The Benediction

Photography by Andre Wagner

Inspired by Nikki Giovanni’s poem You Came, Too. With love in mind for myself and you. 

I came to the crowd seeking friends

I came to the crowd seeking love

I came to the crowd for understanding

I found you

Georgia summers were always hot and sticky. I learned the smell of rain early and would spend as much time outside outrunning what was imminent. 

A storm.  

Storms were something I used to fear. I didn’t understand it’s power of making things new. Of providing relief. Of teaching pause and commanding stillness. 

All I knew was that when a storm was coming? Things shook. Flooded. Darkness came. And I also knew that I’d perform what would become a 20-year practice of holding my breath.

On this particular day etched in my memory, where the forecast predicted my fears, the storm came early as I was still caught outside.

“Look mommy! God is crying!” my neighbor yelled

My mother, overhearing this, looked over and quickly told me that wasn’t the case and that God does not cry. 

But even then, I begged to differ.

Everyone dies in the summertime and perhaps that’s why I’ve been having such a hard time writing about being alive. It’s been ten years since I first started grieving heavy. Four since I’ve stopped writing. A few months since I’ve realized that my silence was a result of the fact that what I feared was killing those I love was also killing me too. 

If the story of Jesus has taught me anything, it is that there is life after death. Maybe that’s why I’m always looking for any sign of resurrection. 

I know I am not God…but what do I do when the people I love won’t resurrect too? What do I say when death has walked so closely with me that I’ve felt it walking step by step in stride? What is resurrection to someone who always feels suffocated by grief? 

I came to the crowd to weep

I came to the crowd to laugh

Toni Morrison wrote, “Perhaps all human relationships boil down to one thing. Would you take my life, or would you save it?”

At what point do I continue to play along for optics? Shake hands and exchange pleasantries with those who wish harm to me? Sit in rooms with those who preach sisterhood and solidarity in public spaces but don’t regard my human enough to care about what they do to me in private? Be told to forgive those who have told me they love me, but lie to me? 

I know better now. I know that when I feel like nothing to someone that does not mean that I am nothing at all. I know that I am visible to those who matter. I know that my life is not over. I know that it is well. I know that I am a reckoning. I know that I am free. 

You dried my tears

You shared my happiness

I know what makes a community. I know that when my sister grieves, I grieve too. When my student loses, then I have lost too. When my lover cried, I needed to hold him. But when I cried because of him, that my friends held me instead. When I hear that someone is in a cage, I do not find means for celebration. But that sometimes, I should. I recognize myself enough now to not want to see myself mirrored in the face of evil. 

A year after I wrote Lost Boys, I met someone new. He taught me all about what I never knew about love. About ego. About pride. He taught me all about betrayal. More importantly, what it felt like to betray myself. I used to tell him that I was only his reflection. 

He refused to see. 

I went from the crowd seeking you
I went from the crowd seeking me
I went from the crowd forever

You came, too

I used to think maybe justice looked like destroying what has destroyed me too.

But now I know that while the answer may sometimes call for destruction…the question is not what justice looks like but it's how I’m going to get mine.

I know that I am not God. I know that resurrection is out of my control. I  know that in this life I no longer want to feel like I die and then die again. I am not God. But I am also not a graveyard. Neither are my students. My sisters. My brother. My mother. My father. My past lover. And neither are you. 

Boston summers feel hot. The air is thick and heavy. I got familiar with learning how to smell the rain here too. 

You were my storm. All I have of you now is aftermath. 

I thank God the war is over.

—

The Benediction:

God, 

Bring us all to a place where we must sit with you. Please rock my anger gently so that she can be soothed. Please give me the softest place to land. I am always a reckoning. Please protect me from the wreckage. Theirs. His. Mine.

Help me to have peace that surpasses understanding. Help them to face you. Afraid. But unable to turn away. Please hear the unresolved messy prayers in my heart and allow the results of this injustice to only nurture my faith in miracles. 

Amen and Asé.