Ifayinka

My sister was a miracle.

I was told the first time she almost died from sickle cell, she was just two years old. I don’t remember that, but I do remember us being very young and her disappearing for long periods of time. One time I threw such a fit, I was admitted into the hospital, so we didn’t have to be separated. I remember we were in cribs, in the same room at the old Coatesville Hospital.
When she was a little older, my young mind still couldn’t wrap itself around why she would disappear with our grandmother. We had this way of holding conversation with each other when we were really little, where we would lay down, put our feet together, and bicycle them. One of those times, I asked her and she told me that she had gone to this place where she went on an elevator and they put her in a room with a television, there was a McDonalds there. She had these ladies coming in and giving her trays of food and juice whenever she wanted. (I eventually came to realize this was CHOP) I couldn’t understand why I didn’t get to go to this special place, so I asked our Grandmother and that is when she first explained to me, the best she could that my sissy had sickle cell. The doctors told our grandmother that Bert’s disease was so bad that she wouldn’t live beyond her 5th birthday. I was there for her 6th birthday. Then they told her that Bert wouldn’t live beyond her 12th birthday, yet we celebrated her 13th birthday in 1988. There were countless nights of my grandmother on her knees praying (yes, on her knees, I witnessed it). Bert slept in my grandmothers bed because of my grandmothers fear of losing her in the night. There were years of bedside vigils, hospital admissions, prayers at the alter, prayers in the hospital, and pain medications. Blood transfusions, etc. It never hindered Bert from living the life she wanted.

Bert loved deep and hard. She was feisty and had a mouth on her that would make you want to slap the taste out (l actually tried to). She was a good listener. She was a good friend. She was a good adviser. She was a giver. She loved to love people, and she loved to care for people even when she herself was in pain. She was strong. She knew how to push beyond her physical limits and tap into her spirit. She could care less about her appearance, life was- just too short to fuss over such things.

Despite being labeled as a “severe sickler” which meant over 95% of the red blood cells in her body were sickled. Bert traveled internationally, creating theater with our father. She worked hard in helping to  make opportunities and spaces for people of different cultural backgrounds to gather with the common goal of gaining understanding and respect for each other through her work as a co-founder of the Coatesville Cultural Society. She loved cooking and would feed anyone who was hungry. She loved hanging out with the children and didn’t mind playing  games with them, doing their hair, or taking them to amusement parks. She gave birth to five children and breastfed every one of them.

It is hard for me to think that she lost her life. The truth is she LIVED her life far beyond what anyone expected or imagined. Even still, our hearts were broken on July 5th, 2002, when she returned home to our Ancestors.

So, this date, each year, for the past 22 years. I open my eyes, and I remember fondly the life of my very first and forever best friend.
I take comfort in her last words to me “I will never leave you, Sissy.” Now I know this to be true! Egbe mi, love is stronger. You always knew.

May you rest in power with our ancestors, my dearest sister, Roberta Denise. I am forever grateful for our connection and our time together on this side. We will one day dance together again

The pain had been brewing for weeks. It was a familiar pain because it was the pain that I had been feeling for the seven years prior. A pain that would often send me to the Emergency Department, only to be told that I had an irritable bowel and I needed to adjust my diet, something that I tried but never gave me relief. After explaining this lack of relief, I would feel the shift in the people who were treating me. They would question the authenticity of the pain and begin to treat me as a narcotics seeker. Their tones ringing with condescension and disbelief.

Finally, I had given up. I noticed that when the pain would come, after a few days of intensity, it would eventually start to subside. I stopped going to the Emergency Department, and I walked away from two different Gastroenterologist with a diagnosis of it’s just IBS, nothing serious. However, on this night, rather than subsiding, the pain woke me from my sleep it was so intense, I couldn’t stand. I crawled to the toilet where my body forced bloody stool out. After cleaning myself, I fell back to the floor. I began to talk myself through the pain “Just breathe, it won’t go away if I don’t relax.”
On my way crawling back to my bed, I noticed my husband now awake sitting on the side of the bed, seeming to be getting dressed. As I got back into the bed, I asked him to lay back down. “I can get through this,” I told him. Without hesitation, he told me to get dressed because he was taking me to the Emergency Department right now. The pain was so unbearable that I could barely dress myself, and in the car, I reclined my seat and curled my body.

