I came from a long line of "marryiers". My grandfather had four wives. Three died and he died on the fourth one. My Dad had four wives. I had three step-mothers and a mother living at the same time. There were 20 siblings. At ten I joined a church which was anti-divorce, so I caught the fever. I was determined I would not put my children through all of the explanations of blended, blended, blended families. "My sister's grandmother etc. So I didn't go into marriage looking out. We had to learn to work it out. All of my kids were going to be by the same daddy. No, lengthy diagrams. So we had our children and our grandchildren. Some of our children reached back and used the values of their forefathers, had nerve enough to tell me that those were my values not theirs. Getting to know and have a relationship with my grandchildren was an obsession of mine. i would agonize every time I would "lose" one. I was busy during my young life, going to prisons, teaching, school, counseling" so I am /was not a babysitter, Parents and children were welcomed at the home together. I had two teenage granddaughters stay with me, one for two school years, and one for about four months. They were sixteen or more so it wasn't babysitting. I love my children and my grandchildren occupies a special place in my heart. I can't believe I have been multiplied many times over. I was the conduit from God to earth and even though the Grands were raised in different cradles-they came from the same seed.

Different Cradles, Same Seed

By Ruby Alexander

AuthorHouse

Copyright © 2011 Ruby Alexander
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4634-2125-0

Chapter One

I'm in an airplane, leaving Minneapolis to go to Los Angeles for a conference, and began to think of all my grandchildren and what I'd want them to know about me in case I died. Things I want to say and questions I'd like to answer even though they haven't been asked. My heart has been broken many times concerning you. Most of you have lived in my house; some for less than a week, and some for a year or more.

Every time I look at you, I see a miracle. If your parents weren't supposed to be born, then you weren't either. I promised God that I would give your parents back to Him, and I did. So, technically if they belonged to God, everything they possess belonged to Him also; including their seed. All of you that I have adopted, whom I call my Godchildren; Milton (six children), Judi (four children), Pat or Trisha (two children), Charlene (three children), and Warren (three children). You and yours are dear to me; you in me and I'm in you. Even the ones who aren't biological, you have just been had by association. I have asked God to show you the way—not to let you go until you have given your hearts completely to Him. That God will help you live up to the purpose to which you were born. You can't spot my life. I didn't say I was perfect, I said you can't spot my life. I have never been mean or evil. You have never seen anything other than a Christ-like spirit in me. I have loved you all the time and protected you when I could. I used to go out of my way to remember your birthdays and Christmas. Then I made a conscious decision to only give gifts to people who have formed a relationship with me; especially the ones old enough to. I have cried many nights thinking of my babies. You are that. I have held all of you on my breast. You can't imagine the hurt I feel. I don't want to go to my grave, or be raptured without you knowing that if no one else loved you unconditionally, Grandma does. You see, I am responsible for you being here. Maybe the doctors were wrong, but I do believe that God worked a miracle in my body through prayer and I conceived your parents. If I had chosen the three other men I was engaged to, you would have been different people. But divine intervention allowed you to be here. You are not here by chance. I wouldn't have been in Minnesota, so I wouldn't have met Judi, Pat or Charlene. Milton's family wouldn't have sent him to anyone but Alex. I have given you and yours to God also. You are always in my prayers.

When some of you were taken away from me, it tore my heart out. I was, in my opinion, a good grandmother and a good in-law. I never interfered unless I felt your safety was threatened. I made sure you had food and a place to stay. When some of you went to foster homes, I made sure I picked up your mom and we visited.

One day your mom took five of you to another town and I didn't know where you were. I knew you were okay because your other grandparents were involved and I knew they were as concerned about your welfare as I was. They were pastors, as we were. Just because two people come from similar backgrounds, is no indication they can be compatible in a marriage. Your parents were both eighteen when they got married and neither was ready for marriage or responsibility. The children came too fast.

You were not a mistake. I believe that God chose you to be in our family and that He has a plan for your life. You must listen carefully to His directions. He will direct you. It's up to you whether you have a hard time getting to the high road, but to the high road you will get! That's your destiny. You are somebody.

I taught coping skills for over ten years. I can remember telling each class (I would get a new class of adults every two weeks), this story: A farmer will take his prize pig to the State Fair and he can win a blue ribbon because the farmer has bathed him, brushed him down, and whatever else it takes for him to win this ribbon. After he has won it and goes back home, the pig, if left alone will go back to the mud. Someone can clean him up on the outside, but they can't change his nature. His nature is to wallow in the mud."

Only you can change your nature with the help of God. You have a choice. My dad used to say, "If you fall, don't wallow; don't stay down there. Get up and try it again". Know that that kind of life is beneath you.

