Just before the pandemic began in the USA, Jesmyn Ward lost her husband. In this extraordinary essay she bears witness to what she saw during that time, and to what she has seen since. She draws the connections, along the paths of her tears, from her grief to the nation’s grief, from the care she needs to the care she sees pouring into the streets.
My Beloved died in January. He was a foot taller than me and had large, beautiful dark eyes and dexterous, kind hands. He fixed me breakfast and pots of loose-leaf tea every morning. He cried at both of our children’s births, silently, tears glazing his face. Before I drove our children to school in the pale dawn light, he would put both hands on the top of his head and dance in the driveway to make the kids laugh. He was funny, quick-witted, and could inspire the kind of laughter that cramped my whole torso. Last fall, he decided it would be best for him and our family if he went back to school. His primary job in our household was to shore us up, to take care of the children, to be a househusband. He traveled with me often on business trips, carried our children in the back of lecture halls, watchful and quietly proud as I spoke to audiences, as I met readers and shook hands and signed books. He indulged my penchant for Christmas movies, for meandering trips through museums, even though he would have much preferred to be in a stadium somewhere, watching football. One of my favorite places in the world was beside him, under his warm arm, the color of deep, dark river water. Read more
Nina Minona is dear friend, a writer, a poet, a Black womxn and a showcaser of evolution – particularly the evolution of what it means to create, what it means to do work, and what it means to show up in community. As she and I reflected in horror and exhaustion at the shooting of Jacob Blake, I remarked at how much energy we as Black people exert every day – every hour – for the sole purpose of staying alive. Afterwards, Nina wrote this poem.
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