Ten Years to Life

My daughter just celebrated her tenth birthday. I had wanted to write a long dedication in the days leading up to the big leap from single to double digits, but I got all caught up in my feelings. I am ecstatic. I am in disbelief. I am overwhelmed by a list of things to do for this "surprise" birthday party that I'm sure she'll be smart enough to figure out is really happening in spite of what I told her. (That it was cancelled because she got out of line, but how can I be expected to keep that kind of promise in anticipation of this particular birthday???)

And now, when I should be packing for a family trip, I am procrastinating to write about this pending major milestone, because this is a moment that deserves to be preserved and celebrated!

So let's start at the beginning: ten years ago in March 2015, I returned to this blog after a hiatus of two years. The last post I wrote in 2012 was on my 39th birthday. The first post I wrote in 2015 was to announce my pregnancy with just little less than a month remaining. At the time, I was still very unsure and uncertain of what was to come, including the gender of the child I was carrying. That was an intentional choice for reasons that I can only summarize as a delayed delusional denial--I was scared but unwilling to unpack those fears. Not knowing was a way of maintaining control, managing expectations, and like I said, delusional!

You can read between the lines I wrote in the few weeks before the Kid was born, including two pieces that were published hours before I went into labor. I had NO idea. Then the Babe was born, and I got caught up in those sleepless and seemingly endless post-partum days and nights. After a few months, it took more time to find both my motivation and rhythm to write. For example, when I wrote at the end of that year about Mommy-blogging, it was with the explicit intention of avoiding that lane and label. I was ambivalent about identifying myself as a "Mom" in the political sense, because I believed (and still feel) that it was necessary to embody many identities as a woman. 

Before I take you down that road, let's talk about my evolution over the past decade. 

First, let's acknowledge the transition from being pregnant (and still fertile) ten years ago to entering this new season of life called menopause. It is jarring. Literally, just a year ago, I still felt halfway normal, and now I don't. I have weird sleeping patterns, night sweats, and I am perpetually unfocused and cranky. As someone who never dealt with major PMS until after I had a baby, it is unnerving to undergo such drastic changes after so many years of knowing my body and how it worked. Now, I have no idea what to expect from one day to the next. Given my "advanced maternal age" when I finally got pregnant, I knew that I was on Team One and Done, but this change effectively ends the game.

Which brings me to the significance of this past year since the death of my Mom. Because if losing a parent forces a formidable life adjustment, letting go of the ability to have more children has me mourning another substantial loss. And for lack of a better way to describe this, it just feels cosmically unfair. My life isn't over, but this change puts the matter of my mortality on the horizon. I know, referring to menopause as the start of a death march is overly dramatic, but I can't help but to think that I am now counting down as opposed to gearing up. And that sucks.

Especially when your ten-year old is going through puberty. Because it suddenly registers what that all entails.

She's still my baby, but no longer a baby. She's still very much a kid, but she wants to engage in pre-teen things. Soon, that will become teen things, and before long, I will have a young lady making decisions about her future. So while I adjust to my own changes, I have to mentally prepare myself for hers. I know I've joked about that once or twice, but now that the time has come, and we are both in transition I'm not laughing. No, I'm not curled up in a ball, but I am trying to come to terms with this season of growth for her while trying to resist the fatalist tendency to regard this as a season of decline for me.

Ten years ago when my daughter was born, I had a dogwood tree planted in our front yard. I was following the example of my mother who had planted a dogwood tree in the front yard of our family home when we were kids. The tree at my parents' home started off small, but it grew and spread over the course of nearly 40 years to become a focal point of the yard. We took our annual Easter pictures in front of it and continued the tradition with younger cousins and grandchildren. 

Then about three years ago, I noticed that the tree seemed to be struggling, especially in the summers through successive years of drought. Since the tree had been resilient in previous years, we assumed it would recover, as it had each spring. Unfortunately, in the summer of 2023, only half of the leaves came back and one weekend, they all just dried up and died. I initially fretted this was an omen...

I had a tree specialist come by to conduct a post-mortem and we learned that the tree wasn't supposed to have been planted in full sun. It had survived a lot longer than it should have in the wrong location, so it wasn't neglect, but a combination of factors that had killed it. (Incidentally, two dogwood trees planted by a neighbor are also dying under similar conditions.) For a replacement, we opted for a sun-loving cherry blossom and planted another dogwood in a more temperate location. The new trees were planted in November 2023; my Mom passed three months later.

It didn't escape my notice that the cherry blossom tree bloomed the week of her funeral, followed by the new dogwood tree a few weeks later. Instead of regarding the death of that older tree as an omen, I have chosen to interpret my observations of all these trees as messages. The end of one life and the flourishing of another is the how this world turns. As painful as it was to accept that my mother's time was coming to an end, like the dogwood, she had lived a lot longer than expected under unsustainable conditions. Alzheimer's had taken so much from her and us...

I chose to have my daughter and niece read When Great Trees Fall, by Maya Angelou at her funeral. I knew they were too young to grasp the significance, but I knew that it was important for two of her saplings to have a prominent role in saying goodbye. It was important for people to see life flourishing, planted firmly in temperate locations and blossoming. 

Ten years of motherhood. At times it seems surreal to recall that I had a very different life prior to the birth of my daughter. I had different dreams and aspirations. It was by random chance that I ended up on the path toward motherhood after I had determined that it would only happen by some divine intervention...and I guess, that is how I would define the sequence of events I shared in this post. If I didn't believe in miracles before, I sure do now.

Life Goes On (and On)

Scrolling through the drafts and I noticed this one that I had attempted to write during the summer. This was started a week before Father's Day. A lot of this was covered in this piece that was already published in October, so there are redundancies and/or details that might have been more present for me in the short-term as opposed to several months later. I will explain more after the jump. --ADH

It has been a little more than three months. 

When I woke up on the morning of February 27, I'm sure that I had no idea that it would be her last day, even though I had been given ample advance warning that her time was coming. What I remember knowing for certain that morning when I dropped my daughter off at school and the Hub at work, was that I desperately needed to get a few uninterrupted hours of writing done. I had been struggling for weeks to publish anything, so my hope was to finish something (or make some progress on a few of the various pieces I had been writing), and then to see my Mom that later afternoon after my daughter's dance class. 

I mentioned having had advanced warning because my Mom had been in hospice since last September. So I knew...but I had also been lulled into a false sense that she would defy the odds, be de-certified from receiving hospice care, and continue to carry on living in the background of the lives we had built for ourselves. It was a selfish wish. So I knew, but I just didn't want to believe.

There were signs. During the month of January, which I now call Calamuary, everything began to unravel. My Mom's long-time home health aide went out on extended medical leave for a double hip replacement, a procedure she put off for months or possibly years. My parents' long-term care insurance, which had been slow-walking reimbursement payments since the summer, reminded me that they are in the business of making money not paying it out. The home health care agency that recently went conglomerate by acquiring smaller agencies and changing its name to reflect the fact that it was not a conglomerate, informed me that it intended to increase their rates. This is also while they sent us an ever-limited rotation of aides who were certified to work in our jurisdiction. The hospice nurse, who had been jovial and upbeat for most of her weekly visits in 2023, began to look worried mere weeks after the start of the New Year. Then the furnace fucking stopped working. 