So I missed a lot of your growing up years. You've been the subject of many of my prayers. Every holiday and birthday I made sure you were taken care of. Then when I couldn't find some of you, I did like AA suggests. In essence, I don't worry about the things I cannot change. I thought, "When they get old enough, they will find me". I made a policy that I wasn't going to be anyone's Santa Claus. When a person, be it family or not, is old enough to form a relationship with me and chooses not to, then I won't stick my nose in their business. When they want me, I'll probably be there.

I want all of you to know that I love you dearly and want only the best for you. But, as some of your parents told me, "My values aren't their values". So I keep my opinions to myself unless asked, but no one can tell me what to pray for. I don't pray that you come to our church. I pray that you come to know and love God. When you have accomplished this, your values will change. I'm only talking to the ones who might need this. There are twenty-three of you who are fourteen and older. None of you are in jail and from what I bear, you are not on drugs. I pray that the hounds of Heaven continue to nip at your heels until you run right into your destiny. The twenty-two younger ones, I'm in their lives. I have visited grand kids in Seattle, Omaha, Detroit, and Jacksonville. All of you are an extension of me.

One Sunday, I informed the congregation that I believed in abortions. I waited for a reaction. The church was quiet. I could feel their uneasiness. Maybe a few were judgmental, but I had everyone's attention. I finally told them how negative thoughts should be aborted when first conceived; use the morning after pill. Even if the thought has been allowed to grow for months, abort it. It is your decision, your right, and your choice to keep that negative thought or kill it. A thought is a seed that will yield off springs somewhere down the line it you don't abort it.

Chapter two, 9:8, in Samuel states that the king's grandson was invited to sit and eat at King David's table. The grandson fell off his chair and lay on the floor and called himself a dog. The king thought him worthy of eating with him, but Mephibosheth, son of Jonathan, the son of King Saul, thought he was nothing.

The king invites us to come and dine, but we say, "I can't because I haven't given up this habit, or I've got something in my life to take care of before I can sit at your table". How are you ever going to get any nourishment in your anemic body if you don't come to the table? Now will you ever get the strength to get well if you don't eat? Unless you allow the king to feed you, you will never gain the strength to turn your life around. Those "I can't" thoughts should be aborted.

Someone told me if I wanted to learn the computer to ask my grand kids. Well, assuming you know how to delete something from the computer, or cancel the command on the microwave, why then don't you try that with your thoughts? Reprogram your subconscious. After you have aborted every negative thought about yourself and others, put a guard (the Word of God and other positive books and tapes), at the door of your mind that will only accept pure, lovely, true, good report thoughts, and reject anything harmful.

There's a song that says, "Come over here, the table is spread, the feast of the Lord is now going on". You have been invited to the table. God would not invite a "dog" to His feast. He deems you worthy. Go and dine with Him so you can grow to maturity; you can be nourished and nurtured. Now during the dinner conversation you can team how better to abort those thoughts and become the person you were born to be. Even a caterpillar knows he was born to fly. The king has fixed a gourmet dinner. He has bid you come and dine. Abort that indecisive thought and choose to let Him prepare the table before you.

Grandma doesn't preach very often, but there are some things I've never had a chance to tell some of you. One day I was trying to videotape a gospel program and couldn't find a clean tape. I found an old Ninja tape and taped over it. Sometimes you want to record something new, but your tape is full ... tape over it.

You may have hurt many people in your lifetime, sometimes your parents, siblings, teachers, or friends. Whatever the case, no mailer how much you've done in your short lifetime God has made provisions for your forgiveness, and a way for you to forgive. He wipes the slate clean and doesn't even remember your sins anymore The Bible says, "Satan is the accuser of the brethren". It's the negative force who will always bring up your past to you. Record over that accusation. Make sure you have tried to rectify your mistake and forsake it. Ask forgiveness and accept that it is done. When that negative force puts in that tape, eject it. Don't let it play. It's your choice. Don't dwell on how good that joint was or how you felt in the arms of your so-called lover. Don't dwell on how you hate the one who raped you or that incestuous relationship.

If you have to remember anything, remember that drugs kill millions of brain cells, kill many people in car accidents, break up families, leaving widows, widowers, and parentless children, and make people lose jobs, homes and other possessions. Remember that your lover gave you a disease or left you pregnant and is now with someone else, so you are not missing anything.

Thank God that your rapist didn't kill you; that things stopped going on in your family before you lost your mind completely. Talk to someone you trust. If something unseemly is going on, tell someone. Don't keep it to yourself. After that is taken care of, stop blaming yourself. Change that tape. Learn to eject. Tape some positive movies. Dwell on pleasant things. You might have to get some professional help, but as Malcolm X said, "By any means necessary".

In Genesis 32:28 God changed Jacob's name to Israel. If you've been recording Jacob, the trickster, change your tape to record Israel, a prince. Sometimes it's hard to change tapes. Jacob wrestled all night with an angel and said he wouldn't let go until he was blessed or changed. You have to make a conscious effort to reprogram those tapes even if you have to wrestle with your demon until you win.