When we arrived at the Emergency Department, my husband got a wheelchair and because it was about 4am and empty inside, I was taken straight to triage. I remember the nurse asking what my pain level was, and I remember feeling like it was worse than any number could explain. After getting an IV started, I was given morphine, which did nothing to ease the pain. The doctor then ordered dilaudid, which finally gave me some relief so that I could get the CT scan that was supposed to show what was going on. It was the first time that a CT scan had been offered to me in an emergency room. Once my results came, the Emergency Department physician admitted me to the hospital to be treated by the gastroenterology team. As the medication began to wear off and the pain started to return, my blood pressure dropped very low, a sign for them that my body was going into shock from the pain. They increased my fluid and administered pain medication to be given regularly. I was being prepped for a colonoscopy, the third one in seven years, but this time, it was while I was having symptoms and not months after.
After my colonoscopy, the hospital gastroenterologist met with me and my husband. I remember his words. “You have severe Crohn’s disease. It is pretty bad. Every part of your colon is affected. You have scar tissue and strictures. Why haven’t you gotten checked for this?”
When I told him that I had these symptoms for seven years and not only did I seek emergency care, I saw two Gastroenterologist, and they never checked me for Crohn’s disease. One doctor even told me that the inflammation I had was probably from drinking, even though I didn’t drink more than once a month, if that.
In disbelief, he said “I don’t know how they could miss this, and I don’t know how you dealt with it untreated for so long.” All I could think was it’s because I am a Black woman. I was dismissed as being dramatic, and although there was absolutely no evidence that suggested I was ever a drug abuser. It was easier to write me off as one rather than order a simple CT scan, which would have shown the active inflammation attacking my intestines.

After seven years of suffering from abdominal pain, bloody stool, nausea, vomiting, and extreme fatigue, it had a name. I finally had a diagnosis.
That was May 2nd ten years ago. Since that time, having Crohn’s disease has done it’s part of ravaging my body as well as blessing me with learning how to live through pain, rest, and appreciate the times of calm. It forced me to attend to myself and pay better attention to what I feel in my body. It taught me to be a strong advocate for myself and not to back down or minimize my experience in order to make others comfortable in their biases.

Eight years after my diagnosis, despite some irreparable damage and years of treatments that often left me isolated, I learned how to live with this disease and entered into remission. There is no longer active disease in my body, just remnants left to carry and manage.
This is one of the blessings of my life. So today, ten years later, I give thanks for the journey.

It was a broken heart that took my grandmother home. I have often wondered what caused her heart to break. My mother says it was many years of many small things that she held inside that eventually manifested as a blood clot in her heart. My mother says that my grandmother carried the sadness and loneliness that comes with growing older and losing many people who were dear to her heart, beginning with losing her own mother at the age of fourteen and her father years before that. She was the last living of her siblings. She went through losing two of her children, a granddaughter, many friends, and close loved ones including my grandfather just ten months before her passing.

My grandmother wasn’t a perfect woman. She was a real woman. She was an authentic woman. I called her My Beautiful. Whatever she did, she did with her entire heart. She had a true love for being kind and generous, and she knew in her bones how to take care of people. As a child, I didn’t always appreciate that. As an adult I was willing to give her anything to show my appreciation for it. I made sure to give her all that I could. I felt she deserved so much more because of how much I saw her give of herself to others. She didn’t give because she wanted to be recognized. She didn’t give because she wanted to be praised. She gave because when she saw a need, she looked within to see if she was being called to serve by helping one of God’s creations and she was obedient to that internal call.

