She was also, at the age of eight, sexually abused and raped, and in her youth, became a pimp and prostitute.
How was she able to mentally, emotionally, and physically move from her earlier traumatic experiences and lifestyles into such an incredibly positive and productive life? What led to her transformation?
I think part of the answer lies with her saying "Do the best you can until you know better, then when you know better, do better." What humility - to know that we grow from day to day, that we are never at a point when we "know everything and do everything right." We can and will always "know better." What drive - to believe that once we know better, we should feel impelled to do better. This saying emphasizes having a continual attitude of self-knowledge and constant preparation for new growth.
Maya's parents divorced when she was quite young and she and her brother were raised by a grandmother who was both faith-filled and a creative entrepreneur who ran a successful grocery business during the '20's Great Depression. Later her father took her and her brother back to live with their mother; at this time she was sexually abused and raped by her mother's boy friend. She told her brother, who told the rest of the family. The man was jailed for one day. Four days after his release, he was murdered, possibly by Angelou's uncles. Upon his death, Maya became mute for five years.
Later she wrote in her first autobiography "I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings," "I thought my voice killed him. I killed that man because I told his name. And then I thought I would never speak again, because my voice would kill anyone."
A family friend and teacher helped her recover her voice and introduced her to the classic writers - Dickens, Shakespeare, Poe, James Weldon Johnson. In discovering her own literary voice, she discovered that voice's innate power to bring life, not death, to millions. "Caged Bird, " published in 1970, was banned in many schools and libraries because of her honesty about sexual abuse. But Maya didn't write for catharsis. She wrote, courageously, to simply tell the truth. Later "Caged Bird" became required reading in many schools, and, in the week of her death, rose to #1 on Amazon.com's best-seller list.
That hard-won courage of hers stood her in good stead all her life. She said "One isn't necessarily born with courage, but one is born with potential. Without courage, we cannot practice any other virtue with consistency. We can't be kind, true, merciful, generous, or honest."
Part of Maya's deep spiritual healing came from her belief that everyone's potential comes from God: "Everybody born comes from the Creator trailing wisps of glory. We come from the Creator with creativity. I think that each one of us is born with creativity." She saw that we are all born with divinely-given potential and the creativity to, over a lifetime, burnish this potential to become all that we can be - gradually. Remember - "Do the best you can until you know better and then when you know better, do better."
Perhaps one of Maya Angelou's loveliest statements about how to live one's life is this:
"The thing to do, it seems to me, is to prepare yourself so you can be a rainbow in somebody's cloud. Somebody who may not look like you. May not call God the same name you call God - if they call God at all. I may not dance your dances or speak your language. But be a blessing to somebody."
Do the best you can to be a blessing to others. Then, when you know better, become an even bigger blessing to even more people!