We survived. I prayed that we could make it to her birthday, February 1, and then kept praying. On the night of her birthday when I finally made my way over to the house to see her, the indications that I had been warned would signal the end were more evident. She wasn't awake. If she ate, we had to be more careful to prevent aspiration. The pressure sore on her tailbone began to get worse. She looked frail and weak and was rapidly losing weight. I brought her a gourmet birthday cookie, which I think my daughter ended up eating a few days later.

For Valentine's Day, I bought candy and make little treat boxes for the home care aides, including her long-time aide. She had wanted to schedule a visit and a day of beauty for Mom, and had enlisted the services of her daughter, but I hesitated. Not on having her visit, but I was concerned that my Mom wasn't strong enough for anything taxing like getting her hair done. But I agreed in theory that something was needed to lift the heaviness that had begun to permeate the house since the furnace fiasco of the previous month. We still had Christmas decorations up which my brother hastily took down (but I have yet to put them away). So I bought a banner that I intended to hang in her room. We opted for the living room where the now empty Christmas stocking hooks were affixed to the fireplace mantle. My thinking was that she might see the banner along with the weekly bouquet of flowers I brought for her when she was seated in her wheelchair.

There had been signs. I would not say that I didn't notice, but that I was unwilling to fully acknowledge them. In other words, I definitely knew, but I had been operating under the childish wish that if I kept my eyes closed and my fingers in my ears and if I sang aloud, then I could pretend not to notice what was happening. I could fake ignore that my Mom was dying in some futile attempt to avoid it, as if that would have made a difference.

It didn't. At about 11am that morning, after I had settled into a groove of writing, I got the call from the hospice nurse. I took a shower and got dressed. I packed up my computer and my chargers. I called my brothers and then a few relatives. I honestly don't remember if that is the exact order of things, but I know that I was on the phone with my college roommate when I arrived at the house. My younger brother, who had been waiting for me, met me outside to let me know that he was leaving to pick up our kids from school. Inside, my Dad's priest was administering Last Rites and the home care aide (whose name I don't remember) was praying and crying. At some point, relatives began to arrive. One of my uncles sat in the living room with his head in his hands. Someone announced that there was food in the kitchen. Friends of mine arrived. At some point, I even received a phone call from Africa.

Then everyone left. My Mom was still breathing, but with difficultly it seemed, so we questioned whether the morphine would help. We decided that it would, and then we discussed what might happen the next morning...

The details of someone's last day mean more to the people who are able to remember them. Of this I am clear because I don't know what my Mom knew or felt. I can't ask her. I go into her empty room and while I feel her presence, it is not the same as it was when she was physically in that hospital bed, in my Dad's den that had been converted into an accessible first floor bedroom. 

I am not okay.

So if you ask, I will lie and say that I am, not because I want to be deceptive, but because I have made the calculation that answering honestly in that moment will likely require me to elaborate or listen to some nicely intentioned, but tone-deaf speech. I know that my Mom is with me and that she is proud of me (at least I think she is). Yes, I will miss her forever, as I try to figure out how I got through these months without crumbling.

Death Un-Becomes Me

I have been putting this off for the longest, although by now most of you already know. I just hadn't formally taken the time to share that my mother passed away at the end of February of this year.

I am unsure how this piece is going to unfold since it has taken me seven months to sit down to write about this new phase of my life on this blog. Call it my "Journey Through Grief" era (to borrow a popular overused refrain). I have written a few posts on social media about my Mom and my travels on this road so far, and I will link to those throughout in case anybody wants to know how I felt at any particular moment along the way. 

I can tell you that I have probably experienced all five stages of grief, with varying degrees of intensity. And something about this change in seasons has me more disconsolate, unfocused, and in a state of inertia. I consulted Dr. Google, and my self-diagnosis is either seasonal affective disorder, a nervous breakdown, or perimenopause. (Side note: I am not making the subject of my mental health into punchline, just pointing out how symptoms overlap.) 

Everything has become a contradiction--I feel like I have been avoiding life while also desiring to become more adventurous and daring. That isn't entirely uncharacteristic of me in normal times, but it does seem to be more pronounced. I thought that with this election coming fast and furious, I would jump right in, and I have to the point where I have probably over-extended myself. Somehow, immersing myself into the work of saving democracy seems to be a more worthwhile endeavor than cleaning out my Mom's closets.

A year ago, it was my prayer that my Mom would outlive the need for hospice care by continuing to defy the odds. At her last hospitalization in August, we were told to expect her not to live more than a year, but the early indications were that she might actually thrive instead of decline. So I didn't rush to make any of the final plans that were recommended because I figured that even if we were living on borrowed time, living was the operative understanding. Hell, we're all living on borrowed time for that matter...

However, at the end of September, I made mental notes that each of the pending holidays could be our last...I just never verbalized any of it to anyone. And while she didn't appear to visibly decline, she never really improved to the point of being de-certified from needing hospice; and in hindsight, I wasn't really seeing things as they were. That was until Calamuary January (my term for how every effing thing that could go wrong that month absolutely did). It began when her long-term home care aide went out for a double hip replacement. That same weekend, the furnace in the house went out. I had been fighting with the insurance company over their spending caps and the shortages for months, and that was draining her finances. In response to yet another rate increase (thanks to a corporate consolidation), I had begun to negotiate ways to reduce care hours and creatively fill in gaps. And in the midst of all of that, the hospice nurse alerted me to some ominous physical changes.

Thus, by my Mom's birthday, I had gotten used to receiving a daily update on the list of new catastrophes. A pressure sore that wouldn't heal. Only one partial meal. Weight loss. So when the hospice nurse gave us the definitive unwelcome assessment mid-month and then having my Dad task me with sharing that news with my brothers, the outcome was pretty unescapable. I made some of the necessary preparations on the financial end and went through a few of the motions of mental preparation. I prayed. I visited as often as I could to tell her the things one says when they aren't sure what else there is to say.

On that final Sunday before, it was by pure chance that I had a ticket to see a play at Arena Stage. It was about Anna Julia Cooper, a historical icon who had been a principal at the turn of the century at the high school my Mom attended in the 1960s. And pretty much as soon as I found my seat, I knew that this was all some kind of divine message to prepare myself--that I just happened to be at one of her favorite theatre venues to see a play about her high school alma mater to learn about the life of a celebrated educator (just like my her) on the same day that the alumni had chosen to attend? As soon as the play ended, I rushed to the house to tell her about it. I don't remember if she was awake or know if she heard any of what I said or if she even knew I had been there. 

That Tuesday morning, I planned to get a few hours of writing done before making my way over to the house. It was the routine to visit in between the end of the school day and the start of Kid's dance class. But an hour after I settled into my groove, the hospice nurse called, and let me just say how I wish the rest of the day was a total blur, but...

It wasn't. And honestly, I'm glad I remember every minute because I don't know how I would feel if I had to admit that on the very last day of my mother's life, I was operating in a daze or a fog. I'm glad that I remember every visitor (and there were a LOT), every person who prayed with us, and the fact that wherever three or more Black people are gathered, somebody is going to bring enough fried chicken to feed the multitude. When I tell you that I am grateful for every second of that day, even its agonizing and traumatic conclusion, I mean that. 

