Always There Are the Children

Something devastating is happening, a bone-chilling, frightening thing.

The children are dying.

In this year alone, I have learned of the deaths of four young people, three of them children under 25 years old. All of them were from people I know; they were firstborns, the first fruits of their mother’s wombs.

It has made me reflect deeply on how we foster future generations while remembering old ones. As a history buff, I understand how easy it is to dwell on the past. However, I’ve realized that the past, present, and future are inextricably linked; if we ignore one, we disregard the others.

I had the fortunate opportunity to speak with my husband’s great-aunts this past weekend as we mourned the death of their sister, our grandmother. They are all in their 70s and 80s, so I asked them what advice they have for the next generation. Almost everyone said to listen to the elderly. Essentially, you should obey your mother and father. Today, many may refer to this as honoring the ancestors. Whatever phrase you use, the broad consensus is to listen to those who came before you.

Growing up on a farm, where they grew and raised everything they ate, I got the impression they weren’t just saying this because they were elders but that it was a genuine conviction in which they truly believed.

Growing up, many of us heard the warning: “Honor your mother and father so your days are prolonged on the earth.”

I think about the depth of this as I watch the children perish.

One of my favorite poems from Nikki Giovanni is “Always There Are the Children.”

For me, it is a reminder that we do not live forever in these bodies. We will pass on one day, but there will always be children. What we pour into them while we live determines whether there will be more Nikki Giovannis and Maya Angelous.

Unfortunately, we live in a world obsessed with two things: appreciating people only once they’ve passed and only once they have become great. Rarely do we recognize the process and honor the in-between spaces. Seldom do we honor the becoming.

This robs the children.

And the children are not just minors in small bodies; we are the children, too. We are also daughters and sons, and I hope that we learn to nourish ourselves in the same way that those who came before us were nursed, and that we do so early on, rather than waiting until we are thought to have made it, because we are born worthy.

“We prepare the way with the solid
nourishment of self-actualization
we implore all the young to prepare for the young
because always there will be children.”

-Nikki Giovanni