• Grief, Energy, and Coping

    Facebook memories can be a very painful experience. A picture of my brother Randy that I had posted two years ago popped up while I was sitting down thinking about how I have outlived my entire childhood family. Literally everyone with whom I had formed my earliest memories with has crossed over and it’s a…


  • The Harvest Season

    When the picture on the right was taken back in September of 2020, I was in the throes of grief. In the trenches. Wallowing in pain. My last remaining sibling had died in February and the country shut down a month later due to the pandemic. I was working from home, and stuck in the…


  • The Day Before the Holiday

    Tomorrow is the 4th of July and as a child, it would mean good times. My multigenerational family would gather together to celebrate and I would play with my cousins and friends until everyone went home. I can still remember the smell of the barbecue grill my Aunt Maggie would set up at 6am. I…


  • PTSD, Black Youth, Drugs, & The Lack of Empathy

    My daughter is 22 years old and she’s been through a lot mentally over the past eight years. She’s lost so many friends to murder on the streets of Chicago that it’s heartbreaking. Some of her classmates from grade and high school. Friends from the various neighborhoods we have lived in. So many lost children…


  • 2022

    This year was filled with some highs but mostly lows. The highs were the birth of my second grandson and attending a Duran Duran concert. And getting one of those “good” government jobs that Black folks aspired to for decades. But it was a rough year for me again because I lost more people I…


  • An Ode to Rosemary

    Two weeks ago, a very special lady crossed over into eternity and her name was Rosemary. She was my first cousin and she was loved by many. As a child, she was the most glamorous woman in the world to me and she brought excitement with her presence whenever she showed up. She was this…


  • Grief Once Again

    It’s Sunday afternoon and I’m sitting here watching a marathon of the television show “Snapped” and crying. As usual because I’m thinking about my lost ones and is filled with sadness, anxiety, and anger. Earlier this year I read an article about Caroline Kennedy and it was written right after her brother John died in…


  • Grief is a Weird Thing

    Two years has passed since my brother died, and I’ve experienced a multiple of emotions ranging from the deepest despair to raging anger and anxiety. But lately, I feel myself turning into someone who doesn’t give a fuck about too much of anything. I mean I love my children, grandchild, and my future grandchild to…


  • Grief

    Next month will be the anniversaries of my brothers deaths. Both of my brothers died in the month of February three days apart, one on the 7th which is ironically his birthday and the other one on the 10th. How morbid is that? Quite actually so I’m not in a good space right now but…


  • Depression, Depression, Depression….

    Depression is a terrible thing because it creeps up when you least expect it. You could be having a perfectly good day and memories from the past will swarm your brain and you will feel like crawling up in a corner and hiding. Hiding from the pain, the confusion, the chaos of your feelings. My…