Chadwick Boseman
The first time I remember noticing change, I was three. I saw boxes everywhere, and my extended family members kept carrying them out of our condo. I climbed the stairs to my play area. Someone stole my dolls. I turned to my older brother with tears in my eyes, and he told me the dolls were gone. I ran to my mom sobbing. “We’re moving to a new house,” she said, “and the dolls will be there when we get there.” So the dolls were gone, but not for good.
And 10 years later we rang in the new year: 1997. My maternal grandmother died in February. She’d been slipping from us for a few years. When we visited her in the hospital, she couldn’t remember how to speak. She stammered. She pointed at me. And she blurted my name. She wasn’t gone for good. But then she was.
My mom cried because she didn’t have a mom anymore. So my mom needs a mom, too. And my mom took on flesh and became a human to me.
Around the same time, neurologists diagnosed my paternal grandmother with Parkinson’s. Her hands shook. My uncle joked that we should rent her out as a dog petter. We laughed because we didn’t know what else to do, and she took meds, and we moved on. Because she wasn’t gone yet.
She’s the one who first noticed when my dad slurred his words. “Have you been drinking?” She asked. “Did you have a stroke?” And fear crept into my brain. But not very far. My dad was the healthiest person I knew. He had a six-pack at 43. And a battery of tests kept confirming his health.
So we kept living unawares.
My aunt drove my mom and me home from my grandparents’ one hot July day. We slowed for construction workers before speeding up again. I looked out the window at thigh-high grass waving in the wind. I looked forward. My throat caught. And we T-boned a pickup truck whose driver missed a stop sign.
Black.
Black blurred into consciousness. Smoke streamed from the crushed hood. Where was my mom?
Is the car going to explode?
I unbuckled my seatbelt, shoved the door open, and ran to the far side of the intersection. Mom?! My thoughts screamed. Why isn’t she getting out of the car? And then I saw her hobble out. “Mom!” I yelled. Aloud this time. She wasn’t gone.
The impact flung my aunt’s prehistoric cell phone, which dialed my cousin. She heard us screaming and thought someone was kidnapping us. So she called my dad, and he called the state patrol. They told him about a car accident on our typical route home. He and my brother jumped in the car without thinking. Without grabbing shoes. The accident stopped traffic in all directions, so—when my dad and brother reached the line of cars—they parked on the shoulder and ran the mile to the scene. My dad saw my mom on a stretcher and the blood drained from his face. He couldn’t find me. He yelled my name. And then he saw me in the ambulance. And he ran over and held me so tightly it hurt. I wasn’t gone.
But my dad was dying. The doctors narrowed his slurred speech down to arsenic poisoning, ALS, or PLS (similar to ALS but slower and much less fatal). I prayed for ALS or PLS because arsenic poisoning sounded scary. When they ruled out arsenic poisoning, the neurologist left the room without explaining my dad’s prognosis. No one wants to tell someone they’re going to die. Even though we’re all going to die.
So my mom looked up ALS and PLS at our local library. She told my dad what was happening to him. She told my brother and me what was happening to him. But maybe it was PLS. Then he wouldn’t be gone for good.
One night that fall, I heard my dad talking to his best friend on the phone: “It’s ALS.” Fear moved in close and a wave of anger and sadness broke through me. I ran to my dad sobbing. Maybe it’s just PLS! My thoughts screamed. “Dad!” I yelled. Aloud this time. “I know it’s ALS,” he said. “I’m dying, but it’s going to be ok.” And he held me so tightly it hurt. He wasn’t gone. Yet.
I’ve been thinking about that year a lot. I’ve been thinking about sadness stacked on sadness. About how it pours when it rains. Sometimes. This time.
Chadwick Boseman. I cried when I saw that he died on Friday. I didn’t know him. But I feel the loss of another Black hero. And of all times: now?
Photo cred: Gage Skidmore from Peoria, AZ, United States of America - Chadwick Boseman, CC BY-SA 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=67164061
I think about his family. Because I know what the day after feels like. You wake up and the entire world has changed. But not for everyone.
So I cry for them. For all of us.
Our culture avoids talking about death. We prefer not to think about it. Because we’ve labeled sadness: bad.
My father-in-law asked me the other day how caring for my dad changed me. Countless ways. And I couldn’t think of a transformation that I’d label: bad. I still can’t.
Without my dad, I’m not me. Without that pain, I’m not me. So maybe he isn’t gone for good. And never will be.
And maybe we’ll look back on 2020 and see transformation. Maybe it’ll be Wakanda.