Last Fall, I offered to emcee a memorial service for Mom. This was a few weeks after I’d told Dad that I’d write an obituary if he wanted one written. I wrote it, and didn’t shy away from some of the taboo in Mom’s life, said out loud some of the systemic and institutional perversions of patriarchy and racism, parochialism and xenophobia that skewed her life and all of our lives. I did so knowing that Dad would edit what I’d written and how I’d described moments, passed, locations, and relationships that defined Mom’s life. That he’d use less punchy language, not be as blunt as some of the bullshit that flew around their marriage and decades together.
Drafting the obituary was a dress rehearsal for the memorial a month later where I mentioned some hard and unpleasant realities that others may have found bitter, awkward, even unnecessary maybe, for some others’ constructs of how muted a shared retrospective called a celebration of life ought to be. But, I’d known that I had to go to some of the hard places, in order to keep alive the history of the late ‘60s, all the ‘70s and early ‘80s.
I find it remarkable, and repeatedly unfathomable that ‘90s rap, soul, R&B is as old now as the Golden Oldies were 30 years ago. It’s why I find myself slowing down to expound upon Jeru the Damaja, SWV, or Kris Kross for some young adults in my life. It’s why I described Mary J Blige as being a musician with more hits than Janet Jackson in the 1990s, a few weeks ago. The 411 redefined my early teen years. Janet has endured over the decades since but Everything was what I started a side of my TDK cassette mix in the summer of ‘98, followed by Jodeci and 80 more minutes of crooning, love, innuendo and moaning.
I also understood as my plane moved towards Denver that I had to make those realities of Mom’s early 20s because not doing so would diminish Dad, would obfuscate. He may have been trained in two careers in saying hard realities seemingly in a kinder tone, but I’ve seen how doing so is oftentimes a form of verbal communications that pandered to the powerful.
11 months ago, I hadn’t understood that that hot Saturday morning was also an audition that positioned me for my next role next weekend. Where public speaking is a chance to connect, commend, and convey love and adoration for my beloveds. That’s what I’ll go do: synthesize and mirror, to give voice to the nuances and commonalities coursing through many of us. That by saying them out loud, I may help place some succinct description on a vast range of sensations.
washing dishes: a father’s glimpses 