God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.

–The Serenity Prayer, Reinhold Neibuhr.‘

‘Why’ don’t matter. ‘What’ matters.

–Rose Wilkins.

When I was a boy growing up in Arkansas, the most important person in my life, in very real ways, was Rose. Now, I have written about Rose before; she was our “colored” (that was the phrase) “maid” (so was that), but she was so much more than our colored maid. She was really the woman who raised me on a day-to-day basis, at least for my childhood years. Only about 30 years old herself, with a half-dozen kids of her own, active in her church and in the local chapter of the NAACP, she nonetheless gave much of her very great energy and faith to raising the Clark…