Now this feels like home by SigidiDesign

Gail at 3 with her Family under the Hickory tree. Gail is in the white dress holding her great-uncle Pettigrewâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s hand.

Home is more than a mere location. It is the sum total of people, places and occasions which help us to rise above the mundane! Home heals and nurtures us, believes in us, while challenging us to be the best we can humanly be... cheering us onward and upward... Home celebrates us, correcting us in love and embracing us in comfort. Home hears, sees and speaks to us the words of hope, wrapped tightly and held together with cords of love... unconditional, never-wavering love!

Love Gail

Copyright ÂŠ 2010 by Gail Masondo The right of Gail Masondo to be identified as the Author of the Work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright Act 98 of 1978. All rights reserved, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, re-use of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction in other ways, and storage in data banks. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without permission given by the Author. First Published in South Africa 2010 by New Voices Publishing Cape Town, South Africa www.newvoices.co.za

Editor, Rochelle Davidson-Mhonde Additional editing provided by Perpetua Akoth Adar Foreword by Shelie R.Warren, author of Inside of Me!

First Edition August 2010 in paperback ISBN: 978-1-920411-12-1

a memoir by Gail Masondo 25 Life-gifts revealing the very essence of Home

See, ‘home’ is an attitude, a life style, a disposition handed down through one’s DNA. Home takes the leftovers of a broken heart and creates a wellspring for the soul to awaken. Home is kinship and kindred spirits gathered in agreement that the sum total of all of us in the room, at any given moment, is far greater than just one of us alone! Home feels like rest; draped in an endless garment of hugs, compassion, forgiveness, acceptance, comfort! Oh, the healing stream I see I see! Home sounds like a hundred marching bands in celebration, playing your song, folks cheering you on. Home creates hearts open wide to receive, A prayer prayed for your courage, for your strength for the next mile of the way! Home looks like hope! It resembles a broad ‘I’m proud of you’ smile, A nod of approval, the thank you in the eyes of respect! Home sees, hears, and speaks! It’s every bit of everything that God intends, for us to embrace through His earth angels, set to walk along side us. As the Tinmen, Lions, and Scarecrows sent without asking, on this earth journey on the way to a prepared place. Home in its purest form delivers the gifts of life, the gift of wisdom, compassion and courage! They remain even after you are gone, by their fruits they will be known! Gifts of loyalty, uncompromising belief, unconditional love. With no strings! Home extends an invitation to breathe and exhale, as you lift your voice in a hundred Amens! Let it be, so let it be!

NOW THIS FEELS LIKE HOME

My Home Team This book is dedicated to the loving memory of my family, My Mother, Joyce Elaine, My Dad, Garnet McCall and to my children, Shellie and Jonathan.... the gifts which keep on giving, I am proud of you both! To my husband, Sibusiso Victor Masondo, for the gift of unconditional Love, the greatest gift of all.

GAIL MASONDO

References “Now This Feels Like Home” is a balm for the soul – a thoughtful offering of comfort, hope, and wisdom to all who journey through life feeling the need for something missed, missing, or misunderstood. Gail Masondo makes this journey with faith, purpose, and understanding. Phylicia Rashad Emmy and Tony award winning Actor, of Stage, T.V. and Film

“Now This Feels Like Home” is a richly written memoir. It is one woman’s journey to discovering the amazing-grace-bounty of goodness that life has to offer and to reveal to us, should we pay attention. As my friend’s story unfolds, Gail extends to each one of us an invitation to rediscover this basic overall message of truth... ‘Home is where your heart safely resides!’ Enjoy! Terrie M. Williams Founder of Terrie Willams Agency Author, “Black Pain”, “It Just Looks Like We Are Not Hurting”

“Now This Feels Like Home” is Gail’s honest journey through her life experiences that will inspire and guide you as you search for your own home within you. Siyabonga, Inkosi Ikubusise Thembi Mtshali-Jones Executive Producer: Spirit Sister Productions

I have had the privilege of traveling a little with Gail on her journey to find her place in this world. You will experience some of what I have experienced in knowing and watching her as you read this beautifully written memoir. And you will feel the magnetic pull in your own psyche toward that sense of “home” in your own life. Malcolm du Plessis Music Industry Consultant, Pastor and Friend

