One of the things I’ve had to do lately is walk through the family tree. The oddity of that is the tree begins and ends with me. My son is unlikely to reproduce and considering what the future looks like after November 5 I ain’t mad about that. I used to have melancholy that I would never be a grandmother. I realized though that I can be the adopted Auntie to those who claim me. I am actually adopted which is why my family tree is without roots. I don’t know who my biological parents are and plan to leave this earth without answering that question. For better or worse Lewis & Esther are mom and dad.

Mom had a twin sister, Doris. By the time I was old enough to remember her life had lifed so hard she was medically unable to work for a living. She was tall and brown. She wore an afro even though I didn’t know what an afro was then. She chain smoked newports and her kidneys processed more Pepsi than should be legal.

The family story was she’d had a mental breakdown. One of her sons was killed on Jan 1 by a stray bullet. To this day I still can’t wrap my head around why we shoot in the air on that day, or why we do it at all really. They say losing the child broke her, and well I can see that being truth. She was kind and loving and generous to me though when mom would allow me to be around her. When her other son had children who needed help to keep them out of foster care she took them in. Well only 1 of the children belonged to him, the other was just someone she had enough love in her heart to bring in and raise.

I recall the small 2bdr house she lived in by the park, shit even I spent a few weeks there myself. It was crowded then but it was also a statement to who she was. Aunt Doris had a tick. She’d rock. I think about her from time to time when I have that same tick. There’s been a fair amount of rocking the last 3 weeks. I am still here though.

So much of my growth rotates around my ability to let people ‘in’. So much of that growth has been put in jeopardy since May 2022. I am thankful that I didn’t allow that moment in time to inhibit me. I fought the ‘safe’ and kept pushing. After November 5 my first instinct is to shut it all out again. I know that I will not, I have new muscle memory now. I know however grace and benefit of the doubt no longer exist in my vocabulary. I’ve seen online and had conversations about not allowing that result to change me. It does though.

This is the moment when my past protections meet my current desires and I fundamentally understand to walk this road I need both.