I am grateful that I was able to honor her and give her gifts of flowers while she could smell them. I am grateful that I was able to appreciate the many ways in which she gave to me. I am grateful that I was old enough to understand that she was a person, a woman, a wife, a mother and past her frustrations and inner turmoil, there was deep love. I am grateful that I understood that she wanted to be proud of me. She wanted to be able to live in me and through me, knowing that her words and her love, which was imparted to me, would be with me eternally even if her body could not be. I wasn’t an easy child to raise, often feeling misplaced and longing for the presence of my mother and father, but I also know that I was not difficult for her. In her eyes and heart, I was her baby, her very first grandchild and granddaughter born to her first daughter.

I remember sitting by her bedside as she was transitioning to the realm of ancestors. From the moment I walked into her hospital room until the moment she took her last breath at home, she did not want me to leave her side, and by her side I stayed. She had physically become so frail, yet she felt stronger and more empowered than I ever remember. She spoke with such authority, purpose, clarity, and love. Her final days on this earth she spent pouring all she had left to give into her children, grandchildren, and great grandchildren.

Since she has returned to her heavenly home, as the years pass, I continue to look for ways to honor her. I listen out for her voice as a source of wisdom. I look toward her example for guidance. I feel for her presence in my life. I know that she is with me, living in my spirit and my blood and bones, in my memory. I am so blessed to have shared life on this earth with and be raised by someone whose life was a living example of motherhood, generosity, ingenuity, and faithfulness.

The last time I checked, the documented world population was approximately 7.8 billion people. That’s a great deal of people living and breathing on this earth. I don’t understand how we as humans tend to behave in such a way that we aren’t satisfied with being our best selves. We strive to be everyone else’s cup of tea. I have sat with this and thought about it for a while. I have come to the conclusion that it is the spirit of envy that drives this dissatisfaction with our being.

In trying to figure out why envy is such an attractive spirit to so many of us human beings, I noticed that envy usually starts from a lack of self-acceptance. When I was a young child, I lived in a home with my grandmother and numerous extended family members. I felt completely comfortable in my environment. When I became school- aged and started to gain knowledge of another family dynamic, which was supported and enforced at school and on television, my young and impressionable mind started to long for the family dynamic that wasn’t mine. It seemed, from my limited understanding, as if the children who were growing up with that family dynamic somehow had better lives. Especially those who were on television. This way of thinking began to break down the deeply rooted comfort I felt in my own home. I began to lack appreciation and acceptance for the goodness that was being given to me on a consistent basis. I thought I wanted what others had without even having full knowledge of what that was. All I knew was my own life, and all I was doing with it was frowning upon it because it didn’t measure up to some standard that was being created in my own mind about others. Thankfully for me, that phase didn’t last long. My family had far too strong of a foundation in who we are, and before long, I grew appreciation and pride for what was ours.

We are somehow tricked into believing that someone else’s life is comparable to our own unique life and personal destiny. We have been taught and we have accepted this narrative of measurement and comparison. It is supported under the guise of entertainment, social media, and celebrity. We spend the currency of our time watching and listening and comparing. We have lost the focus of trying to be a better person today than we were yesterday. We forget to look inside and begin to search for our essence. We start to measure our success based on what success looks like to us in others. When we fall into this trap, it seems so hard to escape from it. It almost seems like the obsession with comparison drives us to a place that lacks adoration and support for our fellow humans. We often make the mistake of believing that whatever the “it” is, we can do it better, we can be it better. There are so many ways our society supports this type of spiritual sickness. It is the kind of spirit that tends to grow from being hidden behind compliments. It thrives through gaining information for the sole purpose of feeding ill will and ill intent to our souls. We have grown to be good at it. We have become such masters in this craft that we have named it everything other than what it really is so that we give ourselves permission to feel good about something that is poisonous to the balance of unity and strength.

