9/02/2015 looking up
I’ve been thinking about my dad a lot lately. It’s probably because his birthday is next week. Although it’s been 20+ years, his passing is still raw with me, I’ve just learned to cope. One of the ways I cope is looking up. When I was 6 years old, during a car ride my mom was explaining to my brother and I that our dad was on a permanent vacation in heaven, but all we had to do was look up because he was looking down, watching us always. My brother and I peered out the backseat car window and looked up at the sky, and there was a cloud shaped like the silhouette of a person waving. Excited, my brother yells “It’s dad, mom! Look, Eboni! It’s dad!” My mom, choking back tears, let us believe it was him. It brought us peace, and made us feel close to him even though he wasn’t physically with us. Maybe our imaginations were running wild. 6 year-old, and now 25 year-old me wants to believe it was his way of showing his forever love, and presence in my life. I really miss you, dad. But today I’m looking up, and feeling your forever love.
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9/11/2020 september 11th
9-11-2001 was a day of immense tragedy, fear and for me, grief and empathy. I vividly remember going to school that morning shortly after hearing the news. The mood at school was somber as us middle schoolers tried to make meaning of what happened. It truly was a day like no other, marked with school wide moments of silence and watching the news in science and algebra. The teachers just as distraught as us students. But for me the tragedy didn’t really strike me until my family and I were on the way home from Wednesday night bible study. Like most Wednesday evenings we were in the drive-thru picking up a late dinner while listening to our local Christian radio station. In the evenings they let folks call in with prayer requests. I usually tuned this out and listened to my CD player, but tonight was different. I was listening to the calls roll in with people in despair over what had transpired. Praying for peace. Some praying for justice. Many praying for loved ones. As I was listening, a child called in. They started talking to the radio host about their “daddy” who is in New York City on business that they couldn’t get in touch with. The child asked for prayer that his father be alive and safe. 6
9/11/2020 september 11th (cont.)
“Alive,” rattled around in my 11-year-old brain. The boy ended his prayer with something along the lines of, “Please come home safe, dad.” The words rung in my ear, and pulled at my heart strings. My eyes began to well with tears because I knew that fear. I knew that anguish. I knew that feeling of not knowing if your daddy was going to return home. I sobbed for that child on the radio, and for my daddy that never made it home from the hospital whose birthday was the next day. I cried in that drive-thru line and all the way home thinking about that child and the pain they may endure. This was a wave of grief that was new to me, and a wave of empathy for someone I didn’t even know. I hope that child’s father made it home to them safely. Made it home to them alive.
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9/30/2020 stages of grief
Growing up I went through a period of time where I was angry. Angry that my dad wasn’t with me. Angry that other kids had their dad, but I didn’t. My siblings didn’t. Angry that he was missing all of my big and small important moments. Sometimes in a rage I’d think, “I only got 4 years with you… 4 short, measly years.” As I got older I realized that this anger was just a stage of grief. A stage of processing losing someone so integral to my life. At 19 I would get a tattoo to symbolize being at peace with your passing. Peace, I think now at 30 is something that comes and goes. I think a better assertion would be that I’ve just learned to cope with him not being here. To find moments to celebrate all that he was to me and this life. And leaving space for those moments where my heart just hurts. Even leaving space for that anger. I realize now that, that anger was just love. Love with no place to go. As I’ve gotten older I’ve tried to reframe the thought of, “4 measly years,” to “4 years of unconditional love from my father.” “4 years of care.” “4 years of big, white, toothy grins.” “4 years of happy memories."
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9/30/2020 the light dream
Sometimes I think back to what I can remember of our last moments together, and even then you were trying to give me and my brother some sense of normalcy. Making the intimidating hospital bed a ride that could go up and down. I cherish this memory because it’s something I personally recollect and not something that was told to me like my other memories. When you lose someone at such a young age, you hang on tight to those memories that you can almost touch. You even hold onto dreams that your loved one appears in. Whenever I’ve had dreams about my father, it has always been in moments where I needed him most. In college I endured a lot. So many highs, but also some of the lowest points of my life. Sexual assault followed by PTSD, depression and anxiety. Only to heal from that and become a high achieving college student. Graduating from college, followed by a miscarriage a month later. So much joy followed by pain.
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9/30/2020 the light dream (cont.)
I had a dream a few nights after my miscarriage that let me know that my father’s love and energy was all around me. In the dream my father was showing me flashbacks to so many pivotal moments in my life and telling me he was there. Rooting me on in moments of celebration and showering me with love in my moments of darkness. There was a glow of light all around him, he touched my hand and said, “You carry me, my light, with you always.” I was almost 23 and going through so much. Physically and emotionally healing, and about to embark on a cross country move. I woke up with tears in my eyes. Awoken with a renewed sense of hope for my future as uncertain as it seemed. Knowing that I was not alone, but with a reminder that the light of my father is in my heart, there to guide me.
