Finding My Voice. Nita Whitaker LaFontaine
Dr. Larry Keene, were in the ICU room with him, the three of them having a lively time, laughing and talking as if they were sitting around our living room.
After they left, Don and I hung out in that clean, square little ICU room with only the heart monitor going and one IV line in place, just in case meds needed to be administered quickly. He was awake very tired, though still talking away. He was not considered critical anymore but he was not out of the woods yet.
“I guess this is where I will spend my birthday,” Don said matter-of-factly. His birthday was four days away.
The year 2008 had been a year of hospitalizations for Don, most of them short, including two others during the summer. I knew he was beginning to get frustrated. He wanted the steroids to work so he could get back to his life. I reminded him about those short stays and told him this would be a short one, too. And I believed it. Then we talked about how we’d be going to Dubai soon—Dubai being Don’s next dream destination.
***
We both loved travel—it was our gift to ourselves—and we felt blessed to be able to give our girls the perspective of seeing other cultures. Don was a history buff, insatiably curious, and with a computer, a microphone, and an internet connection, he could travel and record spots at the same time. “Might as well pay for the trip!” he’d say as the girls and I went off on a short outing while he stayed in the hotel room or stateroom to record a series of spots.
In July 2007 we went to Spain on a cruise, and then to Scotland. There we’d stayed in an eight hundred-year-old castle on magnificently manicured, sprawling grounds. At each historic structure, Don would bend down to touch the lowest stone; “The one first laid by the hand of a man.”
In 2005, we traveled to Italy and Greece. In the sweltering heat, Don knelt to touch the lowest stone of the Parthenon. He was in heaven on this trip at the temple of Olympian Zeus; the Vatican in Rome; the David in Florence; the ruins of Pompeii; and the canals and glass blowing in Venice. It was a dream trip for us all, and we took it in with gusto, thrilled that the girls were able to see these amazing places. Our childhoods had been nothing like this. I’d glance over at him on that trip and see his face lit with little-boy delight.
Though we talked about our travel plans, by ten thirty Don was urging me to go home. He’d been in the hospital since ten that morning, and he was concerned the girls were alone. I didn’t want to leave him. He’d asked the nurse earlier if he could have something for sleep. He was exhausted, having slept only a few hours the past six nights. The nurse explained that a sedative might compromise his breathing. He was going to have to try to sleep without medication. I worried that he would not have an easy night. Before I left I leaned over and nuzzled his cheek, lifted his oxygen mask, and kissed him on the mouth, and we said I love you’s. I got up reluctantly.
Then, just before leaving the room I paused at the glass door, looked back at my husband, raised my hand and we spoke our affirmation.
“I see you well,” I said.
Don responded, “I see me well.”
CHAPTER 3 - HIS EYE IS ON THE SPARROW
“His eye is on the sparrow, and I know He watches me.”
—Hymn
It always blesses me to sing, and for as long as I can remember there was singing all around me. My father was a local gospel soloist and president of the church choir. As a toddler, the youngest of the four Whitaker children, I would sit on my Uncle Leroy’s green linoleum floor in a house just across the backyard from ours in Shreveport, Louisiana, looking up at my handsome, six foot three daddy, Green Whitaker, practicing with his group, The Spiritual Jubilee, seven men who seemed tall as giants to me. They sang without instruments, just the patting of the foot and the rhythmic slapping of the hip to keep time. The harmony was five-part, with my dad usually singing the top notes in a contra tenor voice, and the other men filling in the tones to the bass notes. It was infectious, heartfelt, and delightful to my ears. Secretly, I thought of them as my own singing giants, and on Friday or Saturday nights, as they practiced at Uncle LeRoy’s or at our home, I’d be down on the floor singing right along with them, following every part.
I’m told I was three when I sang my first solo in church. One Sunday I was lifted onto the offering table of Mary Evergreen Baptist Church in a little rural town called Frierson in my crisp yellow dress, long skinny legs, white lace socks folded just above the ankles, and shiny patent leather shoes.When I sang “Yes, Jesus Loves Me”—chorus and verse—my father, a strong southern gentleman, broke down in tears.
I remember many Sundays standing buried in the congregation at Mary Evergreen, my head thrown back, singing hymns and “Old One Hundreds,” the call and response songs whose words I didn’t understand. Right beside me stood my beautiful mother, Ola Mae, my sisters, Kathy and Alene, and my brother Junior, in our washed and starched Sunday best. Around us were chocolate, Sunday-hatted women fanning themselves in the Louisiana heat, the sound of the plank floor knocking as a hundred heels tapped them in the rhythm of the songs. All those voices collected in a hollow sacred space became harmony that will always stay— and resonate—with me.
As a small child, I’d sing for anyone. I had never learned to be afraid of performing. Green and Ola Mae taught me that my voice was a gift from God, and even as a rotten-toothed five year old, whenever I was complimented on my voice I would say what I had been told. I believed it with all my heart.
Soon my sisters Kathy and Alene, my cousin Debbie, and I formed our own singing group. We called ourselves—with such originality—The Whitaker Sisters. Whenever Daddy’s group sang, we’d be the bonus treat.
“I got a surprise for y’all,” he’d drawl to the congregation, “My babies gonna sang for ya’!”
We performed in small churches in the Ark-La-Tex (Arkansas, Louisiana, and Texas area), at least two Sundays a month. Even at five, I was pushed to the front to do the lead, my sisters and Debbie behind me, for “Do You have an Account in the Bank in the Sky?” an old Clark Sisters song. Alene played piano—often out of tune and sounding like something in a saloon.
At the end of the service, The Spiritual Jubilee would receive a “love offering”: a little bit of what had been given in the basket.
***
At the ripe age of six, I was invited to sing at my favorite cousin Red’s church (his real name was Booker T. Whitaker, but none of us called him that), where he played the organ. Red could make that organ talk, as we like to say in the South. It was a big and beautiful charismatic church, three hours away in Dallas, and I’d never experienced The Holy Spirit take hold like it did that day at Cousin Red’s congregation.
My parents drove Kathy, Debbie, and me to Dallas where the three of us would stay for the week with Cousin Red, his pretty wife, Jewel, and their baby boy, Kenon. Cousin Red and his little family lived in a beautiful stone home in a very nice section of town. It looked like a mansion to me: hardwood floor, paved streets with sidewalks, and three or four bedrooms.
My dad and mom taught me two songs that I would sing for solos. One was “I Trust in God” and the other, “He’ll Understand.”
When Sunday morning came, we piled into Cousin Red’s car and drove to his church. I sat in a middle pew next to my sister and Cousin Debbie and watched the service begin, with the black-robed deacons leading hymns and saying a prayer. I had no idea when I was going to be called up to sing, but Cousin Red had given me a signal: when it was time, he would point at me from the organ. The services continued and no signal came. It felt like an eternity of waiting. Suddenly Cousin Red was pointing to me and mouthing, “You’re gonna be next.” My heart sped up and I took a deep breath. I wanted to sing good for these Dallas people and make my cousin proud.
After the offering Cousin Red stood up at the organ and said, “We have a fine little singer that’s come to us today all the way from Shreveport. She’s my first cousin, and no offense Kathy an’ ya’ll, but she’s my favorite.”
Then