On the other side of that, we create the false narrative that we alone are responsible for our greatness. We tend to ignore the energies and spirits that walk alongside us and every other human being, our own Ori, our Ancestors, Irunmole, Egbe, Orisa, which are constantly supporting and uplifting. It is completely okay to honor the life we have and strive to make it better. It is not healthy to diminish our own life based on what we perceive someone else’s situation to be. Remember, we don’t know the personal and ancestral sacrifices someone has endured to be where they are on their journey. Learn to appreciate your own. Don’t allow the eyes of envy to cloud your vision and blind you to the beauty in you!

The vision I have isn’t truly timeless, although I admit that at times it can feel that way. It is hard to comprehend hundreds of years of a way of being that felt comfortable, natural, and correct becoming dismantled. Do I imagine that there was not conflict, war or dysfunction? No, I do not. The matter of these things being part of the life lived by those who came before me matter very little in my responsibility of honoring them. Life is meant to have challenges. Life is meant to have sacrifice.

I do wonder though, at what point my many West African ancestors came to realize just how much of a threat and destroyer colonization would become to their indigenous ways of being. I wonder if to them it started in a similar fashion as some of the difficulties we face today. For example, the fentanyl crisis. Is colonization something that they had knowledge of but felt it was weak compared to their rich culture which was the foundation they stood upon for centuries? Did they underestimate the fulfillment of greed, ego and status brought to those who would willingly serve as the pushers of this new drug? Did they not realize that colonization would satisfy the hunger of the cruel and greedy beast known as the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade?

I wonder how many tears were shed by those left behind. I wonder about the prayers of hope that were made. I wonder because those tears and those prayers are what fuel my current ambition and drive to turn away from the influences of colonial thought and behavior that was planted through several forms and live in me. Fame and notoriety are not symbols of success for me. Money, degrees and political influence do not motivate me. I do not write this to say that these things are not of importance or relevance in my life. I’m pointing out that they are not the measure of success for me nor the force that drives or motivates me to continue living the best life possible in my time on this earth through the guidance of Ifa/ Orisa spiritual path. It is the tears and prayers of those left behind while their children were stolen, never to be seen again in their lifetime. It is the tears and prayers of those who were chained to the belly of ships for months, stripped of their human right to be, yet they hung on to whatever life they had. It is the tears and prayers of those who were forced into silence, burying all they knew, being left to survive off the poisoned fruit of their enslavers. It is the tears and prayers of hope from those who existed in the time of freedom and did the ebo (sacrifice) for me to remember and return.

Having knowledge that I am here living and breathing because someone found moments of joy in the face of deep sorrow. Someone chose to live and find a way to thrive in the face of brutality. I owe it to them, not only to exist but to live in joy. I owe it to them to walk in the light of wisdom. I owe it to them to right the wrongs and injustices inflicted by living a healthy and clean life. I owe it to them to salvage the ruins of our world and honor the love that has sustained us. I owe it to them to turn away from ignorance and violence. I once read something that said “I am my ancestor’s wildest dreams.” I wondered if that was true for me, because it isn’t enough to merely exist in order to be their wildest dream. We owe it to them to step up, honor, uplift, restore and return what was stolen through colonization.

About twelve years ago, I trained as a birth worker. The main reason I took this training was because my plans to become a Midwife when I was in my early twenties were thwarted. I always knew that I belonged in the space where transition from spirit to flesh took place. I had been present and served at births and deaths at that point. In many ways it felt like a next step for me. Although I had never heard of the profession, it was a friend of mine who brought it to my attention. In her words “I was a natural.” But it would be the traumatic birth of my first grandchild that would propel me to finally decide to get formal training.

So, I found my way to a Doula Training that was being offered nearby and I sat for four days being trained by a very well educated and obviously experienced birth worker. I was the only black woman who was in attendance for that training. I remember my trainer expressing the importance of having more black Doulas because there were not many at that time. I walked away from that training feeling inspired and hopeful. I wanted nothing more than to offer my services to women like myself. Women who were teenage mothers. Women who were far from family when their children were born. Women who didn’t realize that they had a choice when it came to how they gave birth to their children. Women who made decisions about birth out of fear and were not given options. Women who experienced one of the most profound moments of their lives feeling unheard, unseen, and disappointed. Mostly because of the melanin in their skin. I understood the gravity of the work ahead of me and so I pushed forward working as a doula.