Write a letter. Read it, cry and then tear it up. I started this when (was fourteen. I used to write a friend who was in the Army, or to some of my pen pals. Tell them everything, but don't mail it. Be your own confidant. There are some things that you should only tell God. He won't betray your confidence. You are writing to a real person and it's a very good outlet.

The only thing I have to leave you is your history, the part I know. I will ask your grandfather, Aunt Pauline and Aunt Birdie to write their part. I want you to know why you feel the way you do and what illnesses you are prone to.

Chapter Two

My earliest memories are when I was five. I lived in a little two-room, red house on East End Avenue in Chicago Heights, Illinois. The year was 1941. I remember the blackouts and the radio programs "Lights Out", "Bull Dog Drummond", "The Shadow", and "Fibber McGee & Molly". It was so exciting to me to be in the dark with my parents listening to these scary stories them explaining to me that we were in a war and we were practicing what to do just in case the war came to our land.

We had one bedroom, a kitchen and a bathroom. There were three of us in our house, my parents and me. I slept with them. "Every shut eye ain't sleep", is a saying my dad taught me, I think the entire statement is "Every shut eye ain't sleep, and every goodbye ain't gone". I don't know every time my parents had sex, but one particular night I do remember. I also remember how funny I was feeling in my lower parts, and that year I started masturbating I didn't know what you called it, but I know when I felt funny down there that I could stop that feeling by crossing my legs a certain way.

I learned other lessons in 1941. I was going to Sunday school. I saw one of my playmates that happened to be White. She was playing with a doll. I admired the doll and she asked me if wanted it. Of course I did! She gave it to me and I took it to church with me. When I came home I was faced with a stealing charge. The girl's mother had been to our house demanding the doll back. When I got home, Mother marched the doll and me back to the girl's house. I learned not to accept gifts without my mother's permission. At five, I also learned if you swallow a penny you could look for it the next day, if you used the toilet.

I learned that eating too many tomatoes right from the garden can give you hives. My grandmother washed me down with salt and vinegar for the itch. I learned that if your parents were fighting, you might get socked if you cried. I also learned that you shouldn't pull up your mother's dress and show her best friend the black and blue marks on her thighs.

My mother's best friend was my best friend George's mother. I was five and he was four. He's the one who taught me to look for swallowed matter in your stool. We were a team. George, Ruby (the doll girl), and Raymond. Two Whites and two Blacks ... the East End kids in 1941.

Also in 1941 I went to visit my grandparents in Cleveland, Mississippi. I remember the train ride. It was around Christmas time. I had on a snowsuit. When we arrived at our destination, people looked at me like I was a freak. They had never seen a snowsuit and it was too warm there for this kind of gear.

In my grandparent's house somewhere between Cleveland and Pace, Mississippi, we had a fireplace and a wood-burning cook stove. I don't remember how many moms we had, but the term "shotgun house" fits the bill. You could look straight through the house. At night we would light the oil lamps, build the fire hotter, and put some sweet potatoes in the ashes. I'd help my grandmother churn butter. We would drink our water from a dipper, which we kept in a bucket I learned to prime the pumps so we could get water for washing, cooking, bathing and drinking. We had a barrel on the side of the house to catch rainwater so we could wash our hair. I remember worms and bugs in this water; we had to strain them out.

While I was visiting, we all went to the fields. They tied a pillow slip to my back. I can't remember going to the fields but once or twice. They must have realized that I was more in the way than being of help so they sent me to school with the cousins. It was held in a church. All eight grades in one room. Miss Ann was our teacher at the Pleasant Valley School/Church.

Miss Ann taught me to spell my name when I was five. My grandfather, Simon Perkins, had taught me what he knew ... Rubie Lee Willie. Well, Willie was not my last name and I got a lick on my hand for every letter in my last name "Williams", I learned to spell my name that day

At five I also learned that you could kill a snake with a hoe. My Aunt Mattie, my mother's youngest sister, took me fishing. She killed that snake. Could it be that at age five my snake phobia began? At this same time I also learned that some older boys could be nasty-. I was on my way to Sunday school, which was about two country blocks from my grandparent's house. On the road, a truck stopped and three White guys about the age of fourteen and fifteen (they looked like men to me) asked me for some pussy. I pretended I had never heard the word. They said, "Awe, she dumb" and drove off. I was so scared I ran to my cousin's house between Grandma's and the church.

I also learned my first Easter speech that year; "What you lookin' at me for? I didn't come to stay. I just come to tell you today is Easter Day!" I learned the value of giving. My dad gave me two nickels, one for church/ God and one for me. I dropped one nickel. I looked for it diligently. When I was satisfied that I wasn't going to find it I said, `There go your nickel God"! (I called him Dod)!

(Continues...)

Excerpted from Different Cradles, Same Seedby Ruby Alexander Copyright © 2011 by Ruby Alexander. Excerpted by permission of AuthorHouse. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.