NOW THIS FEELS LIKE HOME

I would like to acknowledge and give my thanksgiving to the only one who knows me best, yet loves me most, He is Yahweh, my Lord and savior! To the Sister-Friends all over this globe who have walked with me and held my hand and my heart… over river, dale and other places! To my Brother-Friends who have corrected me in loving affection, covered me in celebration and excused inappropriate behaviour as only brothers can. To Pastor Steve R. Norman, who planted the seed, who told me I could write and that I should write and with my husband, Victor, kept the dream alive. To all of the sages, those older and wiser group of folk I called my personal angels, who God allowed to hang around for me. You are the spice of life… oh I’m so grateful for you all. To all the women who saw more in me than I had seen in myself and entrusted me to moor a gift I never knew I had…to speak life, hope and peace into your hearts, to allow me to tell my stories of release and freedom… thank you for allowing me to share at your conferences, workshops, team-building sessions etc., thank you and thank you again! And to my new homeland, South Africa... (and to Malcolm for bringing me here)... The spirit of its people has given me much to celebrate… thank you, I found myself here after looking for ‘me’ for so very long. New Voices Publishing and Stephan Phillips for the opportunity to share my story to a wider community and thanks to Kristen Barrett for cover design and art work! My Editor, Rochelle Davidson-Mhonde! I am so glad for you, your keen eye and skill, your talent for detail and for making me speak the very words I had written out loud, in some way they became even more real. I think it’s called holding ones hand. Thank you! To Mike and Sonia Johnson for allowing your home to be my home for those few days in 2009, it is there that this manuscript took shape and started to breath.... thank you! I would sincerely like to thank VEZ (to me) of Sigidi’ Design for the creative work on the web site... the patience, the creativity and the hard work!

GAIL MASONDO

Contents References Foreword Introduction Chapter 1: Chapter 2: Chapter 3: Chapter 4: Chapter 5: Chapter 6: Chapter 7: Chapter 8: Chapter 9: Chapter 10: Chapter 11: Chapter 12:

The Gift of Guidance The Gift of the Village The Gift of Community The Gift of Security/Sanctuary The Gift of Friendship The Gift of Commitment The Gift of Compassion The Gift of Forgiveness The Gift of Benevolence The Gift of Camaraderie The Gift of Affirmation The Gift of Courage

6 10 12 17 25 41 52 61 71 77 84 93 101 106 118

NOW THIS FEELS LIKE HOME

Chapter 13: The Gift of Kin-folk Chapter 14: The Gift of a Name Chapter 15: The Gift of the Sages and their Influence Chapter 16: The Gift of Restoration Chapter 17: The Gift of Serenity Chapter 18: The Gift of Welcome Chapter 19: The Gift of Good-bye Chapter 20: The Gift of Consistency Chapter 21: The Gift of Worship Chapter 22: The Gift of Inheritance Chapter 23: The Gift of Choice Chapter 24: The Gift of Sowing, the Gift of Giving Back! Chapter 25: The Gift of Love My Epilogue: The Gift of Wisdom, the Gift of a Lifetime About the Author: Gail Loress Masondo

133 140 155 167 178 186 201 217 231 246 260 275 289 303 305

Foreword

When my mother first approached me about writing the foreword for her book, I must admit that initially, while I immediately did concede, a part of me was a bit nervous. Yes, I am well over 30-years-old. Yes, I am, as my mother affectionately calls me, her “woman-child”. Yes, I’m actually (and some might even say, ironically) also an author. Yet, there is still a part of me who wants to please her. Who wants to make sure that I make her proud. Two writers who are friends are usually pretty cautious about critiquing one another’s work, but when it’s a daughter doing it for her mother? That can be even more challenging. The thing is, this book is from her but the truth is, so am I. Her writings and my life are bonded in many inexplicable, yet magical, ways. How do you pen the right words… the appropriate words… the necessary words from something that came from the same source as you did? What really can you say to give it proper justice? This is what I had to ponder on for a bit... awhile...