The trouble for me started when the organization that I trained under announced that they were going to be training male doulas. They also requested that those of us who were certified with them be mindful of some of the terms being used, for example, using the term “chest feeding” rather than “breastfeeding” or use the term “partner” rather than “baby’s father,” or “dad”. In all fairness, I didn’t mind this consideration for families who needed these types of exceptions made, but it was a sign that this was not the organization for me to work with. Something about it just didn’t sit right within my spirit. I had to be honest about what inspired me to be a doula and it wasn’t to serve everyone who wanted a doula. I was inspired to serve the women and their families in my community. The women in my community were ignored, mistreated, violated and dying while giving birth, not because of their family dynamics, but because they were black and unsupported in the medical system of this country. That is what was of grave importance to us at that time. What was in front of us was building a foundational understanding that there is choice in how and where to give birth, and the importance of choosing a provider that can be trusted with our lives and the lives of our children. That alone felt like an uphill battle. Although I decided to remove myself from that organization, I kept connected with the happenings in the doula world through social media. I kept my head down and continued to do my work. I watched online as the political climate and different agendas unfolded in the birth worker world. I felt less inclined to participate in the movement and more pulled towards my own understanding and place relating to birth work. One of the first things that struck me was that doing this work alone didn’t sit right with me. It didn’t feel natural. I felt like birth work was women’s work, womb work, and that should be done in a collective way. Although I do very well at holding a peaceful space during birth, I am not as strong at moving someone’s body around after giving birth. It started to feel a bit like this idea of being trained to be a super supporter was unrealistic and unattainable.

I continued to try to understand how I could still serve and walk away feeling like I had given my very best to my client. That was when I decided to create my family doula service. I was understanding that the work I had been doing with women for most of my life was the foundation I needed to build upon. I strongly believed that women who were going through carrying the responsibility of bringing forth a life from spirit to flesh, needed a village of trusted women to support them in that journey. I decided to model my services after the work I had seen over the years from my own mother and grandmother. They were both women who didn’t separate their own internal healing work from the women they served. My grandmother was a pillar in our community. She was a fierce supporter of women and children. Growing up, I witnessed firsthand the way she took younger women and often their children into her home, taking care of them while they were pregnant and after childbirth, preparing food for them, advising them, showing them how to care for their newborn babies. She provided daycare and would keep older siblings to help families that were oftentimes shaped by mothers who did not have their own mothers nearby to help. My mother was also one who fought hard for women who were young mothers that had fallen into hard times due to sexual, alcohol and drug abuse. Women who were working to recover their lives and restore their sense of dignity. I would watch as she counselled and supported these women through their spiritual and emotional trauma and helped them to stand strongly on their feet in some of their most difficult times. Her generosity and commitment to these women seemed boundless. I wanted to pass such a powerful legacy on to my daughters and granddaughters. I felt like my training to be a doula was an opening for me to do that. I asked my daughters to train as birth workers so that we could work together at giving that type of care to women who needed support, but who were unable to have the physical support of the women they were connected to for various reasons. Mainly to support the women who no longer live in communities or neighborhoods as we once primarily did when I was growing up.

For me as a black woman, I didn’t grow up with doulas. I grew up with women’s circles filled with grandmas, aunties, sisters, cousins and good girlfriends. These were the women who were the first to know when you found the love of your life and who helped you through your first period. They were the ones who you entrusted with your secrets and your fears. They were the ones who knew your weaknesses but didn’t prey on them. They would tell you when your slip was hanging and be right by your side through your toughest battles. They were the ones who you would confide in when you thought you might be pregnant and were there to take joy in the celebration of the possibility of new life and there to hold and support you if that life didn’t manifest. It felt natural to me that these were the women who would be present to support you when life was ready to come forth. As a birth worker, I asked myself a very serious question, “Did we really need the trained stranger?” Or was it that the voices we knew and trusted through everything else in our lives were suddenly silenced because they didn’t have training? Training in what? These were the women who certainly understand how to handle and care for us in some of our most vulnerable times. I began to question if the doula movement was another form of colonization. I wondered if it was another way to silence the ancestral wisdom of the elder women in our lives. Another way to make them feel small and powerless. I started to think, what if doulas took on the role of helping to empower these women, standing and sharing knowledge with them as another voice of encouragement and support for the mother by filling in any gaps? Not entering the sacred spaces of established bonds of womanhood without respect and consideration for what is already there.