I was there, right up until just before the end. After all of the visitors had left, we were transitioning from the afternoon caregiver to the overnight person. My Mom's breathing had become more labored, so she was given morphine. We discussed the plan for the following day, and I sat in the room with her for a few minutes just holding her hand. Then my brother came into the room, so I gave him my seat and went into the living room. It happened in the blink of an eye--my brother noticed that her breathing had stopped and after a few seconds of uncertainty about detecting a heartbeat, my Dad instructed me to call the ambulance. Within minutes, there were red lights, EMTs, and then this enormous suspension of reality between life, death, and procedures...

Life. She was gone. We all knew it, but in the same stubborn refusal that had been her way of barreling through and fighting back, we went through all of the motions of doing everything humanly possible not to accept reality. When the EMT arrived, I told them that she was end-stage Alzheimer's and was about to mention hospice when my Dad interrupted me. Do all you can, he told them, so I deferred.

Death. After 15 minutes, one of the EMTs told me that they would continue, but not to expect a change. By this point, my younger brother had returned with his daughter and the afternoon caregiver. I had exiled my Dad to the living room because it was too much to expect for him to watch. The day had been excruciating enough, so I stood there in the doorway--equal parts sentinel/supervisor/witness to the futility of trying to resuscitate her. Not because I had lost faith in miracles; on the contrary, it was my hope was that her ordeal would finally be over.

Procedures. The EMTs made the call and respectfully left. Unbeknownst to us, the police were on the scene to determine if any foul play had been involved, but the officer conducted his investigation with the understanding that there was nothing untoward. The hospice nurse called, and then informed us to expect another nurse to certify the post-mortem. As that nurse went about her examination, disposing of and reclaiming the medications, completing paperwork, I asked if giving my Mom morphine was the right call. She told me what I needed to hear, because in that moment that must have been routine for her, I was in a state of reassessing every single decision and choice that had been made that day. Not to assign blame or liability, but for reassurance. Once she left, my Dad, our neighbor, and I sat in the room to wait for the funeral home. 

I remember wondering how we were supposed to fill the silence, with idle conversation or nervous housework? Depleted of energy, I nodded off in the chair at her bedside while my brothers waited in the living room. My Dad opted for idle conversation with our neighbor, who politely obliged. It was after 2am when the people from the funeral home finally arrived. I noticed that the gentleman who handled everything was dressed in a three-piece suit. I wondered if that's why it took them so long to arrive--was this dude getting dressed? How much time did he spend searching for a matching tie and pocket square? Why did that annoy me so much?

(Now that I've recollected and reflected on that particular detail, I realize my resentment was misdirected. I should have been mindful that this young man took the time to look presentable because he was coming to our home to remove our heart...so instead of looking like he rolled out of bed in pajamas or dirty sweats, he got dressed in a suit. I don't know how many of these transfers he's done from private homes in the middle of the night, and I can't imagine what it must be like to have that job to perform at the most vulnerable moment in a family's pain. So, my apologies and gratitude, sir.) 

My first real meltdown took place a day or so later at the Marshall's. I shed a few tears the morning after, in the still quiet of being the only person awake in the house. But that felt like a normal reaction, especially as I stood in the doorway of the empty room where my Mom had been alive hours earlier. There was no need to get emotional during the meeting with the funeral home nor during the flurry of phone calls and visits. However that night (or maybe the next), one of the deacons at my church called to offer condolences, and her words loosened the faucet. Immediately after that call ended, I left to get some gas from the Costco, where there was a Marshall's nearby that was still open. I decided to pop inside to purchase the undergarments the funeral home had requested--just another errand that made sense to get done.

Except this was not just another errand, and I barely made it through the purchase before I was overcome by a torrent of ugly tears and hyper-ventilating. I don't know if I audibly screamed or if it was the echo of the thoughts in my head, but all I kept thinking was Dear Jesus why is this happening? Something told me to find my phone and call for help. Whether it was in response to a text she may have sent me, or because of the alphabetical arrangement of my contacts, I called one of my cousins. And though at the time, it felt like it was some random out of the blue choice, she was the exact person I needed to listen, calm my hurt, and provide me with assistance.  

It would be weeks before I would cry again (though not at the funeral), and months before another uncontrollable gusher of grief hit. Typically, my emotional collapses coincide with the date--each successive month on the day of or in proximity to the date of my mother's transition. But it could accompany any sentimental memory trigger as well. In March, it was taking the girls to see The Wiz on Broadway for Easter. In April, it was walking up the hill on Howard's campus towards Crampton Auditorium...and then almost getting shot the following weekend by some chick in a parking lot over some bullshit. In May, it was being back on Spelman's campus. The June episode was over my frustration with ageism after that Presidential debate debacle. Mid-July hit me with the double whammy of losing my dance teacher and first professional boss in the same week, punctuated by Joe Biden's bombshell exit from the Presidential race. In August, I just decided to lean into the fact that it had been six months, but also a year since my Mom had entered hospice.

Which brings me up to date. And the confession that it hasn't always been depression or fury, but a complicated range of everything, everywhere, all at once. In April it was the irrationality of standing my ground against the unknown, and then having to admit the absurdity of my recklessness in endangering the lives of my family. In July, it was taking an unexpected detour into the cemetery to locate my Mom's grave (which I did, easily) compelled by the anxiety and dread that I don't feel safe to confide my emotions with anyone but her. Last week, it was this profound sense that I am a fraud, a self-declared "Busy" Black Woman in name only as opposed to everyone else who can seemingly rebound after the death of their loved ones by throwing themselves into some meaningful distraction. 

So what the jobu tupaki is wrong with me?

Let's revisit the meltdown at the Marshall's, the memory of which I failed to suppress (in spite of my best efforts). I stood in front of a display of discounted panties and bras and had a panic attack as I attempted to figure out sizing, color, and if you can believe this even crossed my mind, COMFORT! My brain pondered the quandary of my Mom being buried in comfortable underwear, and that dear readers, is what caused me to nearly pass out in the dang parking lot before I found my way to the car. Then there was a similar experience at Target the following month. While lollygagging through the aisles, I was dismayed to learn that Target sold full Jockey brand slips superior in quality to whatever store brand camisole I found at JC Penny's. If only I had walked to the opposite end of our ghetto mall...but now it was too late. The hysteria of being haunted by my mother for the rest of my life over hasty shopping choices was real.

Before the funeral, I was irritated that the morticians chose the dark purple designer suit instead of one of the white dresses I indicated were my preferred options. Since I didn't expect for her to be wearing the suit, I didn't think to bring a shell (and my Mom always wore her suits with a shell). There was a scarf, but that was to accent one of the dresses. And instead of wearing the necklace I gave them, it was placed in her hand like a rosary even though she wasn't Catholic. I had to insist that they reapply her lipstick because there was NO WAY that I would have been content with her wearing pale pink gloss! In the end, my Mom was buried in her good suit, a scarf in place of a shell, some crappy slip I bought on sale from Pennys, and discounted underwear that may or may not have been the most comfortable option. 