I don’t know if I’ve ever told my mother this, but her reading and speaking voice has always been one of my favorites. It’s soft and feminine and soothing. There are thousands of miles between us – me here on America’s soil and her living in the Motherland – but as my mom shared with me many of the chapters within her first book, without bias, I must admit that I have loved them all… for many different reasons, seasons and purposes. Some have caused me to see my mother, the woman, differently. We are similar in ways, but we are not the same. Some of her writings have forced me to take note of that and perhaps for the first time in my life, really honor it. Others have encouraged me to revere the legacy of family… more resolutely. 10

NOW THIS FEELS LIKE HOME

The DNA that we share includes a long list of survivors… of many different things. The DNA that we don’t has shown us how to love those people, those who “stood in the gap”, more especially… just for doing so. And then the chapters about me and my brother? Well, they moved me to tears because, for whatever reason, God saw fit that most of us not remember our conception, birth and foundational years. To hear my mom recall ours with so much assurance that mothering, despite all of life’s twists and turns, was something that she was meant to do and that she was glad to do it, no matter what, well… it fills me with a sense of joy and peace that her womb was our home. My home. That it was where the Creator first wanted me to be... all along. This book, while it is filled with one woman’s take on what home means to her, I think it will grab the attention of anyone who reads it because her gentle-yet-thoughtful prose beckons all of us to define home for ourselves in ways we may have never considered before reading it. At the end of this day, at the end of our lives, it’s not really about how much money you make, how many rooms are in your house or even totally who shares the space with you from chapter-to-chapter of your own unwritten autobiography. It’s more about knowing that everything serves its purpose and for every heart that’s willing, there is a memory that holds a lesson. Yes. This is a book, but in the wise words of the late author, C S Lewis: “You don’t have a soul. You have a body. You are a soul.” If we could respectfully tweak that to fit what’s within these pages, “Where your body lives may be a house. When your heart resides. That is your home.” Welcome to her heart. I hope it helps to lead you back home. Shellie R. Warren (“Shellie Belle” to the author)

author of Inside Me, Lessons of Lust, Love, and Redemption, RELEVANTBOOKS. 11

Introduction

Dorothy is lost!

She can feel it as soon as she wakes up, rubs the sleep from her eyes and looks around.

Her surroundings are not familiar, which causes her to become anxious, confused, fearful and longing for home in an instant and wondering just how in the world did she get here from there? What else becomes clear from the onset is that she will not be able to find her way back home without some help! It’s home she’s looking for, where she knows she belongs and nothing else matters at the moment except that truth.

In the stage adaptation of the movie The Wizard of Oz, Stephanie Mills, black American actor and recording artist, who plays the role of Dorothy, steps onto the stage and into the spotlight marked especially for her. There she opens her mouth, singing for all she’s worth the words of the song ‘Home,’ written for the Broadway production: When I think of home, I think of a resting place, A place of peace, quiet and serenity! When I think of home, I think of a place Where there’s love overflowing. And oh, if you’re listening, God please don’t make it hard to know if we should believe in the things we see Tell us, should we try and stay… Or will it be better just to let things be, let them be!

– Charlie Smalls 12

NOW THIS FEELS LIKE HOME

A mere song for a hit stage production or a prayer prayed for those of us who have lost our way along this path called life, looking for our very own yellow brick road that promises to deliver us to someone, somewhere who promises to get us back on the right path, back home!

Much like the character of Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz, I have longed for home, and what it means to be in the company of a safe abode! It’s been the slow but sure waking up to this realization the last few years, which has allowed me the opportunity to see life differently than I had seen it before. For so many years, I saw my life through the lenses of a broken and wounded spirit! There was a time, not so far from here, when the stench of lost joys, hopes and dreams lingered in the air of my existence.

Looking back over my shoulder now, I can see clearer and better, accepting that those moments of loss were allowed and used to gently, yet persistently, guide me, sometimes screaming and hollering along the way to a whole new and different definition of hearth and home. These times have given me pause to think while I have had to re-evaluate the word ‘home’ again and again these last few years in South Africa, this land of my adoption. And with each passing day of this time, I have been in the process of learning to embrace this one profound truth, that ‘home’ is more than a location!

The true meaning of home is much more than the address or the contents within; after all, Luther and Dionne got it right when they sang, at the end of the day, ‘a house is not a home, a chair is still only a chair!’ Home is indeed a safe place for the heart to abide. Somewhere along the way, on my own yellow brick road experience from then to now, I began to lose touch with the 13

GAIL MASONDO

simple, yet profound, truth that says, the truest essence of home is an accumulation of memories tied neatly together with the rich lessons of early childhood development. On the way back home, the journey has also included my very own personal ‘tin men, lions and scarecrows’ who showed up and stayed in the form of family members, rich and abiding friendships and those relationships that come for a season, personal or professionally and leave their mark for the good!