Lastly, I want to say this. No one can give birth except for the woman who is giving birth. The only thing any of us can do is help support that mother as she takes that journey. I don’t care how much training someone has, at the end of the day, they will be a supporter. So, for the sake of honoring who we are, I think it is wise if we nurture the belief that we are much stronger together and tried our best to be in service to that.

I was sitting in my kitchen this morning with my mother, Mama Dee. We were having one of our conversations where we share our understanding of things with each other. This is something that we do from time to time as a way to honor and support each other’s growth. Sometimes we talk about the good old days. Sometimes it is a discussion around how we got through some of our most difficult challenges in life. Sometimes we just encourage each other. Today we talked about choice.

We discussed how our choices shape us, how we are walking embodiments of our choices. One of the forces that help to define us as being human, is our ability to choose. We spoke about how choice is such a powerful entity that even the thought of having it compromised, threatened or taken away can leave us disoriented with fear. Whenever I am feeling powerless in a situation, I remind my myself that we always have choices no matter what situations we are faced with, I don’t believe that any situation completely removes my choice. It isn’t difficult to become persuaded into thinking that somehow our freedom to choose can be tampered with. What I find in myself, is that the true fear is when I refuse to take responsibility and make peace with the gift of choice.

In our society, we’ve become comfortable with lives that lack spontaneity and creativity. We have learned to value routine and mindlessness over intuition and insight. Our rhythm of living and understanding is no longer aligned with nature, it is dictated by and obedient to the perceived power of the masses through an out of balance and unrealistic reliance on media and rhetoric. The thing is, we awake with the blessing of a new day, and we continue to choose this mental, emotional, spiritual, and physical insanity repeatedly. We decide to be victims of our choices rather than using the power of them to evolve us. Imagine the world we would live in if we just chose to change the way we understand this seemingly insignificant, yet powerful life force of choice.

At first it is the unbelievable realization that the brutality that is written in books and the horrors recounted from those who quietly posses a knowing run deep in your own blood. There is no random, no name African that came to this land through the middle passage. That no named African is deep in your spirit and in your flesh and bones. That is one layer of understanding to grapple with. Then to understand the deliberate dehumanization for hundreds of years, far more than the amount of time that there has been none, well that is quite a reckoning. It is a realization of just how comfortable America is with this enslavement of the mind, body and spirit of us, and how comfortable we have grown with this abusive relationship we were born into.

Then there is sitting in the Emergency Room with a loved one. A room filled with people, who are suffering from everything from a broken toe to an obviously intoxicated young person who doesn’t know where they have pain, they are just aware that they need some medication for it. There are three patients of African descent, three. You watch as everyone else in that crowded waiting room is attended to, except for those three people for four hours. All the while wishing there was something you could do to take away the pain of the older woman of African descent who cannot even sit upright due to belly pain. You watch helpless as her body tenses with the waves of pain and tears fill her eyes. This is a place you know very well, because so many times you were turned away from the emergency room with no answer to your own belly pain. Labeled as a drug seeking black woman because your cries of terror were seen as dramatic, and no physician cared enough to do significant diagnostic tests. Offering you narcotics and becoming frustrated when you refused them. “Why come here if you won’t take the treatment we are offering you?” scheduling appointment after appointment. Waiting months to see someone who doesn’t test you for what is ailing you because the doctor says that you don’t fit the criteria for the condition. Only to find out years later that you were in fact suffering from a chronic and serious auto immune condition. When the physician who finally diagnosed this condition said, “How is it possible that no doctor saw this level of damage?” How can you respond that it is because you are a black woman and your health simply does not take precedence over the biases against you that have been rooted deeply in the hearts and minds of those who have been placed in a position to care for you as a human being, as an ill person, as a citizen of this land worthy of quality healthcare?

