Southern Secrets Society: The Grooming | #Suspense | RomePi™

͋ 7 ͋ An Inspired Life (BWWM)

The Diva insisted that when she was a teen, her mother took to recounting all she had lived through.

"There were moments in my life when I conspired to hate my mother. I assigned blame to her for the cruelnesses I endured as well as the terrible things that plagued me in my nightmares." She stated to the interviewer.

"After a couple of tequila shots, much of my anxiety would simply dissipate. It was only after those steps were followed that I was free to cry and mourn for my mother who was a loser her entire life."

"Isn't that a bit harsh? Why would you call your mother a loser." The interviewer locked eyes with the artist to better understand her statement.

"What I mean by calling her a loser is this. My mother's innocence was stolen. She lost her freedom while being ripped away from her parents. When she finally accepted the position she held in the Reid Family, my father died, leaving her with nothing. As a result, my mother lost more than what could ever have been replaced. Never in her lifetime was she in control of any element of her own existence." The words the artist spoke and how she spoke them were cold and detached.

"The only thing that she could count on was the knowledge that if her keeper died or lost his fortune, she too would lose it all. And the saddest truth was that she was never in a position to support herself or her children. This is the reason I called her a loser."

Jolie watched as the woman continued her story. For some reason, she cried fat weighted tears as the woman discussed all that her mother's life.

She felt the heaviness of the subject even though she was a child and the adults who were talking didn't appear to be moved by the topic at all.

As the interview progressed, MJDV explained that before her father's health failed, the walls began to crumble around her mother, her six siblings, and herself. Even though Jordan was raised as the family heir and willed everything his father owned, his biological mother and siblings were sent overseas to live in the French countryside.

Rose Marie was provided a small stipend until Reid's death a few years later. Once the man died, they were left in a foreign country to fend for themselves as best they knew how.

Had it not been for the kindness of a friend who made his fortune due to the assistance of William Thadeus Reid III, Rose Marie, and her children would have starved to death. Because Jean Pierre Valais held the highest respect for the man who had once been his friend, he took on the burden of the dead man's illegitimate family.

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A HEARTY RESPECT

"It's not that I idolize her. It's just that she overcame so much, and now I'm standing here looking at what she has accomplished, despite it all."

Tears lingered in my eyes as I discussed the PBS special about the tragedies in MJDV's life with my friend. The artist was thirty years old when she painted her first painting of herself, reflecting lifeless eyes that were heavy with the burdens of the real world.

Tish may not have understood why I have such a hearty respect for the woman in the painting, but that's fine by me. I learned a long time ago that people often find it hard to see what I see.

Sometimes I feel the pain suffered by Maye Rose Bell. As I gazed upon the painting, I felt every pain the artist ever experienced had been immortalized in her eyes and each line she had intentionally over-emphasized as they made their way across her face. I felt my heartbreak as I peered into the windows of the woman's saddened soul. It was as if MJDV's spirit reached out to me directly from the canvas.