If you are questioning why any of this matters, it is because if I didn't obsess and overthink things, who else would? I inherited her tendency to notice e-v-e-r-y-thing, and as my mother's only daughter, attention to her final details became the last meaningful act of caregiving I could render. 

It dawned on me that as I considered the length of time since my grandparents passed, I hope to remain alive for some unknown amount of time. One day, this could be my daughter. She could be mulling decisions about what to do with me since I'm not organized or morbid enough to leave instructions. I will have to trust her judgment knowing that this is the same child who likes to wear mixed matched shoes and clothes. Hopefully she doesn't get bogged down in the existential crisis of my ghost outfit the same way I got all twisted about my Mom's purple suit...

The comedian Kevin Fredericks posted this video about his grief at the loss of his brother, and I felt every word. Every one. Because death undoes. It takes reality and turns everything inside out. It makes you question the point of life. Why does it matter if I drink too much if I'm going to die anyway? Why do I need to make healthy life choices if some random chronic illness can come along and it won't matter that I exercised daily to prevent that very illness? What does it mean to be a woman of great intelligence and many talents, only to lose it all? Why accumulate all of this stuff, only to have it all given or thrown away by people who don't appreciate what it meant to me? What does it mean to be gone, forever? How long is forever?

Death takes an entire life and reduces it to a pile of fucking paperwork. 

I am so over this. I am ready for this era to end. Mind you, I'm not wishing for a resurrection like The Monkey's Paw scenario; instead, I would like to wake up one day like Pamela Ewing to find my Mom in the kitchen. Or maybe in a different dream, I will wake up at my Grandmother W's house and she's in her kitchen or my Grandfather is driving his station wagon while my other Grandmother is pruning the bushes in her yard. The fact that I got used to not seeing them for all of these years makes it that much more painful to imagine what the next few years without my mother might feel like. I hope not as hard as watching dementia slowly chip away at her for the last 15 years.

This is supposed to be cathartic...and in a way, it is since I hadn't verbalized any of this until now. I don't know if I would have the courage to reveal these thoughts to a therapist and I don't dare breathe a word of this to anyone else (no worries, they won't read it). When asked, I've been evasive. I've deflected. I've focused my energy on everything else but my feelings. I go into the room where she died every day to open the blinds, and I replace the flowers on the dresser at regular intervals. I haven't donated any of her belongings yet, but I have worn some of her clothes (and I imagine her snarky oh so you can wear a size 8 now, in response). To the extent that I haven't gotten on with my life, I have re-positioned it around my grief. She isn't gone, she just isn't here. She's no longer rendered mute or physically incapacitated by that terrible disease. And so long as I remain open and receptive to the idea of her presence in this more ethereal existence, then we can have the kind of conversations and interactions that were impossible those last years of her life. Maybe that's how I keep on living.

I suspect that this won't be the last time I write about this topic. Just a few months ago, I wasn't sure if I could ever return to writing, but here I am rediscovering my voice (it wavers and cracks, but I still hear it). I have watched several of my friends navigate this same journey through the years, and we all take different paths in learning how to readjust or realign with life after the death of a loved one. A large part of this process will be to redefine myself in the aftermath of 15 years of caregiving. That's longer than I've held any job. I don't regret that I took on the responsibility of caring for my Mom, as I would do it again. It was integral to my identity, part of what made my life so busy. Now I have rewrite, revise, and reimagine what it means to be someone other than Audrey's only daughter. 

It Takes a Village

Nearly 30 years ago, Hillary Clinton wrote a book It Takes a Village (1995), a phrase she borrowed from an African proverb. Because it was an idea being promoted by Hillary Clinton, the most polarizing woman in America at the time, there was partisan derision and a lot of noise about traditional family structures.

So the phrase and the sentiment were written off as a call for government overreach, and per usual, the inherent value of extended and more communal family structures were not celebrated until recently. Apparently, when conservative-minded men realize that it was a good thing that their Mamaws and South Asian mothers-in-law took an active role in raising their grandchildren, they get to take credit for articulating a role for post-menopausal women that no one quite knew how to previously define.

Initially when I saw James David's suggestion about enlisting the assistance of grandparents in childcare, I tweeted from a space of grief and frustration for my own situation. I don't regret sending this out, because it was/is my truth--I didn't get to rely on the support of grandparents in helping to raise my child in her formative years. In fact, due to a combination of factors, my Dad is only just now available to provide some support to us, which we appreciate and definitely do NOT take for granted as a given.

I want to provide some context and offer an expanded analysis of what he suggested by sharing more about my situation as both the beneficiary of grandparents who were very much involved in my upbringing, as well as from the perspective of a parent who did not have able-bodied caregivers at my beck and call. For me, and I suspect for a lot of my peers, this is a very complicated and sensitive issue. And what we need from policy makers, regardless of their politics and regardless of what kinds of family structures they articulate as ideal, is a lot more than suggestions based on nostalgia for a bygone era.

First, some perspective as this topic comes along at an interesting time for me. I hope to write more about this before the end of the year, but obviously, this has already been quite a year. As such, I find myself looking back and reminiscing, particularly on life as it was for me 40 years ago in 1984. That year was pivotal for me in so many ways, and for the purpose of setting the scene for this piece, it was sometime in the fall of that year when my paternal grandparents both developed chronic illnesses: my Grandmother had Parkinson's disease that progressed to a more disabling point and my Grandfather suffered a massive paralyzing stroke. Suddenly, our caregivers needed us to provide support and care for them.

Earlier that year, I graduated from elementary school, so there were already several changes underway for me. I was to start a new school without most of the friends I had known for the past six. The previous summer, our family moved into a new home and my youngest brother was ready to start school. To ensure that they were in school together, both brothers transferred to a closer elementary school. And if memory serves, my Mom was also reassigned to a new school, so everything was in flux. I recall that the school year began with promise, but things quickly unraveled by Thanksgiving.

Because life comes at you fast. 

My paternal grandparents had absolutely been integral caregivers to us in our formative years. Both were retired by the time I was born, so they had time to dote on us. I was enrolled at the elementary school two blocks from where they lived because pre-kindergarten was half day and someone needed to be available once my day was done. At the time, of course I had no idea that was the reason, but looking back I realize the dynamics of having a younger brother, a working mother, and a father who was living out-of-state to complete graduate school meant that we had to be in the care of hired or family help. 

I recall early on that my Grandmother would walk me home from school, but eventually, my Grandfather would park his blue station wagon directly in front of the building every day at 2:45pm to wait for us. It became something of a running joke among the school staff that no one else could park in Old Man Hawkins' spot. After he drove those two blocks, we headed straight to the kitchen where we got dessert for snack (I am not making this up) and it was glorious!

It was the beginning of second grade when the first series of major life changes began. My Dad graduated and moved back to DC; we moved into our own place; and my Mom announced that she was expecting another baby. My Grandmother seemed happy, but I overheard a conversation between my Mom and Aunt about how Grandma had expressed reservations about her ability to care for another baby. Years later I learned the reason was that she had been recently diagnosed with Parkinson's. So when my brother was born, Grandma helped out until he got to the mobility stage, then he went to nursery school. Granddaddy would get two of us from elementary school and then got my youngest brother from a nearby church. On off days, half days, and sick days, we were at Grandma and Granddaddy's house. 