So, when you are faced with the reality that the racism has once again proudly reared its head and given permission for life to be snatched away from those who are the children of the enslaved, you resist the temptation to fear a simple task, such as going to a grocery store to shop for your family. You take a deep breath and continue to do all you can to remember not to forget.

We cannot continue to pretend that this ugliness has disappeared over time. We cannot continue to believe that because we have come to accept the values of our oppressors above our own that we are past the era of subjugation and tyranny. We cannot give up hope for finding a way to truly live in peace as equals in this land. We must find our way out. We must harness the courage to wake up and see what is going on. We must speak up for ourselves and do what we must so that we can end this inheritance of dying at the hands of those who believe, uphold and support every system that was designed to keep us enslaved.

There is this habit that I have, that whenever I hear of the lottery jackpot winnings being some enormous amount of money, I start fantasising and verbalizing to my family what I would do if I were lucky enough to win even half of that amount. In all of my proclamations, I swear that I will be responsible, generous, and kind. I somehow believe that there isn’t a wasteful bone in my body, and that everything I do will have a useful purpose and meaning behind it. I indulge for a few moments in my fantasy, laughing with my family because the first actual step in making such proclamations reality would be to actually play the lottery. I don’t play the lottery, but if there was ever a lesson that I can say I am walking away from the year 2021 with, it is the lesson that I am already a lottery winner. I have been given life on this earth. The value isn’t calculated in dollars, but in time. 

When spending this precious time I have been given, sometimes I act as if it is never going to run out, and that I have an endless supply. I make decisions at times that are far from responsible, generous, or kind. At times I can be extremely wasteful. I spent a great deal of time reflecting on this in 2021, and I have been working hard to change my way of thinking and my behavior.

Because of the pandemic, I had to release a lot of my ideas and plans that were born in the desire to gather together with people and be out in public. Being safe trumped being social.

I have spent a great deal of time this year being selective in what, where, whom, and how I spend my time. Because I am learning to value my time, I am learning how to let things go that do not serve my life in a useful, purposeful and meaningful way. I am discovering just how blessed and wealthy I truly am. I find that I am living in a world where the stark reality that my precious time could be snatched away in an instant has come to uplift and encourage me to take good care of the moments I have. 

As I reflect, I have gratitude that this year has brought me the blessings of a beautiful new home, a couple of new grandchildren whom I was blessed to see enter this world, and one who was born here in my home. I was blessed to travel safely to Nigeria, one of my ancestral homes, to reunite with my Egbe and bathe in Osun’s healing waters with two of my daughters. I witnessed the next generation of my family embark on their priesthood journeys. I was in the grove of Igbodu Ifa with my husband and my children. I was blessed to expand in my own priesthood by continuing to deepen and understand my relationship with The Divine. I was blessed to finally celebrate my daughter’s marriage with a beautiful wedding. I was blessed that I did not go one day hungry or without my needs being met, and I received excellent medical care when I needed it most. I have been blessed to lay eyes on and love on my mother, my children and grandchildren on a regular basis, which is a source of joy for my spirit. I am blessed to share and enjoy life with my husband who genuinely loves, respects, honors and supports me. I have enjoyed the blessing of laughing with my siblings through virtual meetings, and even getting to hug and spend time with a few of them. I am blessed in having elders, most especially my Oluwo in my life who teach, encourage and correct me from a place of love. I was blessed to continue to foster meaningful friendships. I was granted the blessing of being able to see myself, be patient with myself, and nurture myself in this ever changing world. 

