Dear Black Mama

Dear Black Mama,

I’m writing this letter to you as an invitation to hold your grief—and do nothing else with it.

I’m not asking you to think about how you can use your grief for change. Society has expected us to shift from grief to go since Emmett Till. Since our third- and fourth-great-grandmothers birthed babies, only to have them sold away one day, and were expected to contain their grief enough to have their souls further beaten by the hot Southern sun into the grief-stricken ground beneath them.

In this moment, I lift up the name of Mamie Till-Mobley, who, like far too many Black mothers after her, is too often celebrated for her resilience and not fully seen for her grief. Even with Jet magazine there to photograph her sacred solemnity, as well as her visceral anguish, no photo or speech could fully bear witness to that kind of grief.

If it could, Nolan Wells would not have been abandoned by his white "friends"—the same kind who likely say, "But I have Black friends..."

The truth is, that kind of grief... that kind of horror... lives in the day-to-day, in the in-between. The late nights, the middays, and the early mornings of mourning.

I’m writing this so that my words, hopefully, make room for you to feel fully witnessed without requiring you to reframe your present reality for the greater good.

Wail.

Shout.

Cry.

Laugh.

Smile.

Pray.

Sleep.

Hold.

Hug.

Daydream.

Eat.

Be held.

Be witnessed.

Do whatever you need to do to honor your own humanity.

And please know that, should you choose to turn your grief into something for the greater good, we gotchu. This letter is not meant to isolate or shame you if you choose this path of healing. We know all too well that within our grief often rests a seething rage. And we know that rage can (sometimes) lead to justice—even if only for the generations to come, and not for the one we exist in.

And if you choose to let your grief simply be... we gotchu. We—the Black mothers who are unafraid to witness you and stand beside you. Your grief should never require you to perform. It may inspire you to speak out, but don’t let it—and don’t let others—make you believe you have to perform.

Your grief is yours. It’s God’s. It’s sacred.

In Sisterhood,

A Black Mama