Gone Too Soon

Black people often laugh a lot because it is the thing that keeps us sane. It is the only space where we can reside without using our energy to preserve the ego of someone else. We chuckle loudly because it is the defense mechanism we learned from our slave owners when we loss loved one’s due to death. It killed us keeping up facades that wounded our smile. It murdered us to lose all emotion to the things that mattered most. It desensitized us to pain + we learned how to watch suffering with a straight face. It became a narrative that we became accustomed to. It taught us how to swallow our troubles + pretend that they didn’t exist…knowing full well we were never good.

This picture is old, but this is the only way I want to remember my cousin. This is the moment that I remember him well in the midst of his mother’s death. Maybe he wasn’t well. Maybe he was already dying. Maybe he was just becoming accustomed to the narrative that we all have adapted to under the pressure of sadness. Some people endure life + become better for it. While others allow life to empty them of every bit of joy they ever had. Temporarily you will watch people suffer + you will offer ever limb of your body as a life raft hoping the person won’t amputate every inch of you. Because its hard not to jump into a sinking ship when you know the person can’t swim. Because lately all you see is a construct that perpetuates the perfect storm for anyone to get swept away. Sometimes you have to save yourself in order to see if you are capable of beating the odds.

This moment is the last moment that I remember my cousin being well. Today he transitioned. I didn’t cry because I understand the complexities of the life he lived. Because I live at the intersection of the same trauma just different hang ups, but nonetheless I know the path he chose. I could have chose it for many reasons because truthfully it is harder to not choose it. Most people never really speak about how difficult it is to overcome epigenetic trauma. Most people never speak about how hard it is to beat the pain. No one ever talks about the amount of energy it takes to be something different when all you know is pain. I trust that now he is in a better place working on all of my family’s behalf, we will work harder to beat the pain.