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10/11/2020 coming out
Having lost a parent at such a young age, I often wonder how my dad would’ve reacted to various moments in my life. Would he have loved me through it? Would he have chastised me for it? Would it have just taken him some time to come around? All questions I wonder when I think about my coming out story. I came out 4 years ago to my family after falling madly in love with a woman. I always knew I was queer, I was just afraid of what it meant for me and what relationships would change if I ever explored it. I came out to my younger brother first, he didn’t think anything of it and was just happy that I was happy. A couple weeks later I finally mustered up the courage to say the words, “Mom, I’m gay.” My mother’s words of unacceptance rang in my ears for weeks. They still sting to this day. I kept thinking to myself how I did everything right, went to college, managed a successful career and now I’d found love. Why couldn’t she accept that above all else, I found love?
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10/11/2020 coming out (cont.)
My mother not accepting my queer identity broke me into pieces that I’m still picking up today. In the moments that feel darkest I imagine my father showering me with love and support, wishing that it would be true and upset that I’ll never know. I hang on to the words my father wrote to me in my baby book, “I want to be your friend, not just father but your friend. I hope that we can talk about anything. I LOVE YOU EBONI.” I’m so grateful that he wrote those words to me. Like my mom, my dad was religious, but reading those words, “I hope we can talk about anything,” causes me to believe that nothing would have been off the table to talk about and that he really would’ve loved me through my coming out. At least I hope. That’s the thing about losing someone, there’s always so much left unsaid. No matter how much time you had with them, it’s never enough.
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12/9/2020 mental health Mania takes your mind places you never thought possible. It turns you inside out, exposes your fears, exposes the ugliest parts of you. It makes you feel as if you have all of the power in the world, when in reality you are at your most fragile. This power and fragility causing you to act impulsively. Mania lies to you. It tells you things as if they are fact, and you concoct worlds of false truths. It beckons you to dig deeper into the lies, causing you to search for an unknown answer to whatever you’re seeking. I didn’t know what I was searching for when I experienced mania 3 years ago. I had never felt so interconnected to the world and universe around me. During the peak of my mania I could feel my father’s energy all around me. I had so many questions about my family. Questions about me that deep down I knew the answer too, but couldn’t find. Questions about my dad. Subconsciously, I must have felt like I was missing information about my fathers life and that is exactly what came up when I was manic. The questions I asked were wild, but in the world that mania manifested it was painting a bigger picture to discover things I had never been told about him. Painting this picture was ugly. It was messy. It was filled with anger and a rage I didn’t even know I had in me when I didn’t get what I was looking for. 22
12/9/2020 mental health (cont.)
To be honest, a part of me didn’t want to let mania go because I felt so connected to my father. This was an auditory hallucination, but I thought I could hear his voice. I could hear him telling me that everything was going to be alright when I was afraid to sleep and had been awake for days. I could hear him telling me to dig deeper, even though the questions and mazes of gibberish I drew up made no sense to anyone. My father was my guide through mania and eventually drew me to the light. I finally had to sit in the stillness of my thoughts. Sit with the embarrassment of my actions while manic. When I finally came out on the other side of mania, I realized the web of wild questions and “revelations” I created lead me to discover things about my father that I never knew. My work past and present, and my beliefs about the world reconciled, giving my life a deeper meaning.
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12/9/2020 mental health (cont.)
This discovery, let me know that I would be okay without him. It let me know that even without mania, things are so interconnected even when we aren’t conscious of it. It let me know that I would be okay moving into my new normal of living with bipolar disorder. It let me know that despite the trail of wreckage mania left behind, my heart was always in the right place. It gave me permission to forgive myself for a mind not well. Mania unraveled me, but I’m so grateful for it because it helped me find the best pieces of me and heal into a person I’m proud of. A person that is a reflection of all the light that surrounds their father.
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10/15/20 letters to heaven
Growing up on the Eastside, my family and I had a tradition of going to Old Country Buffet on kids eat free night. I’m sure this was my mom’s way of being able to take us out for dinner, but also saving a little money. I would always look forward to driving to Factoria Mall, waiting in line to get into the buffet, only to finally be able to eat all the mashed potatoes I wanted. As you’d be eating on kids night servers from the restaurant would come around and give you a balloon to take home with you. As a kid I loved this because I knew once we’d get home I would try and “reach” my dad with this singular balloon. Once home, I’d rush to my room to write my dad a quick letter to attach to the balloons ribbon. I would tell my dad how much I missed him, about the tooth I’d just lost, the ‘A’ I got on an assignment, or sometimes big things. Questions like, “Why did you have to leave?” or “Will I ever see you again?” I’d attach the letter to that balloon and let it go. Spiritually and emotionally letting a little bit of the pain I felt float away to the heavens with it.
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