When you walk into my room, you see a shelf above my bed with a picture of my mom, dad, and I. By its side is a candle from Paradise Funeral Home. Below it there’s the dream catcher that hung in my dad’s car when he used to take me to school. These things were essential to my packing list for Spain.
A year ago, my dad passed away. It was spring semester, during winter break, and I had just arrived to Ann Arbor the night before. That day we got a call from my mom, she was crying hysterically, and I already knew what she was going to say. I knew this day was coming, but nothing could have prepared me for February 10th, 2018. Afterwards, I often felt mood swings as the 10th of every month would approach. There was always a combination of thoughts and emotions that triggered this behavior. The semester before he passed, my mom had left him, I was in an emotionally abusive relationship, and I was constantly struggling to be who I thought I was at the time. It felt like everything that kept me grounded was now being cracked by the earth’s surface. Subconsciously, I was experiencing everything all at once, however, my mind could only process everything one at a time.
Three months after he passed, I was preparing to go abroad for the first time. I had just finished the semester and I felt like I had nothing left to give because I was drained. I experienced so much loss. Multiple friendships disappeared before my eyes, family members went into the shadows, classwork piled on me, new people came into my life, I cried, and I felt so much anger that I cried some more. I experienced a lot of loss, and still carry it with me. You might even be thinking why didn’t I take a break or give up. I had no choice. I’m a young black woman from a poor community. What other choice did I have but to keep going? I have generations of black women and men, like my father, who spent their lives in oppression and hoped that their children could live a life that is just a little bit better than them. This is what helped me push through.
My da was born to sharecroppers in small city in Arkansas. He said that he could remember working fields with them. The stories that I have of my da are a little choppy. I only got these stories from my mama. I wasn’t really close to da. To me, he was always this mysteriously big, “little” chocolate man. We called him da, (dah), not dad, daddy, pops, or father. He was just da. I knew that he loved to draw when he was a kid, that he always had a supernatural gift, and that he never could sit down for more than 20 minutes without falling asleep or getting up to go somewhere. There’s much more that I started to realize that da and I have in common, especially after he passed. Such as my curiosity about other cultures and a deep desire to share with others my experiences and wisdom. Without a doubt, it’s what led me here to Spain. Right after he died, I wrote down memories I had of him and lessons he taught me, good and bad, just so that I won’t forget them when I’m older. I wrote them as if I was telling him the story and thanking him for his time with me.
His heart was always in the right place and he taught me to follow my intuition. Even when I was irritated by him as a teen, I knew that he just wanted to help. He would always say, “Aww Cherish, you kno dah-d don mean no ha-m.”As I started going to a majority white school in high school, I was so embarrassed by the way he spoke. Now that I’m older and research the language, I feel so much closer to him. There were times that I misunderstood him as a kid, and it was because I was looking at him often through someone else’s lense. Whether it be the lense of the world or a family member. However if there’s anything I learned in this past year, it’s that at the end of the day your intuition points you in the right direction. You already have the power and knowledge within yourself to understand others and most importantly yourself.
So how do I feel now, you may wonder? Well, I realized that it’s not something you can explain. This week, was a rough week as it led up to the anniversary of his passing. Two days ago, I felt tears coming on and just let them out. This is completely okay, but the problem was that I’m in a foreign country with people I only met two weeks ago. So I talked with family and called some friends from back home and cried with them. However, I realized that it didn’t really matter that I am abroad at the same time as the anniversary. It would have been hard no matter where I am in the world. Life is Life is Life. I have to trust those who don’t necessarily understand, like my friends from back home and the new people in my life here in Spain. This continues to be hard for me since my relationship with trust has been reevaluated so many times by family members, significant others, close friends, and strangers. I had to realize that trust is earned, but also you have to give it in small instances like this one. It’s the only way to live a life that’s more than just worthwhile.
As many people say, death is inevitable. Most people only think of their own death when they hear this statement. However, the truth is that it’s bigger than our own deaths, but the deaths of the people around us, hopes, and dreams. We can’t escape pain in this life, but there are resources for healing. Vulnerability is not weak, but courageous. It’s not about what people think about you, but what you think about yourself. You are daring to be seen and heard in a world where most people we encounter are only waiting to be loved. The beauty in the bitterness of a loved one’s death is to know that their being now lives on through you as love. We’ve all learned at some point in our lives that energy can never be destroyed nor created. Therefore, love is love is love. No matter where we are in this world, life still goes on and the things of our past continue to be with us.