I was given to and led back to those who really, without reservation, loved me, accepted me, cheered me on, celebrated me and corrected me, when correcting was the most appropriate measure needed to give, when ‘I got too big for my britches’ as my grand Aunt Ruth would say.

I would like to take this opportunity to share with you, the reader, this collection of memories, those abiding places where my heart found its peace and rest! These places – for my heart to find its rest – have shown up, revealing themselves in neat little gift packages referred to and also remembered as seasons of my life, precious never-to-beforgotten occasions filled to the brim and overflowing, used to intentionally communicate a time for change in the way I viewed hearth and home.

I would learn to agree that home is where you are properly looked after, nurtured and cared for, while passing on to you the tools of wisdom and grace much like a baton is passed along in a relay race, guiding you to do the same for those who will soon follow them! These tools are more easily described as gifts.

These need-for-change messages would come, offer themselves to me in the comforting gift of compassion from my threeyear-old son, in the gracious gift of forgiveness from my adult daughter, in the rich gifts of intimacy, patience, and respect from my husband, in the precious gift of enjoyment of this life. The opportunity to live and adore has been given to me. 14

NOW THIS FEELS LIKE HOME

Now, this feels like Home!

These gifts would present themselves in significant life-defining moments custom-made and designed just for me, as the pledge of loyalty taken between a sister-friend and myself on the busy streets of New York. The gift of acceptance given to me by my new Zulu uncle-in-law in the new land of my adoption. The gift of a kiss planted on each of my cheeks as a gesture of welcome from an elderly statesman once a prisoner and now the former president of the Republic of South Africa. The gift of a surprise birthday celebration given to me at a time when celebrating seemed like the last thing I should be doing by a new mentor and friend divinely called in to assist me in the next stage of my journey. These are moments wrapped in my heart and soul, freely given to me by people, places and occasions that have carried me through, held me tight, and given me pause to reflect. They all represent the very essence of home to me!

GAIL MASONDO

Home sees, hears, and speaks! It’s every bit of everything that God intends, for us to embrace through His earth angels, set to walk along side us. As the Tinmen, Lions, and Scarecrows sent without asking, on this earth journey on the way to a prepared place. Home in its purest form delivers the gifts of life, the gift of wisdom, compassion and courage! They remain even after you are gone, by their fruits they will be known! Gifts of loyalty, uncompromising belief, unconditional love. With no strings! Home extends an invitation to breathe and exhale, as you lift your voice in a hundred Amens! Let it be, so let it be!

“Gail Masondo has been a person I’ve admired for years! Her capacity to love, her energy for life and the hope she carries for all humanity is simply outstanding! She has an undeniable gift from God Almighty, used to bring about positive change throughout the world. Now this feels like home! reminds us all, that we do belong and are extremely valuable and precious in God’s sight. It encourages us to find our rightful place of purpose by describing how good home feels and how it directs, guides and leads us throughout life to live our best lives for ourselves and for others. Peace that surpasses all understanding rules and reigns at home! “ Multiple Grammy and Dove award winning Christian Music artist

“In Now This Feels Like Home Gail shares the wealth of wisdom that has caused South Africans to embrace her and refer to her by the most loving and personal epithets. She has poured herself out in service and reached out to women, families and the wider community. It is hard to imagine that she has not always been part of us, for, like the elders we treasure, we cannot imagine life without her. Home is our place of retreat and coming home to Africa has been just that for Gail. In sharing her personal journey, she challenges us to reflect on our own – we are privileged indeed!”

Doreen Morris Television producer.

“Now This Feels Like Home, speaks to that sense of belonging. Gail Masondo’s work unfurls the journey of an African-American woman, moving back to the Motherland, and in the process, satisfying her sense of belonging. She moors her soul, and in the process, reaches new heights. Masondo compels you to dig deeper and ask yourself the tough questions. She tempts you to close your eyes and fall back into a new discovery. You’ll love this work and will find yourself getting lost in the tapestry of her wisdom and insight. Enjoy! “ ALVIN CHEA

Bass Singer of 10-time Grammy winners, Take 6 and author of “BassLines”

Women & Children’s Advocate, Chaplain and International speaker.