CELEBRATE LOVE PROFILE #3 OSSIE DAVIS AND RUBY DEE

There are many reasons to admire Ossie Davis and Ruby Dee. I’ve always been impressed by their dedication to their craft while simultaneously staying just as dedicated to marriage and family. Today we live in a world where family is often placed way far behind our careers. So many men (and a few women) believe once I got my career straight, then I’ll look for love.  Somewhere through the years we adopted the belief that having it all; a great career, multiple children, and a loving relationship wasn’t possible. But Ossie and Ruby Dee’s over 50 years of marriage and legendary careers dispel that belief 10th fold.

I found an EBONY article written in 1979 where the couple candidly talk about what makes their relationships work. At the time of the interview they had been married for 31 years. With their children now grown and out of the house, they were embarking on a new stage of their relationship, one they call best friends.

 But getting there was not easy.

Ruby is extremely candid about her resentment of gender roles and what she has lost by becoming a mother.

“There are things you must do to make things work- habits that you have to deal with… fitting in eating, sleeping, work, who does what, and those kind of things. But I was late coming into self-assurance and Ossie always seemed to have much more of that. I had to deal with resentments, to face up to them to not being able to do the things I wanted to do when I wanted to do them. I use to be very jealous of the fact that he could go away and be free of me and the children. To go off so easily and work at things he wanted to do. And I’m stuck with the babies and frustration, pounding on the walls”.

Can we say REAL?

It’s a shame that people don’t speak with that much honesty anymore. Regardless of being a celebrity or not, we no longer tell the truth. Especially women. When it comes to discussing the difficulties of becoming a mother and what that means for your career we all are somehow perfect at it. Ruby continues,

“When we were young, I was the sacrifice. Often when I’d turn down things (acting opportunities), it was because the children were there and I didn’t want to leave them. Ossie never said, ‘No Don’t go’. But he never said ‘Yes, go do that’. I wasn’t until much later that I felt the encouragement. I have to grow to the point of not so much needing his approval. I had to grow to the point where I could say ‘Well, Ossie, I’d like to do this and I’m going to do it’.

She speaks to the dilemma of being a woman, mother, and a wife. Two of those titles require an unrelenting selflessness while the other asks for independence and decisions of self-gratification. How does a woman, find the balance between all three? 

Through out the article they both talk freely about what marriage really means. Both seemed to enter the marriage never expecting “perfection” or life without troubles. They went into the union expecting to have to work at it. Marriage itself is hard, having children can be difficult but that wasn’t all they were dealing with. Add the dilemma of being African American actors in the height of the civil rights era. Today, people get divorced before they even truly start a marriage. Somehow with the world against them Ossie and Ruby made it through. What happen to the expectancy of work and commitment? When did marriage become so romantic that the moment an issue arises we are willing to go? I think all of us, black, white, male, female became so fiercely independent they we no longer see the gain in struggle. We no longer see the need of having someone around if we know we can do it all on our own.

Lastly, the couple talks about the importance of being friends with your partner.

“If we couldn’t have become friends, we would have run out of this relationship long ago Ossie says.

Today, we view relationships by what we as individuals will get out of them. What is he or she doing for me? How do I benefit? We all too quickly forget that if you truly love someone and respect them for all that they are, loving them has nothing to do with you. When you respect and form a relationship with a true understanding of what your partner needs and who they are, you’ve reached a level of friendship and compassion. And that clarity doesn’t arrive at the beginning of a love affair. You have to build it together. As Ossie says,

“You start out as lovers, then you’re husband and wife, then you’re parents, then co-workers, and ultimately you arrive at being friends”.

Ossie and Ruby got married in 1948. Somehow our approach to relationships has changed over the years. We no longer see relationships with the same understanding of commitment and union. Somehow we expect easy and romance before anything else. We watch TV shows like The Bachelor and The Bachelorette that set us up to believe that you can pick a partner out of a group of strangers and live happily ever after. And if dating becomes too “hard” we now have the option of sitting at home and pick profile pictures off the computer to distinguish who would be a worthy partner. In both examples finding love, finding a partner is all about “me”. If two people are looking for what works for them, who’s looking out for what works for us?

In a world so fixated on individual superiority, when and where do you find and build love?

For the longest, I kept a picture of Ossie and Rudy as a screensaver to remind myself that if I was willing to put in the hard work, then yes, I can have it all. I think it’s time to maybe put the picture up again. I need to be reminded that waiting for so-called “perfection” is like waiting to win the lottery. You have to build what you want in life, you can’t wait for someone to hand it to you.

Sometimes when you hold out for everything, the only thing that you get is nothing.

BUILD LOVE THIS WEEKEND PEOPLE!!

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