Our maternal grandmother still worked a few days a week, but we also spent a good deal of time with her as part of an even larger extended family. Her house stayed full of extended family, and whenever the three of us were in the mix with the five to six cousins who lived with her, plus two of her grown sons, and a cat--you do the math! Of course, we grew up like siblings, so I recognize and appreciate the communal family concept James David alluded to in suggesting the participation of relatives in providing childcare.

But...and this is where my emotional tweet thread becomes relevant--not all families can rely on that kind of arrangement. A lot of people don't live near their families. For example, the Hub lives 250 miles away from his four siblings and I know plenty of people who come from families that are scattered across the country. Once upon a time, families used to live in closer proximity, but that is no longer a reality to be taken for granted. As you know, I went to college in Atlanta and at least half of my peers stayed down there for school, job opportunities, and the lower cost of living. Here in DC, most of the people I meet are transplants while many of the native-born Washingtonians (and yes, we exist) live throughout the DMV (District, Maryland, and Virginia area...pronounced urreyah). Which could mean that someone still owns and maintains Big Mama's house, but the various grandchildren, nieces and nephews, etc. could live just as many as 250 miles (4 hours) apart.

And as much as I LOVED growing up with all of those cousins, in hindsight that was a LOT on my long-widowed Grandmother! She raised eight children of her own, so perhaps she was used to that level of chaos, but to look back and realize she was in her 70s, and on any given day her home was inundated with half a dozen grandchildren. Now I'm convinced that is one of the main reasons why she worked until she was 80--so that she could get some peace and quiet!

But let's return to the point 40 years ago where my idyllic childhood memories took a dramatic turn. My paternal Grandmother had an operation from which her health never fully rebounded. My Grandfather was caring for her when he had his stroke. My Dad, an only child, had to figure out caregiving for two parents while raising three school-aged children. For a time, he stayed with his parents on the weekends. It was determined that we all needed to live under one roof, so we had an addition built onto our house. My grandparents moved in the year I started high school. 

The reality about depending on family is that circumstances change. What works in one year might not be feasible the next year. Before we moved into our own house, we lived with extended family, but that became unsustainable as everyone got older. Even in ideal situations, life happens and there have to be reasonable alternatives to fill in the gaps. For my parents, it meant needing afterschool care and transportation for my brothers while I became the classic Generation X latchkey kid. 

James David and his incoherent running mate can make off-handed suggestions about childcare costs that minimize the real-life struggles that so many people face because they have advantages that they take for granted. Donald Trump was, at best, an absentee father who never concerned himself with childcare because paying the nanny, the cook, assorted mistresses, while stiffing small business owners is just one of the perks of being a rich asshole. Usha Vance's mother, Lakshmi Chilukuri, took a leave of absence from her job for a year, and then she went back to work. I presume that when their subsequent children were born, the combined proceeds from his book sales, his Silicon Valley earnings, and his wife's law firm salary meant they could afford a nanny. And that's perfect if it worked for them. It's great that his mother-in-law had the kind of job that allowed her to return to it, unlike so many working mothers who barely get three months of unpaid leave. It's great when parents earn decent middle-class wages or higher. 

It's great when everybody lives nearby and stays healthy. My late mother-in-law lived in New York and as much as I would love to believe otherwise, there is no way she could have packed up her entire life to move here to DC. My Mom only got to assist with my Mean Teen Niece for a short time before we noticed things that revealed concerns about her health. The same way Parkinson's caused noticeable issues for my Grandmother, early-onset Alzheimer's had an immediate impact on my Mom. Like his father, my Dad doesn't seem to mind being Grand-Uber to his granddaughters because that's the extent of his childcare duties. 

It's great when every piece comes together seamlessly. Everyone gets along and there are no differing parenting philosophies. Boundaries are healthy and no one oversteps. Cultural differences are manageable and respected. No one is toxic or manipulative or duplicitous. Family gatherings are a lot like this iconic commercial:

Yeah...

For everyone else who lives in the alternative multiverse where monthly day care costs are equal to mortgage payments and relatives do not live close by, the village is where we must look for solutions. That might mean that the local church provides the day care because that is the most affordable option. Your kid might need to depend on the carpool driven by the parent still working from home who can provide drop off and pick up because their hours are more flexible. I read about 24-hour child care centers and on-site day care at certain jobs I think that makes a lot of sense for those parents who work shift jobs like essential health care workers. This notion that we can't afford to pay people living wages or that day care personnel shouldn't have to be certified when we are entrusting our children to their care is offensive. The kind of money we are willing to pay to keep our children distracted entertained as opposed to being educated, or kept alive...

Some of you know how this childcare issue impacted me, since I've written about it from time to time on this blog. I was a stay-at-home mother (SAHM), but not entirely by choice. I was assisting with the care of my Mom when I got pregnant. Even though I was already "working" from home, we added our names to the waiting list for the daycare center at the Hub's job anyway, just in case. Well, after two years (2 YEARS), there was finally an opening. We went in for the tour but balked at the strain it would put on our family budget. In the end, it made more sense for us to maintain the status quo and wait a few months for the Kid to become eligible for PreK-3 (which is universally available in our jurisdiction).

Hint, universal access to early childhood education is a policy solution. Proposing a tax credit for day care expenses is a policy solution. Suggesting that post-menopausal women ought to spend more time baking cookies and planting herb gardens with their grandkids is not a policy solution. Not unless you are willing to offer them paid family leave since many of our seniors still work.

Did I mention the dilemma of being a woman of a certain age who has both child-rearing and elder caregiving responsibilities? If not, I wrote about it a few years ago. And let me tell you that even with my Mom gone, my situation has not changed as much as you might think. My Dad will be 77 on his birthday, and he hasn't lived alone for more than 40 years. If I wasn't around, this man would live off of Jamaican meat patties and Arizona iced tea. At my Mom's funeral, I was cornered by some of his church lady friends who made it clear that they were going to hold me personally responsible if anything happened to him. And the last thing I want to do is piss off a bunch of Black church woman. 

I am not complaining. I am blessed that he is here and, as the old folks say, has a reasonable portion of health and strength. Instead, I will emphasize the fact that I am still amazed and awed by my Mom, who did all of this backwards, in heels, with a full-time job, and with two boisterous sons. But that doesn't take into account that my Mom had the benefit of a village. Once I let go of my Wonder Woman fantasies of her abilities and remembered that she had help, I've been seeing things differently. 

It is important to point out that none of us lives in the center of the village. We have a responsibility to support each other just as we are supported. This is true even when there are non-family members in the midst, because we are probably extensions of their village in some way as well. If we are late picking up our kids from day care, that makes those employees late for whatever it is that they have to do in their second shifts. If we spend most of our involvement with our child's school as adversaries, as opposed to advocates, then the result is a contentious environment that hinders learning. If you are blessed with parents who are able to help, by all means accept it, but know that the situation could easily be reversed with you and your children providing assistance to them. Sometimes that isn't possible, because let's face it, some of y'all took jobs in other parts of the country for reasons other than just the pay...

