- Associated Press - Saturday, November 28, 2020

HATTIESBURG, Miss. (AP) - A woman finds herself unemployed for the first time.

A man who works in the restaurant business wonders if the eatery will survive.

A grandfather, who has lost most of his vision, says he’s glad he’s been able to visit his grandchildren.

Newly widowed, a 76-year-old spends most of her time in her house.

And a mother, a recovering addict, finds out she is pregnant. She is both elated and fearful.

“These are scary times,” she says.

Yet, amid the fear and uncertainty brought on by the coronavirus pandemic, in particular, these Hattiesburg residents are persevering with grit and a sense of gratitude.

MOTHER JUGGLES WORK, VIRUTAL LEARNING FOR DAUGHTER

“We’ve had a hard week,” says a pregnant 34-year-old Tatum Davis as she cradles 9-year-old daughter Judy to her chest.

They sit at a picnic table near the Longleaf Trace. The daylight dims as walkers and joggers pass by.

Judy attends school virtually and stays with her aunt, Tricia Hayes, during the day. Hayes has three children of her own - an infant, a toddler and a 16-year-old.

For a while, Davis, a therapist and recovering addict, was able to work from home and care for her daughter. While she appreciated more time with her daughter, she is glad to return to the workplace.

“I feel like with virtual counseling, you can’t pick up on verbal cues or hand motions as well as when you’re face-to-face, so I was really happy to go back to work,” Davis said.

Judy’s face lights up, and she interjects. She says school was similar in that way, and she misses the classroom.

“Me and a few other students aren’t allowed to answer questions in the chat anymore because we always volunteer to answer,” Judy said. “I’m one of the top students in my class.”

Judy moves her head down to her mother’s belly.

“Wake up Sherbert, wake up please or I will wake you up,” Judy sings. Davis laughs at the song.

Davis hopes the baby will be born Feb. 2 - her sixth sobriety anniversary. She says when she first found out she was pregnant, she was both elated and scared.

“Why were you scared, Mom?” Judy asked.

“Because the world can be scary,” Davis said.

YOUNG WOMAN MAINTAINS SPIRITS, DESPITE JOB LOSS, DEATHS IN FAMILY

This year, Imani Steven was in a bad car wreck. And the 27-year-old lost her job as a pharmacy technician amid the pandemic.

“I did lose my job because of COVID-19, the day before the mask mandate and shutdown,” Steven said. “It was my first time having to apply for unemployment or government assistance.

“Having to be innovative in 2020, that’s what I do.”

Steven says she’s also lost two family members and a close friend to COVID-19. “Now I don’t even flinch whenever the text message comes through from my family hotline that says, ‘so-and-so has gone into the hospital’ and maybe four hours later ‘so-and-so has died from COVID-19.’”

Furthermore, Steven said in June she found herself in a tense situation following a Black Lives Matter march organized in response to the death of George Floyd, a Black man, at the hands of a white police officer.

She had volunteered as a coordinator for a protest in downtown Hattiesburg.

“After I had an interview on television, when people saw a face and a name, I received promises of violence against me, the planning team and protesters,” Steven said.

Despite all the turmoil, Steven said her role in the lives of others really began to crystallize this year.

“I’ve been able to see who my village is and those people who have always depended on me. I had no idea I was so important to them,” Steven said. “With me having to build myself up during this time, being able to see those people who actually love me in the way that it says that love is as love does, and they’ve shown their love.”

NEWLY WIDOWED, 79-YEAR-OLD DRAWS ON STRENGTH, PERSPECTIVE

The 79-year-old civil rights activist who lives in the yellow house on Main Street has not left her home much since March because of the pandemic.

The phone rings.

“One of those solicitation calls,” Raylawni Branch said.

Branch pauses at her answering machine, then listens to a message from a funeral home. Her husband, Alfred Branch, 88, died from multiple myeloma, a cancer of plasma cells, a few days earlier. His drawings, notes, paintings and books are everywhere.