In the dawn of a new year, I take with me all of this with the intention to continue to spend the currency of my time, whatever is left of it, taking care of my blessings. I intend to continue to invest in my family and the needs of my spirit. I intend to purge the waste that steals from me the precious moments I have been given. Ase!

I understand that it was never intended to cause any harm, but just because we do not  intend harm doesn’t mean we are exempt from causing it. I understand that the principles behind the words were intended to teach me respect and discipline, but everything ain’t for everybody.

The phrases are etched into my mind “Children are to be seen and not heard.” and “You better stay in a child’s place.” I didn’t  absorb these phrases as conflict until they were. Until being seen and not heard silenced me, and staying in a child’s place crippled me, and both fostered an environment for me to suffer through abuse at the hands of an adult who had the power to see, hear and place himself wherever he wanted when it came to me.

My mother was the first adult who thought it was important for me to tell her how I felt about things. She was working on healing herself and as part of that process she recognized the need for her two little girls to heal as well. I had spent the majority of my first ten years of life away from my parents, and although it was my mother’s intention to retrieve and raise us, she knew this would not be an easy feat. So she started by getting to know who we had grown into.

It was simple stuff, she wanted to know how we felt about washing dishes. What music we liked. How we wanted to dress. She wanted to know who our friends were in school, or who we were having trouble with this week. She didn’t want to advise us, she just wanted us to be comfortable with her entry into our world. As part of this process of re-entry, she began to insist that we spend time with our father as well. 

I always knew who my parents were. For some reason, although I stopped living with them when I was only two years old, I had a longing for them. I felt that I was supposed to be with them. When I was very small, I would express this by throwing a fit every time they came to visit me and left without me. I would kick and scream and fling my arms in protest. It would take my grandmother time to calm me down and make it clear to me that my behavior was unacceptable. Until eventually, I learned to stop throwing fits. I learned to keep my feelings and emotions about my parents between me and my little sister.So when my mother opened a pathway for a relationship with my father, I was ready. 

Being at my father’s house was unlike anywhere I had ever been before. He was not a man who hid who he was. He had no interest in conforming to the demands of the world outside of his truth. He never came off as a know it all adult. He certainly had no desire to have me be seen and not heard, and he wanted me to know that I was responsible for my place in the world. He had a belief that as human beings, family, people who loved each other, we had a responsibility to listen to each other, hear each other, consider each other, respect each other. All of us, adults included. Whenever a decision had to be made that would affect all of us, he would have us gather to sit and talk through it. My siblings and I first referred to these as LBT’s, Long Boring Talks probably because we were faced with the reality of having to sit and consider something or someone other than just ourselves. My father insisted that we speak up and use our voices. He wanted to know who we were. He appreciated the way we saw things and was often inspired by what he considered our wisdom at a young age. He taught me how to be okay with being honest. I was learning discipline without even realizing it, we sat and talked until our issues were resolved. It was a way of showing care for each other. There was no demand to see things one way, I learned that I can see things many different ways, but most importantly to stand in the truth by having knowledge and not assumption. Often this takes time, patience, communication and compassion, but I have always walked away a little stronger and wiser, even when I didn’t start in that place, the love melted me. 

I did not have appreciation for this at first, but as I grew older, I began to depend on it as a way to be in the world. Long Boring Talks became known as raps, a way to gain clarity and insight with each other. A safe space to talk about the challenges that we face in our lives in a trusted circle. I didn’t raise my children to be seen and not heard. I allowed them to see me and hear me. I encouraged them to allow me to see them and hear them, their truth, their experiences. I didn’t demand they stay in a child’s place. I encouraged them to be proactive in our resolve and take their places as intelligent beings in our family. 

As we sit and watch the world as we have come to know it change, right before our eyes. I encourage us to have clear  intentions in what we are pouring into our children. 

My grandmother and my father have both returned to our eternal home. My mother continues to take interest in my life and now offers her advice. I carry in my spirit the wisdom and appreciation for the lessons that they all poured into my being. May they continue to live in and through me. Ase!