Instead of talking to economists and podcasters about issues like this, policy-makers need to talk to the people who are on the front lines. Like the working parents who need flexibility and more options. Like the people who own childcare facilities and have to navigate a complex regulatory landscape. Like the private nannies who deserve living wages and benefits. Like the single Dads who might also be working in the gig economy just to afford childcare. Like the women who have to balance elder caregiving and full-time employment. Like those grandparents who, having raised their children, have earned the right to decide how involved they want to be in raising their grandchildren. Talk to the people who actually live in the village.

Women of a Certain Age

If things had gone a little differently in my life, I would probably be one of the post-menopausal childless cat ladies that JD Vance and his running mate, 34 counts yet still running, keep insulting. As you know, when I started this blog, that was the path I was traveling (oh wait, some of you probably weren't aware that I had a cat-Mommy stint prior to the start of this blog...will tell you all about it in a minute)--except I was/am married. I was a dedicated Auntie to all of the kids in my husband's family and had just the one Baby Niece born to my younger brother. We were coming up on ten years of marriage, and all indications pointed to the probability that we were going to be one of those childless married couples--the kind who were content to spoil everyone else's little cherubs with unnecessary frivolity until they had to be returned to their parents.

We got really good at that. But then life took some interesting twists and turns...and well, we are now living another old married couple cliche--that of being the older parents of a young child. We are so old that we can't relate to any of the other parents in our daughter's peer group because we were in college or full grown adults with bills when most of them were children. Some of them are as young as our adult nieces and nephews!

And though I am not Post Menopausal, I am acquainted with her younger sister Peri while their niece Puberty has been trying to catch up with my daughter. Fun times for the Hub, let me tell you...

Since I mentioned it, allow me to take you on a quick trip through my childless cat lady phase, which got underway exactly 15 years ago! It started in late Spring or early Summer of 2008 when I happened to notice a stray kitten on my doorstep while I was grabbing the mail. It ran away, so I didn't think much of it until I happened to see another kitten with a larger cat out on the walkway in front of my house a day or so later. What struck me about them was both the coincidence of seeing two kittens in a span of days near my house, and the fact that the larger cat and the first kitten (black/white tuxedo cats) were obviously related, but now there appeared to be a tiger-striped sibling. Within a few days, I saw the original kitten (whose name I forget, and it is driving me crazy), Tiger, and the Mother cat whom we called Midnight in my backyard, at which point, I became obsessed invested with these strays. It didn't take long for the Hub to warm up to our little cat family once a fourth sibling (another tiger-striped kit whom he named Pudgy) befriended him, and for the next few weeks, we became foster cat parents.

Yes, you read that right. The soon-to-be Busy Black Lady with lifelong animal fur allergies bought cat food, a house, and even a heating pad in case the night temperature dropped. One night I saw a fox stalking my kits and I chased it away in high heel shoes! I scowled when their deadbeat fat Cat-Daddy (a tiger-striped that reminded me of Heathcliff) showed up one day, expecting to be fed even though he wore a visible collar. We contacted the Humane Society for guidance to support our kitties, and they referred us to a special program for stray cats. They recommended that we could extend the life of our strays by having them spayed/neutered, which we paid to have done (and I think we still have one of the cages they left behind). 

Bob Barker would have been proud; alas, this was a short-lived sitcom. To my next-door neighbor, who kept a strict schedule of meticulous yard work and immaculate landscaping, our cats were a nuisance. They were crapping in his yard, so his demand was if we weren't going to bring them to live inside our house, then we needed to stop feeding them. I ignored him, so he retaliated by using some kind of repellant that kept them away. No matter what I did to entice them back, they never returned to our care. 

The nature of passing fancies is that they pass, and once we were in the full throes of Obamamania, his Inauguration, and that first year of wow-we-got-a-Black-president euphoria, I moved on. By year's end, we were blessed with a Baby Niece (now the Mean Teen) and in spite of our excitement over her, we had accepted that God's plan for our lives wouldn't follow the traditional route of love, marriage, and baby carriages. As it turned out, the delay was not a denial with quite a few detours and left turns before we got here.

I shared that bit of personal history in response to the truly tone-deaf and insensitivity of the statements made by GOP Vice Presidential candidate James Donald David Bowman Hamel Vance (yeah, not exactly the kind of hillbilly name we're used to). He said some things about women that don't sound like a guy who hopes to ascend to a higher office with our support. His wife Usha, also a rather preppie Yalie in her own right, doesn't seem to know how to help him pull that country club loafer out of his mouth...

Childless cat-ladies is the kind of insult one would expect from some bitter IT guy living in his parents' basement because those are the only women he meets--the ones who post cat videos online. I'm not throwing shade because people like what they like, and cats happen to be the pet of choice for certain kinds of folks. I imagine that collecting houseplants and gardening would be similarly regarded, which is something I've done off and on for quite some time (and even blogged about it). So, I'm just saying that if we are categorizing people, basement-dwelling man-babies living in glass houses shouldn't throw stones.

James David has argued that people who don't produce offspring don't have a sufficient stake in the future of the country, and therefore shouldn't have the same rights. Sounds kinda like a version of second-class citizenship that people marched and protested against, say 60 years ago. Because what about my Aunt E, a childless divorcee who taught pre-K for 35+ years? Or the nuns who taught me French, Biology, and Religion back at my all-girls' high school as part of my training and preparation for a good Catholic marriage? I could provide examples of the countless women, many of whom are good friends of mine, who wanted to follow the traditional path of love and marriage, but either never found the right man or experienced some course alteration that put them on a different path. Most of these women are doing great work in their professions, as business owners, and as civic leaders, because they have chosen to focus their energy on making the world better.

Because Lord knows, those of us with children barely have time to take care of ourselves. Ask me how I know...

Furthermore, just as there are childless women who have the time, talent, and treasure to dedicate themselves to improving the lives of others, there are men who are just as similarly convicted and concerned about human welfare. I happen to know quite a few of them as well. James David happens to be a recent adult convert to Catholicism, an entire Christian denomination that follows the edicts and proclamations made by unmarried men--a Pope, a college of Cardinals and Archbishops, Bishops, etc., and somehow, I don't believe he intends to disenfranchise his parish priest. That the men who are leaders of his faith have neither been married nor have any biological children, yet they have taken it upon themselves to impose their moral authority on the entire world...not at all problematic. But it's the cat ladies who can't be trusted?

(In all seriousness, because not only is my Dad a Catholic as are several people I respect, such as President Biden, so I won't dare make a crass joke...just a passing reference to the fact that yeah, substantial and unforgivable harm due to the sexual abuse that was covered up for centuries, but let's move on.)

As a former domestic relations attorney, I can tell you that there are too many people who have had children for all of the wrong reasons, so there is NO way we should entrust our country's future to their poor judgment. I could write a whole separate piece on that part of my life and what I have learned about human nature, but suffice it to say 

Post-menopausal women sounds on par with referring to pregnancy after the age of 35 as geriatric. It is the kind of insult that may be technically correct terminology but might get you shanked if aimed at the wrong person. So of course it gets uttered by two men engaged in light banter on a podcast. And look, I would take James David at his word that he didn't agree with that term if his word could be trusted. This is the same guy who went from being a never-Trumper to his bottom bitch in less time than it takes for a woman in her mid-50s to become post-menopausal...

