Beginning ~ with "God made me"

Opening lines:

As a boy, I never knew where my mother was from ― where she was born, who her parents were.  When I asked she'd say, "God made me."  When I asked if she was white, she'd say, "I'm light-skinned," and change the subject. 

The Color of Water: A Black Man's Tribute to His White Mother ~ by James McBride, 1996, biography

Who is Ruth McBride Jordan?  A self-declared "light-skinned" woman evasive about her ethnicity, yet steadfast in her love for her twelve black children.  McBride explores his mother's past, as well as his own upbringing and heritage. The son of a black minister and a woman who would not admit she was white, James McBride grew up in "orchestrated chaos" with his eleven siblings in the poor, all-black projects of Red Hook, Brooklyn.  "Mommy," a fiercely protective woman with "dark eyes full of pep and fire," herded her brood to Manhattan's free cultural events, sent them off on buses to the best (and mainly Jewish) schools, demanded good grades, and commanded respect. As a young man, McBride saw his mother as a source of embarrassment, worry, and confusion—and reached thirty before he began to discover the truth about her early life and long-buried pain.  "God is the color of water," Ruth McBride taught her children, firmly convinced that life's blessings and life's values transcend race.

Gilion at Rose City Reader hosts Book Beginnings on Fridays.  Click here for today's Mister Linky.