“My husband’s death … has made me acutely aware of what I’m thankful for,” Branch said. “I’m thankful for the fact I have friends or family and I can say to those friends and family, I don’t need anything.”

Branch was one of two Black students to integrate the University of Southern Mississippi in 1965.

A plaque from the university hangs in her hall. She is the Branch of the Armstrong-Branch Plaza at the University of Southern Mississippi.

The retired nurse, teacher and Air Force veteran said while she’s thankful for change that has taken place over the years, there’s more work to be done.

“I don’t think a lot of people see that there is a system in place to keep people down,” she said. “That one percent is still the one percent. I want to see some changes in banking and see our houses valued like other houses.”

Along with her photographs, awards and memorabilia, she keeps other notable items. From a manila folder, Branch pulls out a poem “Ode to the Death Angel,” written by activist Clyde Kennard in 1962 while he was at the Mississippi State Penitentiary at Parchman prison and begins to read:

“Oh here you come again,

Old chilly death of old,

To plot out life

And test immortal soul …”

’I JUST PRAY FOR EVERYBODY TO STAY HEALTHY,’ BELL RINGER SAYS

Gerrell Payton, 58, sits outside Corner Market on Hardy Street as shoppers filter in and out of the store.

He sports a Lakers’ mask with the late Kobe Bryant’s No. 24 jersey. In his left hand, he rings a small red bell as he collects donations for the Salvation Army’s Red Kettle campaign. In his right, he twirls a white cane that helps him navigate his surroundings.

The one complaint he has is that while wearing a mask, people can’t see him smile.

“I’ve done this for 14 years now,” Payton said of working as a bell ringer. “I was nervous at first, but I’ve been loving it ever since.”

Payton lost his sight over the last decade due to diabetes and had to retire from working in housekeeping at a hospital.

This year, he says, he’s most thankful for the health of his family and his wife of 22 years, Anne. They have even gotten to visit with their grandchildren who also live in Hattiesburg.

“We haven’t had any sickness in our family, but I just pray for everybody to stay healthy,” Payton said.

Payton still spends time working in his yard and in a neighbor’s yard.

“She’s 90 years old,” Payton said. “I do her yard and I do mine. I’ve got a riding mower that I use. I know where every big root is at. If I’ve got a lot of light, I can do it.”

CHEF MOVED BY COMMUNITY SUPPORT OF RESTAURANTS

At the Depot Kitchen & Market in downtown Hattiesburg, the lunch rush settles down after 1 p.m.

The flow of customers suggests business as usual and not a restaurant in the middle of a global pandemic. Guests gather at tables spread apart outside and inside the restaurant, talking, eating and drinking coffee.

“Back in March, when things were starting to hit the fan a little bit, we were having to shift so fast from to-go to curbside, just stuff that we weren’t really set up for,” chef Josh Casper, 34, said. “We weren’t on DoorDash or Grubhub. I was trying to fix our website to do online delivery and it was just too much.”

The Depot Kitchen & Market closed for two weeks then reopened with a drive-thru in the parking lot.

Most of the staff relied on unemployment benefits while the restaurant shut down and then limited its hours of service, Casper said.

“We knew there would be some kind of stimulus for unemployment, and luckily we had a friend helping us out in our office who knew how to do all of that,” he said.

The hardest part when the restaurant reopened, he said, “was trying to keep our front-of-house crew safe, and gloves tripled in price.”

Casper said early on in the pandemic, he struggled with thoughts of the future.

“That’s what weighed on me so much,” Casper said. “I thought, ‘Does Hattiesburg need The Depot or any other independently owned restaurant?’ I had to think, ‘This is our only choice, to go forward.’”

The response from the community eased his anxiety, he said. And support from patrons has been exceptional.

“Now people are like there is no way we can lose our restaurants,” Casper said. “People were donating to the staff through Venmo, just huge amounts of money. I was trying not to cry every day because it was so overwhelming.”

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