This, Ever-Lasting
I stepped back, and still, I found myself at the edge.
No longer searching, I found myself before what I was looking for. I paused, or maybe I hesitated, but it was then that I considered: was I here because I finally found what I was looking for, or because I was simply too tired to keep searching? But does it matter? Alas, I am here.
—
When I’d looked up at the sky that day, before entering Jerusalem Baptist Church for my brother’s little brother’s funeral, my niece drew my attention to white birds circling in the distance. I watched as, around and around, they went. I looked down at myself and then around as we stood in the receiving line: I was the only person wearing white in a sea of black. Somehow, white felt appropriate.
We were just months from approaching a year since my brother’s little brother had been missing. The finding of his body felt like solace, as if now, peace and rest were possible. For close to a year, I’d found myself in a new role of support for my brother, one I prayed and prayed about. When he called, I never knew what to say or what to do; mostly, I just listened. Each call was a different theme of emotion. Sometimes he was angry, sometimes he cried, sometimes he laughed as he remembered something special about his mischievous and unruly little brother.
When I looked up, the funeral director was opening the double doors of the church. I could see my brother’s dreads from where I was standing. He held onto the arm of his mom as they walked into the church. This was the first of three funerals in 2023. Of course, I didn’t know that then.
—
Later, we were all at Don’s Seafood in Pocomoke. When the broiled crab cakes I ordered finally arrived, I had a growing feeling that I would be disappointed, and I was. My dad interrupted my considering where I might go next for food when he handed me the phone. His two front gold teeth were still visible, “BP.” If you wanted to trigger him, bring him back to that person, utter that word. Once he returned home from prison in September of 2020, symbolically so, 10 years to the month since he first went in, he rushed to have those gold plates removed. “I don’t want to know that person anymore.”
I listened and remembered that era of him and who I was when he was him. I could relate. Finally, something we could both relate to, I thought.
He said, “It’s Grandma.” I knew what he meant: his grandma, my great-grandma. I deepened my voice, attempting to disguise myself, and said, “Hello,” sharply and void of emotion. My dad gave me a strong and serious look. “No, no.” My body burned on the inside, my face quickly flushed. Apparently, this wasn’t a time to play games—but I’d always done this when calling or speaking with my Great-Grandma LaVoila. I was always surprised and equally delighted each time she fell for it. Eventually, she’d laugh, “D.J., I’m gonna get you,” laughing some more.
I quickly shifted, became more serious. “Hi, Grandma.”
“Hi, baby,” she said faintly.
I pressed the phone into my ear, straining to hear what would be her last words to me. Of course, I didn’t know that then. Had I known that day would be the last time I spoke with her, I would have kept up the disguise. She passed away less than a week later.
—
I question if 2023 was real, if it all happened the way I remembered it. I search the memory of my phone, and I see a picture of my Bestfriend’s mom, or as I had her named in my phone: “Mom #2.” I was her child. Over time, I took pride in hearing her say that to strangers, most often exuberantly after she’d had a few too many White Russians, or as I called them, “Mocha Mocha’s.” The strangers would look politely puzzled and hesitant, the contrast of this very white woman hugging and claiming this obviously Black person as her child.
When I took the picture, I knew she wouldn’t be with us much longer—I didn’t know which day or how long, but that day came five days later.
I send the picture to her daughter, my Bestfriend. She quickly responds: “This photo will always be one of my absolute favorites! Couldn’t tell that woman anything!” A second later: “Gosh, I love and miss her so damn much!”
I laugh, looking at her lying in a hospital bed, but in the living room of her own home. She’s hooked up to oxygen, smoking a cigarette, and giving me the middle finger. Likely, I’d said or done something to “piss” her off, as I took great pride in doing. I had already kissed her on the cheek and said goodbye, knowing, of all the goodbyes I had ever said before, these words were the most true.
As I stepped away from her bed, she grabbed my arm and pulled me back in. I brought my ear in close so I could hear her, thinking she was about to say something moving and life-changing, a way to always remember her, as I think I’ve seen on TV.
She said, with clarity, “Give me a cigarette.”
“NOOOO!” I said.
She cursed me and rolled her eyes. Eventually, of course, her wish was granted.
—
I saw a light flash from the corner of my eye; I absentmindedly thought it was a glare reflecting from passing car lights. The second time I saw the flash of light, it was accompanied by a crackling. I rushed to peek out of my window and saw the sky quickly darkening, gloom spreading as far as I could see beyond the magnolia tree. Serendipitously, my phone vibrated as I received a severe storm alert. I hoped by the time I finished with yoga and was ready to head to my piano lesson, the storm would have passed.
I rolled the windows down in my car. The storm had lightened the air and offered a cool reprieve from the uncharacteristically hot and humid day. I kept the music off and listened instead to the wind racing with the car. I eventually reached stretches of the highway without traffic congestion, where I was able to maintain higher speeds.
I was immediately reminded of when I was a kid, passenger-seat riding on long back roads with the windows all the way down in the car. The music would be blaring from the speakers, but at those speeds and with the combination of the wind hitting my face, I couldn’t sing. It was either sing or breathe, and I chose the latter. Those moments were filled with something I couldn’t grasp or understand then; I simply had to be present for them. I’d lean forward some more, inching myself closer to the car window, forcing the wind to push further against my face, fighting to breathe.
I let my arm hang out of the window as I accelerated in speed. As I approached a railroad track, I quickly made the decision to go faster, just as my mom used to do when we were kids. My twin siblings and I would be in the back seat of our white Lexus LS 400. Merky, our crazy favorite cousin, would often be in the passenger seat of the car, encouraging our encouragement. My mom would stop the car and put the car in sport mode.
As she mashed on the gas, my siblings and I would look at each other as if we were preparing to transcend into another world, our final moments, though, would be marked by laughter, screams of everlasting joy. We’d throw our hands up in the air as we levitated from our seats.
“Do it again, do it again, Mom!”