We Say Ashe Together

My Mom has been on my mind all day.

To be clear she is on my mind everyday, but some days she lingers longer and takes up residence in the hollow space between my ribs making it hard to breathe. On those days I am filled with a restless, anxious need that cannot be quelled, a heaviness that cannot be lifted.

Today was one of those days.

It started this morning when I opened the “pictures” app on my phone looking for something I wanted to show my husband. I had recently done a software update on my phone resulting in new features, one of which I must have accidentally launched because a montage video of “mom” photos suddenly started playing accompanied by an “uplifting” musical score. The photos were chronological which made for a grim visual as I watched her waste and fade away once again before my eyes only this time set to music. It was one of those unguarded gut punch moments I never see coming that knocks the air right out of me and leaves me emotionally crumpled inside.

Always inside.

Because as my dad instilled in us: “Milligans don’t cry” and I don’t want to weigh others down or be a burden. Or be “that” person who is still struggling. Still working things out. Still a mess after the “appropriate” amount of time has passed.

Today was one of those days.

One of those days you either get pulled under and breathe water or surface and breathe air.

I floundered and struggled, sank and rose and finally broke the surface and breathed air.

My life raft out of the abyss was the African American History Festival that was scheduled at the Fort Frederica National Monument. It had been tentatively marked on my calendar for weeks but the weather this morning (chilly….) had me rethinking my decision to go.

I decided last minute that it would be a good redirection chilly weather or not. So I put on my jacket and “cat hat” and headed out husband in tow.

It was amazing.

We wandered through the Visitors Center where artist in residence SA Hunter was selling her paintings. She had amazing pieces on display, almost all of which featured a Live Oak (or two) edging into the background, framing the image, or taking over the entire canvas. I commented on that fact to her and she admitted it was hard for her to render an image without one, because she is a “tree person.” I knew she was “my person” and snapped up the above painting.

I noted that it was a puzzle and was told by the artist “Not anymore.”

It was indeed “puzzle style” but having been glued and affixed it was a more stable structure. A clearer look at the whole picture.

We were then right on time for the Geechee Gullah Ring Shouters performance which was a moving, enlightening experience.

And then….. the dedication of the newly discovered African American Burial Grounds which included a Janaza Prayer, a Christian Dedication and an African Libation Ceremony. During the Libation Ceremony (A tribute to the ancestors) we were invited to call out the names of those departed after which we would together say “Ashe” (And so it is. “Amen.”)

I did not feel it was my place to speak.

This ceremony was not for me.

My Mother’s name screamed inside of me, always inside, and it raged silently every time we were asked an ancestral name. I spoke it over and over and over again in my head, in my heart, in the filled in hollow spaces between my ribs. In the place between the ebb and flow of breath.

The Live Oak surrounding the ceremony caught the wind in their branches, began to rustle and howl almost on cue, remembering those who had come before.

“A puzzle” I thought.

The past and the present and the future.

All glued together to form a picture of what has been, what is, and what is yet to come. A complete picture, yet each piece definable and separate, held back at the boundaries; cauterized, compartmentalized. encapsulated at the edges of emotion.

The space between the pieces, a gasp, an inhale, something experienced only on the inside.

One more call for ancestral remembrance.

I realize there is no “appropriate” amount of time. The pain of loss, be it two years or two hundred, is all the same. It i still as raw today as it was at the beginning of time.

I scream her name on the inside and whisper it softly onto the wind filtering through the trees I hold so dear.

“Ashe” we all say together.