It happened in the Bahamas in the early spring of 1988.
I wanted Lisa to meet my family in Nassau, especially cousins Esau and Jennifer. I wanted to show her my roots and have her experience the joy of my island life.
I also knew that Lisa would love it there, and naturally she did.
After a few days in Nassau, we bumped into my cousin Diana, a nurse who babysat me as a kid, and her husband, Bill, a British teacher. They had just relocated to Gregory Town, on the island of Eleuthera, to work at the clinic and primary school. Diana was raving about her new home. “Man, you got to come see it for yourself. Trust me. Come stay with us. Relax.”
After a few days of spending time with my family, we decided to take Diana up on her offer. Although I’d spent my whole childhood in the Bahamas, I had never left the island of Nassau. I was curious. So why not have an adventure?
We found out that a boat called the Current Pride was leaving for Eleuthera early that very evening. It was twenty-five dollars per person, which got you a sandwich, a soda, and passage to Hatchet Bay, where the boat let you off at midnight.
When we arrived at the dock, people were lined up with huge bags and boxes that they were toting to the island. On board, there were giant pallets of goods, everything from Pampers to caged chickens to one beat-up old car.
Though it’s only fifty miles from Nassau to Eleuthera, the trip took five hours. The ocean breeze was fragrant and mild. A full moon cast a glow of shimmering silver on the dark water.
Lisa and I climbed a little metal ladder and found a spot to sit on top of the captain’s cabin, next to the smokestack. We lay up there the whole ride and just gazed up into the sky. I had never before seen that many stars in my life; I didn’t know that many stars even existed. We could see the dust from the Milky Way. It was magical. We were in heaven.
With midnight approaching, we caught sight of the distant lights of Eleuthera. The tug navigated through a narrow channel between huge, majestic rock formations and pulled into the tranquil bay.
Diana and Bill were there waiting. Diana was so excited for us to discover the family island she now called home. As we drove down the Queens Highway toward Gregory Town, I couldn’t make out much in the darkness, but I could already feel that this place was special. The energy was different, and I could only imagine what would be revealed when the sun came up.
We arrived at a quaint wooden house that sat at the end of a point overlooking the ocean. We slept like babies. When we woke up and looked out the window, what we saw was like the scene from The Wizard of Oz when Dorothy opens the door and the world goes from black-and-white to blazing Technicolor.
Vivid blue sky, turquoise water, tropical green foliage.
Diana thought we would enjoy camping on a deserted beach. So, after she showed us around the settlement, she gave us a tent and the supplies we would need to make fires to cook. The powdery coral sand was surreal.
Diana came to check on us every day or so, to make sure we were okay and to see if we wanted to come back to the house to shower, wash clothes, get more food, anything.
We didn’t need a thing.
We didn’t need clothes.
We bathed in the ocean.
We made love.
We met a couple of guys, Rasta John and Frog, who brought us ganja and showed us how to make Ital food, a natural, Rastafarian approach to eating.
We were home.
When we returned to America, Lisa went back to taping, and I went back to writing.
One day, I came home to find Lisa in the bathroom. She was staring at me and holding something in her hand.
It was a pregnancy test that read positive.
She was, understandably, in shock. There must have been a million things running through her mind. Was this the time to have a child? I’m not sure what she thought. I’m not sure what I thought. But life was coming at us head-on.
We didn’t talk that night. We just lay quietly. When morning came, a calmness washed over us. Everything was in its place.
We were given the greatest gift in the universe.
Life.
* * *
Lisa suspected that Bill Cosby would react negatively to our positive, and Lisa was right.
The first season of A Different World had already aired, but during the second season, Lisa would be pregnant. In the meantime, Cosby had hired Debbie Allen, a friend of Mom’s, to take over the show and add political relevance. Lisa told Debbie about her pregnancy. Debbie wasn’t at all disturbed. She thought it would add to the complexity of Denise’s character, and she was eager to work it into the plot. But Debbie knew that Cosby was both protective and proprietary about his TV family. She felt it important that, out of respect and for decorum, she and Lisa break the news to him personally. Debbie made an appointment with Bill, urged Lisa to dress suitably, and two days later, they showed up at the boss’s office.
According to Debbie, Cosby saw them coming a mile away. As soon as they sat down, he turned to Lisa and said, “You’re here to tell me you’re pregnant, aren’t you?”
Lisa nodded.
Before Cosby had a chance to go off, Debbie explained that this was a great development. As the director, she liked the idea of an upper-class young woman like Denise Huxtable having a baby but no interest in marriage. Denise would raise the child on her own. Her girlfriends would support her, and all sorts of fascinating story lines would emerge.
As Debbie spoke, Cosby stayed silent. He didn’t push back, but neither did he agree with his director. All he said was that he’d think about it. The thought process, though, was short. A few days later, Cosby called Debbie and crushed the idea.
“Lisa Bonet is pregnant,” he said, “but Denise Huxtable is not.”
He pulled Lisa off A Different World and, sometime after our daughter was born, put her back on The Cosby Show. But from then on, her relationship with Bill was tense and ultimately untenable.
* * *
We moved from the gingerbread house to an American Craftsman home in Venice on Milwood Avenue with two big artist studios in the back, one of which became my music space. It was a house of love and creativity.
Lisa’s pregnancy was a precious time. She was glowing with life and growing in spirit. Adding to the excitement were the songs growing inside my soul. Some of them were attached to stories. And some of those stories, as in the song “Rosemary,” Lisa and I wrote together.
“Rosemary” tells the tale of a five-year-old girl abandoned to a world of heartache and pain. Unlike our unborn child, this child had no one, just “a burning heart and tired eyes, howling winds for lullabies.” I saw Rosemary; I felt her; and I felt the need to console her spirit. I imagined her heart turning to gold because “there’s eternal life for every soul.”
* * *
My spiritual path had led to this moment. Grandma Bessie’s faith; Grandpa Albert’s devotion to the great teachers; my mother’s kindness and compassion for all; the living presence of Christ that I’d experienced at choir camp; the passion of all the churches I’d attended; Dr. Scimonetti’s lessons on forgiveness and grace; Lisa’s loving heart—all of it coalesced. All of it took root in my music.
At long last, I’d started to hear songs rooted in spirit, songs that were taking form just as our daughter was taking form—a double blessing. The songs were different from anything I’d written before simply because the life we were living and the love we were creating had made me different. This was what I’d been waiting for. The wait was finally over. The channel was open. It all made sense.