Lessons from a good daddy and a hard mama

By MIKE WILSON

© St. Petersburg Times, published February 22, 2001

PERSONAL HISTORY

The sixth in a series of first-person stories appearing in February, Black History Month.

Black History Month

Lawanda G. Pate -- everybody calls her Cookie -- graduated from the University of Florida and worked for many years at Rutland Bank. Now she is a mother and homemaker. She and her husband, cross-country truck driver Donald R. Pate, have one child, Donisha, 5, who goes by NeeCee. Cookie Pate, 42, is a St. Petersburg native.

This is her story.

My father is James Fleming. He's still living, and he's a saint. He's a good friend. He's not just my father, he's my dad, you know what I mean? He's the man that can interpret dreams.

My mother was born in Camilla, Ga. One day she followed her daddy even though he told her not to. She was a hardheaded little black female, that's what they told her. In the course of following him, she was snake-bit by a rattler. And my aunt to this day will tell you there ain't nothing but p-- and vinegar in her. . . . My mother, you can put her in a room with mosquitoes, and they won't bite her because they can still smell the snake venom in her. They didn't milk it all out of her. You're looking at the 1930s, and they didn't have that modern medicine stuff they have now. . . . All her sister would tell me was, "Cookie, your mother's just downright mean."

When I was younger, she was an excellent mother. We said excuse me, thank you, please. When we got older and she and my father divorced, it shook her world. She would do anything for my father; she would pull down the sky for him. I've seen it. So she did a flip-flop on me. She went crazy.

My little brother passed in December. He was 39 years old. He was a jack of all trades, he could do everything. But he chose in his life to go to jail. It was easier. This past December he was here and went home to get money. In the course of doing it, he was shot and killed.

Dwight was very important to Mama. Once he passed, she used that as a chance to clown or cut up. This last week she went on a rampage. So I go over to see her, and her comments were, "Cookie, I want to do everything I can to discredit you, to mess up your life." And it was so good to know that she felt that way because now I can be on my guard. You can use adversity to strengthen you. You grow from it. It can either conquer you or you can grow from it and be a better person.

My mistake has been that many times I relied on her as a mom, but she wasn't. She was just a person that had me. I don't want to be that kind of mama.

I need NeeCee to respect me as her mother first. Then I need her to come to me, no matter what it is. She needs to be able to come to me in confidence. Mama's taught me, in all of the adversity, to go within myself and be that strong person. I don't have to be. I want to be. Then, too, I want to see heaven. I want to see heaven so bad.

My dream for NeeCee is that she too finds the Lord and she depends on him to take her through crises. I'd like for NeeCee to find herself first, to be complete within herself. I want her to be NeeCee first, then she can teach a man to love her. And then she won't have to put up with no mess, either.

- Interview by Mike Wilson, Times staff writer

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