LaRita Shelby

On My Father's Side

ISBN-13: 978-0-9712021-5-3

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A bright eyed baby girl enters the world in the 1960's.  Against all odds the child was born to an aspiring & beautiful musician named Florence Hawkins.  The birth nearly claimed her life and that of the pre-mature child, but they both survived.  They resided across the street from the famed Tennessee State University, where a good-natured and handsome man visited his baby daughter and the woman who was the object of his affection.  One day without explanation something changed.  The little girl saw less and less of her mother, whose career re-routed her to Detroit, Michigan.  Eventually the child never saw her father again.  He was never spoken of.  A full life ensued, rich with many surrogates who girded the child with love, spiritual fortitude and determination that spawned a career that took her all over the globe.  The gaps were filled by Daddy Green, Mama Green, Uncle Bill and his wife Mary, a consummate aunt and fairy god-mother. The evangelical and street wise Aunt Sue and other Hawkins sisters rounded out the maternal family structure that gave Beanie a wonderful life.

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As the years went by, the strong woman syndrome faded and death peeled away the blanket of security that had made Beanie the woman that she was.  She had been a beauty queen, a Hollywood actress, a singer and an international radio star for the United States military.  She had known many famous men, but her heart could not forget the man who first took her breath away, her father.

When traditional searches failed, Beanie did one simple thing that changed her life forever and ended the forty year mystery of what happened to her dad.  The story moves through Tennessee, Washington DC, Detroit, Mississippi, Los Angeles, Joliet, Illinois, and finally a jazz club in Kansas City. The story is proof that there is love in the universe if you can let go of what isn't, you will find what is.  On My Father’s Side addresses the topics of abandonment, expectations, forgiveness, healing and optimism; whether or not you had active biological parents in your life.  An alternative point of view encourages readers to view parenting as an action that requires a wholesome mental, physical and spiritual capacity that is not bound by biology but is unleashed by the divine and abundant source of universal love.