Proof The Bible Is True

Mama and Papa had started calling me “Black Velvet” when I was a baby, the tenth of their 18 children and the first to be born after they moved to Florida from their Bahamian homeland. When friends from the islands came to visit, they’d say, “Let us see the American one, the one with the velvet skin,” and Mama would proudly hold me up so everyone could admire my flawless nut-brown complexion.

 

Then, when I was eight, a bouncy little girl with glossy black braids, the dreadful skin problem began. Rough scales and unsightly red patches all over my face.

 

“Try rubbing her with lemon juice,” one old woman told Mama.

 

“Boil up pine and chinaberry roots and give her a bath in it every night,” another neighbor suggested.

 

 We soon found that home remedies didn’t work and began going to specialists, one after another. “Never saw anything quite as stubborn as this ailment,” a dermatologist in Fort Lauderdale said, shaking his head.

 

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