2020 was very challenging for me for reasons unrelated to the pandemic. As I reflect, it was difficult not only because of the tragedies themselves but also because of their proximity to one another.
I remember when I got jumped on as a teen by a group of girls in Chicago. Another quickly followed each blow until I could do nothing but allow myself to fall to the slippery floor of Nicky’s Restaurant and cover my head. They were too fast. The least I could do if I didn’t have the time to throw a punch was protect my face.
I walked away from that fight, blood trickling from my scalp. When I arrived at the hospital, it was so crowded that the blood had dried by the time I saw the doctor. I sat on the edge of a bed in the hallway while the doctor pierced me with the surgical stapler. I was not under anesthesia, but it didn’t hurt. It simply felt like pressure.
The staples dissolved and I healed nicely. I finished school and went on with my life like nothing happened. The scars from that night are invisible.
That’s how it feels to grieve the events of 2020 when I lost my mother and suffered multiple miscarriages in the span of a few months, each blow coming too fast for me to recover fully.
And I wonder if I am just balled up on the floor, covering my head to protect my face.
“Come celebrate
with me that every day
something has tried to kill me
and has failed.”
– Lucille Clifton
Last week, Saturday, October 3, 2020, I buried my mother.
On Tuesday, September 22nd, we learned she might night make it. That night I spent the night in the basement on the couch watching Grey’s Anatomy episodes with a glass of wine. I couldn’t sleep, but you will inevitably fall asleep on the sofa when you are downstairs in my house. We’ve had the couch for a while, and it has claimed many victims who promised themselves it was not comfortable enough to tame them. What also happens is I lose service down there, and while I drifted, my phone rang and rang, but I couldn’t hear it.
Finally, I went upstairs, and my phone rang again. My heart dropped. There is only one reason people call that early. I accepted my sister’s call and asked, “why are you calling me so early?,” although I already knew the answer.
“It was the twenty-third of September. That day I’ll always remember, yes I will ‘Cause that was the day that my mama died”
The next day, September 24th my aunt, my late dad’s sister, also passed.
Photo by Irina Iriser on Unsplash
I didn’t talk about it, but my Uncle John passed earlier this year on May 28th, two days after my birthday, and on June 2nd, a dear friend and brother passed.
The world also lost Kobe Bryant, Chadwick Boseman, and Thomas Jefferson Byrd, known best for his role as Luther from Set It Off. He passed the day we buried my mother.
I need no more reminders of how fragile life is, and that’s what sticks out to me the most in my time of silence as I seek to process all this death.
I think we are all aware of this delicacy that is life, but it becomes much more real when a loved one passes. It is then that we realize how insignificant we are and precious too. The insignificance is the weakness of our flesh; how it so easily topples and breaks down. The preciousness is the breath of life, without which we are lumps of clay.
It made me think about how we treat each other. It wasn’t until Yah breathed into Adam the breath of life that he became a living being. We are nothing without this power, and yet, we treat each other as if the breath pulsing through our veins differs from someone else’s. We treat each other as if the Almighty can’t call our spirit back at any moment.
What right do I have to mistreat someone when I return to the Earth just as they will? What right do I have to judge someone’s life or mock their pain when I know that I bleed just as they do?
What right does any of us have to think we are better than anyone else when the sun rises and falls on all of us, righteous and wicked, alike?
There are so many promises we make to one another at times, such as this. We promise to be there for one another, we promise to keep in touch, and we promise to appreciate the time we have.
But these promises do not last and are only remembered at the next funeral.
Our life is like the wind, a breeze that comes and goes. How I wish we could be consciously aware of our own lives’ fragility as we live and not only in death.
Don’t forget to grab your copy of My Soul is a Witnessand leave a review as reviews help to expose the work of Independent Artists.
“Lifetime relationships are a bit more difficult to let go of. When a parent, child, or spouse is involved, the wounds are very deep. When the end of a lifetime relationship comes, you may feel that you would be better off dead. The pain seems to grow, the memories linger, a part of your life is dying. You relive every painful moment in an attempt to understand. Your job is not to understand. Your job is to accept. Lifetime relationships teach you lifetime lessons; those things you must build upon in order to have a solid emotional foundation. They are the most difficult lessons to learn, the most painful to accept; yet these are the things you need in order to grow. When you are facing a separation of the end of a lifetime relationship, the key is to find the lesson; love the person anyway; move on and put what you have learned to use in all other relationships. A new life begins when a part of life ends.”- Jasheem Wilson
death
it’s sting
produces a humility powerful enough
to find itself a home
even inside the heart of the one
who holds the cup of “I’m sorry’s”
hoping their voice is sad enough
to produce the kind of sympathy
that peels back the brick
that found itself a place
inside the gut of the bereaved
the lump
waiting inside their throats
is this “I’m Sorry” strong enough? “I’m sorry”
makes me feel guilty
because I know that it is not enough,
in fact
it almost sounds cliché
how can this routine “I’m sorry”
ever guarantee the sincere apology I feel
for the woman
who lost her husband in the hands of doctors
with spines like jellyfish,
the inconsiderate “I’m sorry”
floating out the window of the hospital,
where his breath left it’s good bye on the table
without warning
didn’t want to wake her sleeping gorgeous
so he left in the middle of the night
just to see her smile one last time
for he knew that she would smile
in her dreams
Or the man
who lost his brother with the split of atoms
like storms breaking through to the clouds
like a mother’s arms spread wide enough
to capture his smiles in a bowl
but aint no rainbows today
cause grief
it convinces us that the world
has ceased existing
and molds its rotations to the contours of our hearts
“Why are you sorry?!”
screams the confused silence of my bones
or the unflinching expression of a man’s face
after a life-time of catastrophes
tainted love
chocking dreams
and memories like the scenic route to civil wars
& he wears it all
with a walk like a stone cold killer
and a face fit for poker
but his heart is pale with grief
I know
cause I heard it in his smile
he laughs
but only because his body weeps
too weak internally
to die physically too
so when he grieves
and when she grieves
when their pain is too deep
to find alongside the outline of their faces
too far to find within the pages of their past
but close enough to smell in the sorrow of their loss
in these bags
filled to the brim with all their stuff
what do you say
when the air isn’t pure enough to breathe
and a routine, “I’m sorry” is simply not enough
to convince them
Have you ever felt guilty trying to console someone who has lost a loved one even though it’s not your fault? Like, why do we say we’re sorry in the first place? What have we ourselves done? We apologize because we’re sorry for their sadness, and also because somehow, their loss has humbled us:
“It is apparent, that death, it’s sting… produces a humility powerful enough to find itself a home even inside the heart of the one who holds the cup of “I’m sorry’s”
hoping our voice is somehow gloomy enough to produce the kind of sympathy that peels back the brick that found itself a place inside the gut of the bereaved.”
The PBS Blog 