As offensive as their implied use of that term was, it was actually the awkward white guy "compliment" of their respective South Asian mothers-in-law that was more offensive. Perhaps I'm just being hormonal, but why do white men who marry outside of their race always seem surprised to learn that whenever possible, their non-white in-laws don't consider caring for their grandchildren as an imposition? (And have y'all ever considered that it's you they are most concerned about?) My MIL moved in with her son and then her daughter to assist with her grandchildren too, and I imagine had she lived, she would have moved to DC to assist us 9 years ago. Not because that would have been her purpose, but her pleasure. 

Be clear on that distinction--it would have been her pleasure to assist us, and our privilege to accept and receive such selfless support. Because not all families operate under the automatic assumption of assigned gender roles, nor should it be regarded as an obligation. Relationships are choices. I am perplexed then, by someone like James David, who claims to understand and appreciate how strong women chose to intervene at various points in his life to save him, could so easily betray them with his misogynist rhetoric. I know that he wants to appease the hedge funders, venture capitalists, alphaverse Podcast Bros, and millionaire grifters running for President to avoid prison, but c'mon man! 

Seriously, what kind of man talks shit about women the way James David has done and expects that all will be forgiven once he gets home? Would his beloved Mamaw, the woman he immortalized in his memoir appreciate being reduced to a post-menopausal woman whose only purpose was to keep him from ruining his life? Really? And what of his wife, Usha, an accomplished woman in her own right who has apparently chosen to compromise her principles to stand by her man...I imagine that if she's rethinking her life choices, she's wondering how much she might have accomplished as a childless cat lady.

This is the thanks they get--a man who prevaricates to obscure the impact of his shape-shifting and weather-vane politics. A cardboard cut-out opportunist who wears guyliner. A man who can't even settle on a consistent name for himself, but he's got disparaging names for women. Contrary to the various clarifications and remixed explanations issued by the campaign, James David isn't some inarticulate rube who misspeaks or makes up words. He's the kind of self-made everyman whose trajectory from the Appalachians to the Marines to Ohio State to Yale Law School to Silicon Valley to the NYTimes Bestseller List to the Senate to the point where he could be a heartbeat away from the Presidency is...almost too good to be true. 

I may just be a former cat lady aging my way towards menopause, but this talented Mr. Ripley act James David is pulling has been calculated and methodical. He's not campaigning to be the wing man to someone he despises, because his mission isn't to help elect the useful orange idiot. Trump is a means to an end. Apparently, y'all haven't watched the Manchurian Candidate (1962) enough times. (What, you thought cat ladies and post-menopausal women only watched rom-coms in their downtime?)

Women who can think for themselves, exercise the freedom to make choices about what to do with their lives, and who aren't overwhelmed or tied down by familial obligations threaten the New (Old) World Order. Even if you haven't taken the time to read Project 2025 (and I have a kid, so no I don't have that kind of time), many of the proposals and policy recommendations are intended to undo much of the New Deal/Great Society reforms of the 20th Century. James David wrote the foreword, so even as his running mate disavows knowledge of what is contained in the plan, we know he's lying and it doesn't matter because James David knows. These are the people who groomed positioned him!

Thus, even if they lose in November, they have already sown enough seeds of discord. They have polarized this country along every fault line that exists and have exploited every vulnerability. We are embroiled in daily cultural skirmishes over the most ridiculous of topics. We live with constant agitation and anger over the pettiest stuff with the objective of keeping us under constant stress, exhausted, and on a hair trigger to overreact to just about anything. I mean, why does anyone need to lose sleep over a woman who prefers the company of cats unless she's insisting on bringing a dish to the office potluck?

Do you realize what these people have gotten us so angry about: rainbows, kittens, Dr. Suess books, tampons, crying babies, and RuPaul's Drag Race?! Remember when we used to end friendships over the choice between Coke vs. Pepsi, McDonald's vs. Burger King, and The Beatles vs. The Rolling Stones? Me neither because I just picked my preferences and went on about my business. Sure, we've got fundamental disagreements, competing perspectives, and divergent ideas because this is a diverse country. Allegedly, that is supposed to allow us the freedom to be ourselves, whomever that may be.

For some women, that means choosing to adopt cats instead of having biological children. That's also a valid choice for men too. Choice means that children are born and raised by people who want and are able to provide for them, including extended family members, such as a post-menopausal woman or a retired elderly man. Parenthood shouldn't be mandated or forced on anyone, nor should certain family structures be proscribed by law or deemed superior to others. 

Finally, because I don't know what to make of Usha Vance (is she a manipulative Eleanor Iselin, conspiring with the Kremlin to facilitate a scenario to deliver the Presidency to her husband) or is she a captive would-have-been a cat lady, and it is she who is under hypnosis? I don't know what your choice will ultimately be, but if you need to escape, there's an army of women ready to pounce, just say the word.

American Fictions

On a whim, I decided to take in a movie one afternoon last week. I had spent the morning preparing some projects for completion, and after feeling accomplished, I pulled out my phone to check movie times. One of the promises I made to myself for my 50th birthday was to make space to do for myself, so I sped home to complete a few more tasks before making my way to the theater.

In making the choice between American Fiction (2023) and Origin (2024), I went with American Fiction because I had to miss an advanced free screening of it last month. I'm sure that was due to some pre-holiday family obligations, so I figured that it might have less time left in theaters (even with its Oscar nominations). I had read the buzz about this movie sometime last Fall after it took awards at some film festival, and was intrigued by the premise of satirizing white liberalism and its patronizing impact on Black art.

Now before you read further, I should warn you that this piece will contain some plot spoilers. Therefore, if you haven't seen the movie, read the book Erasure (2001) by Percival Everett from which it was adapted, and/or haven't read this review, for example, then I suggest that you come back another time. However, in the spirit of rooting for everybody Black, I do recommend seeing this film. Unequivocally! Now that I have said that, yes, I am about to offer some critiques, so strap in if you are so inclined to read on and learn why it provoked a visceral emotional reaction from me.

It is about 10-15 minutes into this film that we get to the subplot of three adult children having to confront the realities of caregiving for an aging parent. As someone who has been living that life for more than a decade, I immediately recognized the family dynamics as similar to my own. In the character of the older sister Lisa, played by Tracee Ellis Ross, I saw myself...so (here comes the spoiler as I rip the bandage off) when she DIES unexpectedly, I got stuck in my feelings and never recovered.

What if that happens to me? How would my untimely death impact my husband and daughter, two brothers and their families, and my parents? If art truly imitates life, then my best guess is that I will be forgotten as soon as the ashes scatter. As I watched the drama unfold between two egomaniacal younger brothers who don't miss a beat in moving on with their self-destructive lives without their sister, I ate my truffle buttered popcorn-flavored feelings and watched what felt like a possible alternative ending to my own life.

