on his only son, when they had these times grandpa always had a look of pride and a twinkle in eye when his son spoke.  He was super proud of his actor son, who always got the best school play roles and nailed them. He'd interrupt or nudge his neighbor in the audience to let them know “that’s my son" and start beaming with pride.

With Aunt Chenai they shared an intense love of history.  They would talk about Napoleon as if he was our neighbor or the French revolution as if it was just on local news. They would debate history as if they were defense and prosecutor. She was as he called her his “controversial" one. Once Aunt Chenai told grandpa she was struggling with her history class (as in I feel like a B I need to be an A). Grandpa recommended a book and told her read that book only and on her finals she got an “A”.  They would wake everyone in the household during World Cup football. Each time their favorite team scored a goal even if it was1am in the morning Aunt Chenai would run down the hallway pound on your grandparents bedroom door and barge in to high five grandpa, run back to the living room until the next goal. Ridiculous!

Aunt Danai was his baby so he was gentler with her. She was also the smartest one of us so she could get away with almost anything. He attended every award assembly that she was awarded her 1st/2nd in class prize, it was a regular occurrence.  Whenever we wanted more goodies from the grocery store we would give her our requests and have her go with grandpa and we got everything on the list. She was the best little sister.

He was honest with us even when we were too young to get it. When he became an entrepreneur I was maybe ten, but he sat us down and explained to us what was happening as if we were adults. He took us on a drive when we were older, I was maybe 15/16 to tell us how the government’s new economic structure had affected his business and without friends in high places he'd be in trouble. He even explained how each dollar that came in was broken down and how much more he had to borrow from the bank to keep afloat. That was a hard ride for me that’ll never forget. I hurt for him and my mommy and was scared for our family. We’d dodged a bullet but really it wasn't over yet. Thanks to his honesty my life was a lesson in how to/not run businesses. A couple of years later he lost the business and we had to sell our childhood home to a Jewish-American family the Greenburg’s. They were really nice people and I felt okay about them until they started gutting the house to make it more them. I got it but it still hurt it was so final.

I am sure he felt deep sadness and disappointment and more. He still had some means but now didn’t have his business to grow that and had lost the home he had purchased for his kids. We were far from struggling when we left but it was not the same anymore. He had worked so hard having walked his way out the village. He had grown up poor in a village in east of Zimbabwe, they lived in two mud huts with straw roofs cooking over wood fires and sleeping on concrete floors with nine brothers and sisters. His after school program as a young boy was herding cattle and goats.  I say walked his way out because he did his studies by candlelight and walked a day and a half to write his finals and qualified to go to University. All this during the Second Chimurenga War (Revolution War) - a time when black people had limited rights and opportunities and were treated as second class citizens or worse than dogs. Once at University an opportunity came up for him to pick up arms and fight, but one of the recruiters was arrested just before they planned to leave to train. Apparently God had other plans for him. He then fought the war with as he once put it to me “with my mind through knowledge" and stayed at University. He made sure to continue going to  the revolution meetings and being an information and necessity mule from one safe house to another for the political party fighting for independence.

Before and after independence he and his new bride grandma started helping his siblings and cousins out of the village to start a better life in the city. It was easier after as he was able to buy a bigger home in the once white only suburbs. Eventually we set roots in one of those suburbs on 7.5 acres of land with 6 bedrooms, 3 baths and enough living space for the many that came through. In first grade my teacher asked us to go around and say how many people were in our family and I said 12. She looked at me strange and emphasized she meant just in our house and I said “yes 12”. The other kids laughed and I felt odd, but that was all I'd ever known.  When Aunt Danai was in kindergarten she was asked the same question she said 26. Her teacher was disturbed to the point of calling your grandparents to make sure all was well at home. After that she was given as she puts it “a big old lecture” on sticking with the number six. It was a long time before we were just six. Throughout the years family that now includes doctors, accountants, bankers, nurses, homemakers, secretaries and teachers lived, studied and started their own lives in that home. All because your grandpa wanted a better life for himself and his extended family. With this people revered him, sought his counsel and let him talk to them, well as he put it “let me be frank". (He stirred strong emotions in people and they weren't always love). When he lost his business many family members turned their backs and it hurt him deeply. I believe he died with a broken heart because of it. He never understood why. He died with naiveté with regards to his close family, and why they didn't want the best for him and couldn't get his vision. Even when it didn't make sense even to us his kids I know he just wanted to be respected as he had been before. I know it later made him more desperate in his attempt to regain the illusion of his grandeur when he started other businesses.

Your grandpa with all his strengths and weakness loved his family and lived boldly and he would have adored you. You are part of his amazing legacy and you should be proud of being a true African and American woman.

Dec 2007 Grandma and Granpa reading to cousin Jenny and Josh

Grandpa and cousin Jenny chat