Good Friday + Reflections
I’m eating a guava snowball at the Mr. Wolf's Espressos. Two brothers to my right are talking about hip-hop/r&b commentary. Boom-bap/lo-fi is for the win on the speaker queue. Meanwhile, in and out of thoughts on death, grief, and contributions. My sweetest cousin, most uplifting and joyous, Monique Patterson, passed away in her sleep a few nights ago. When my Mawmaw delivered the news, I felt no sorrow, no extreme pain, only peace, knowing she is literally where she’d rather be. She’s home with her Heavenly Father.
I had a daydream. Monique was talking with God, he, delighted to speak with her on these terms, gave her an ultimatum. Monique, giddy and startled, yet humbled to be in his presence at the moment of transition, “God! Oh my God! cries Thank you LORD! How you doing God? Is it my time now? He answered, “Well… That’s up to you!”
“God, I don’t know. I have faith in you God, you know I do, with my all. But… If you came for me God, if that means I’m a step closer to the Heavenly Kingdom… I want to see!”
“Well, make a choice. If you want to stay with your family and your friends, I’ll see to it that you overcome this battle. It won’t be easy but you’re a faithful child. Now… If you want to come on home, there is a place for you. I could use your help, some of your family could use your guiding light in ways that almost scare them into submission of my will. Their hearts are open to me, but they’re stubborn children. My child, whatever you decide, I will stay right here as close as you’ve always kept me. It’s your will to choose.”
“Ooooh God! This is a lot! I love my family and friends so much, it’s gonna hurt them to know that I’m gone.”
“Some of them will know that you are near. Trust, child.”
“God! Yes, lord! Oh my God… Yes Father, please, take me home God! I’m ready to come home!”
I imagine the conversation went something like that. Knowing Monique, I imagine that she is already so happy and at peace and full of thanksgiving to be in the kingdom with her heavenly father.
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Monique’s transition makes me reflect on slow change and unexpected shifts. It took 12 years after Hurricane Katrina for me to acknowledge that I needed to heal from being so rapidly and forcefully displaced from a place I called home. Until that point of acknowledgment, my family structure, school/work balance, and the surface of social interactions were all influenced by distrust that anything else in my life could last. I was still shaken from having to leave home and not being able to return to what we left. Life didn’t seem so linear anymore and at 10 years old, I wasn’t sure about much anyway.
Until the point of acknowledging that I needed to heal from how Hurricane Katrina affected me, I was deeply holding on to distress. Almost 20 years later, healing and community are at the forefront of my life and writing is the sharpest tool in within my growth of expression. While putting so much emphasis on the healing because without it, I’d still be living with that same distress. In result of this need for healing and expressing my journey through writing, I become an author and poet. Telling stories of purpose for passion, is my life. I get to tell my story, yours, and theirs too. Everything that I do is rooted in truth and empathy. I know what it feels, looks, and sounds like when you have been alienated. “They called us refugees, in our own country.” - Anonymous, Various
I’m not rambling… This is just a loaded post.
According to Merriam-Webster, Genocide is the deliberate and systematic destruction of a racial, political, or cultural group. In 2024, we are cursed in witnessing the genocide of multigenerational Palestinian existence, culture, and land. I won’t go into this particular why, yet, because it doesn’t matter. What happens to be taking place is without a doubt vile and unnecessary, to say the very least. There is no excuse or justification. If it was up to the national media, we wouldn’t even know what we know about this genocide. Yet, in 2024, social media is the current and most influential platform of news. It is what it is… So we seek, find, and share. Our Palestinian sisters and brothers have given us the opportunity to watch their truth unfold in real time through TikTok, Instagram, and Twitter, mostly. That is a responsibility of great humility. What are you thinking and feeling when you see this war content?
Empathy is the immediate and first reaction to the little that I do witness of what is happening Gaza, Palestine, Israel. Although, I can’t help but to feel a bit desensitized and unsurprised as well. As far as I’ve always known, throughout human evolution, genocide has always existed (even when it’s not so overt). I find myself sorrowed and enraged by what’s going on in my own hometown, the city of New Orleans. There’s a deep history of corruption but again, let’s go back to 2005, Hurricane Katrina. Yes, it was a category 5 storm. Yes, it did tremendous damage to the city of New Orleans and surrounding areas, like most big hurricanes do but a much more problematic piece of the puzzle was that our government officials weren't prepared and showed little empathy to the most underserved of our citizens. Not only were we treated like refugees in our own home and around the country, but we were left to pick up the pieces of our health and wellness on our own. Resulting in, years of trauma, ptsd, unresolved mental, emotional, physical, and spiritual damage, within adults, children, and elders, if they survived.
Our city is slowly being gutted, by its life force, culture, and resources by outsiders who have flooded in since the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, 2005. People come from all over the world, fall in love, and want to stay forever, while folks have been here for their entire lives and have never caught a break or felt the romantic charm of this place. Some say, it’s their fault. Some say, maybe they need to find a place that loves them back. I say, it’s important to know where home is. Your true home. The home where your family can go back generations, the physical place, the mental place, the emotional place, and the spiritual place. I say, that’s the space we should seek to nurture and build on. That way no toes are being stepped on, things can grow where they are native to, people don’t have to fight over what’s for who. Yet, all my life I’ve been optimistic so why stop now? The war that we are watching would make me stop, if I hadn’t a backup plan. Meaning, if it’s not in me, go to GOD.
How could you be optimistic about war? How could we be optimistic about cancer? Death is real. It is a portion of our reality. People are dying in Gaza because they’re being targeted, attacked, and killed. People died during Hurricane Katrina because they drowned, were trapped/dragged down, were hunted, targeted, and/or shot. Monique died because the chemotherapy and cancer and whatever else factored into her illness, didn’t agree with her body and she went so deep into a trance that she reached a new realm. Due to her faith, she spoke with God, they made a deal. Monique’s a heavenly angel now. Surely along with many of those lost in Gaza’s War and Hurricane Katrina. It’s Good Friday, 2024, and I’m wishing that people stay close to home. Whatever that means for them, in a holistic way.
Wondering, really, what would it take for an artist to feel seen/heard in their own home?
Would it be socially responsible for us to have an allegiance to our native creatives?
Is it worth it to coexist in good faith and contributions towards the cultivation of OUR home, individually and collectively?
Whatever it is that we’re at war to attain, whether it be small scaled or bigger, fast or slow, it won’t, and can’t come with us when we are called to leave this place.
Anyway, how was lent? For those of y’all who did the work of “letting go”?