Yeah, it cut that close to my bones; it was personal and profoundly sad. So much so that I texted a friend to playfully scold him for not telling me that in advance that American Fiction would probably make me cry, and his response was a sardonic echo of my original text. Sensing that he either intentionally missed my point or was being an ass, his response is partly why I feel compelled to vent about how shitty it is, in what was otherwise a brilliant film, that no one seems to be all that broken up about the abrupt and sudden death of the person who had been managing EVERYTHING for her family to the point that it literally KILLS her!

Before you metaphorically reach out to pat me on the head and urge me to calm down it's just a movie, let me point out the irony of a film that indicts the way society prefers to see Black lives presented (flat, stereotypical, and tragic) and how it does the exact same thing in its depiction of Black women. In the course of exploiting several Hollywood tropes to their humorous heights and tragic depths, this film offers a layered story within a story within a story allegory of so many "fictions" we choose to believe. In other words, it is The Colored Museum (1986) meets Hollywood Shuffle (1987) meets A Strange Loop (2020) with some of the better episodes of black-ish (2014-2022) mixed in. Brilliant.

Beginning with Monk (the always mesmerizing Jeffrey Wright), the tortured, lonely genius and his brother Cliff (Sterling K. Brown), the gay black sheep of the family, both of those representations hold the center. There are supported by several stock minor characters: the cheerful (funny) gays, the noble Latinx allies, and the various versions of white liberals. As each successive white character appears, I chuckled at how they could have been plucked from a shelf in a bookstore labeled "prototypical white liberal" (which correlates to a scene in the film that occurs right before it delivers that first emotional gut punch). And then finally, there is the Chorus: five Black women who consist of two Black best friends and three selfless Black matriarchs who are all flat, stereotypical, tragic...and expendable. 

Of course, that may be just my opinion, and I recognize that might be another veiled reference to the entire point of this film. Traditional Black narratives written and produced by Black men often relegate Black women to the sidelines in service to the story. Rarely do we get full-dimensional wives, mothers, or daughters in these stories because the narrative is usually centered on the Black experience through the lens of its Black male protagonists. Seemingly aware of this blind-spot, in the scene where Monk is complimented for his ability to write fully developed female characters, it just so happens to follow within minutes of his sister's hasty heavenly departure. This struck me as kind of an obvious little white lie given that is the opposite of how the Black women in this film are treated. 

Therefore, as screenwriter and director Cord Jefferson is surely winking back at us in calling out Monk's wealthy white patrons as modern-day versions of Charlotte Osgood Mason and Carl Van Vechten, his other choices feel similarly intentional. At various points, Monk dispatches every Black woman in his orbit with little to no sentimentality. When he moves his mother Agnes (Leslie Uggams) into the nursing home, there are no tears, no second thoughts, no long embrace goodbye; instead, the scene ends with his brother's hurt feelings over a homophobic remark. And there she is left alone in Boston even though Monk and his brother both live out West (and ride off together to the Hollywood Hills in the end). The faithful family housekeeper, Lorraine (Myra Lucretia Taylor), is married off, but not before it is casually suggested that she could be fired to save money. Is it really a coincidence that she happens to rekindle an old flame to save Monk from having to do the unthinkable? The promise of a meaningful romantic relationship with Coraline (Erika Alexander) is dashed by his insufferable ego. Of course, it is doomed from the moment when he jokingly asks for her name after he spends the night with her, and we (the audience) realize we were never formally introduced. Monk's duplicity with Sintara Golden (Issa Rae) all but ensures that they will be professional rivals, never friends.

Which brings me back to Lisa, the older sister (rather, it is my assumption that she is the eldest, because that is the birth-order responsibility I hold in my family). I couldn't help but to see myself reflected back from the screen, so admittedly, I might not be separating fact from fiction in my response to her demise. Yet, isn't it peculiar that from my seat in the audience, I had a more emotional reaction to the death of this fictional character than what unfolds onscreen? 

All of the signs of her impending demise are revealed in the short time we become acquainted with her: stress from a recent divorce, concern over finances, a dangerous job, and the prospect of caring for her mother without consistent family support. To cope, she mentions that she has resumed smoking. That she dies isn't all that shocking nor is the timing, given all of that build up (almost as if one could imagine her arteries hardening). It is the way everyone just moves on--gee, it sucks that older Sis no longer here to keep the lights on, remind Mom to put on her wig, recognize that younger brother is an impulsive dope fiend, etc., but we'll manage. They spend more time mourning their long-dead philandering father who committed suicide...

Indulge me for a few more paragraphs while I pivot from the film to address the parallels to my own life. At some point before my 40th birthday, I had a conversation with another friend about caregiving in the early stages of my Mom's dementia diagnosis. She shared a story about an aunt of hers who had been the family matriarch/caregiver until she died unexpectedly. While the family mourned her loss as they had looked to this Sister/Auntie to handle everything, miraculously they were all capable of doing for themselves. The selfless matriarch who had devoted her life to her family was dead while those whom she supported/enabled/stood in the gap for kept right on living. That story altered my thinking about much, including my decision to pursue motherhood and my writing. I thought my family would appreciate my sacrifices...until it began to feel more like they expected them. Then it dawned on me that I might wake up one day at 45 years old as a bitter, possibly divorced woman with no family of my own. Or dead like my friend's aunt, or like the fictional Lisa.

Thankfully, I'm not dead yet.

But now that I am 50 years old and see similar patterns emerging, including being the Momager of my daughter's life, I am serious about remembering to take time to care for ME in the midst of caring for everyone else. That is exactly how I ended up at the movies that day because I was carving out time for myself after a particularly stressful week of dealing with a broken furnace, negotiating home health care issues, rescheduling doctor appointments, attending Zoom meetings, and being a Girl Scout/Dance Mom. Later that evening when I was out grocery shopping for healthy snacks and food for my parents, I picked up a second bouquet of flowers. Because damn if I'm going to drop dead and not have any flowers to enjoy while I am still able to smell them!

I'm not suggesting that it is Cord Jefferson's responsibility to circle back to a minor character's subplot to address the mythology versus the reality of the Black Superwoman. In a more perfect American fictional world, that would have been Sintara Golden's literary contribution instead of more baby mama drama. Far from accusing Jefferson or Percival Everett of dropping the ball, it is more accurate to suggest that they dropped some heavy hints that there is so much more to Black lives than slogans and advertising campaigns. That, and the tongue in cheek digs that Tyler Perry is neither a Black everyman nor is his Madea character every woman...and both of them need to stop crowding out other Black voices. 

There is room on bookstore shelves, on stage, and on screen for Black stories that explore the full range of our humanity, including our health disparities and outcomes; the challenges of caring for our elders; and the mistakes we make in raising our children. As we learned from Issa Rae, it doesn't all have to be that heavy--we can mine our bad relationship choices, professional setbacks and stumbles, and our dysfunctional families for five seasons of hilarious material. To paraphrase the late great author Toni Morrison, if there are stories that we want to see that haven't been written or filmed yet, then we must put in the work to see that those projects come to life. 

I feel those words as clearly as I felt sorrow for a fictional dead woman, so the universe must be trying to tell me something. Stay tuned...