[Freeda]

We saw The Help last night, and the story and acting are superb, and certainly Academy Awards should be won. I at times found it hard to watch just because of the sad commentary on how African-American people were sometimes treated even as recently as the 60s. And as I watched the movie, tears came at times, because it brought back memories about, and gratitude for, Theresa, who came into my family's life years ago.

Because of working, I had fulltime help as my children grew up, and my last fulltime, and later parttime, nanny/housekeeper, for about 17 years, was Theresa, an African-American woman who started with me when my youngest child was age one, and who is still like family to us today. She and I called ourselves 'sisters' because that's how we both felt; and I never had a sister (just two brothers). When both of my parents died before I was forty, Theresa was a rock to me. When her sister died, I sat next to her, with her head on my shoulder, for the funeral. We jokingly tell people that we are each other's 'sister from a different mister'.

One of the most embarrassing moments -correction, THE most embarrassing moment - in my life, and one that our family, including Theresa, still laugh about among ourselves, happened just days after she had started working for us, in 1986, when Theresa came to my office to take my daughters, ages 1 and 3, with her to our house. My, shall we say spunky, 3-year-old daughter had a mind of her own, and she decided that she wanted to stay with me at the office. When both Theresa and I failed in trying to talk her out of this idea, and I had a meeting to get to, Theresa finally just picked my daughter up to take her home. Kicking and screaming, and with her fingers dug into Theresa's arms, my furious, defeated, red-faced 3-year-old yelled out, to my horror, "I don't like brown people!" Well, I could have just died from shock and embarrassment. Our family was not at all prejudiced, and I had no idea where those words had come from! I was just hoping Theresa wouldn't quit! Theresa patiently just carried her on out to the car (she later told me it was all she could do not to burst out laughing), and suffice it to say that now at age 29 my daughter still thinks of Theresa as her second mom.

Even though Theresa doesn't work for us anymore, after we moved away from Kentucky to TV a few years ago, we are still family, and always will be.