“Don’t worry. Ya hear me, Boom? Worrying make ya older faster. Look at me. I don’t look nothing like them guys I went to school with. Because I don’t worry,” Uncle Larry said, and meant that shit too.
Telling someone who’s worrying not to worry has rarely, if ever, in the history of humanity, made them stop worrying. But him calling me Boom did. That was his nickname for me, ever since I was about four years old.
My mom had joined the Army and been deployed to Saudi Arabia, leaving me with her parents while she was gone. Uncle Larry was living with us too, back in Louisiana after leaving the Marines and attempting a life in Houston, only to realize he missed home too much. Initially he called me Boom Boom, then shortened it to Boom after I got grown.
Being called Boom takes me back to those days: sneaking Larry’s toothpick from his mouth while he slept, my granddad treating me to fat peppermint sticks and red Icees, and my grandma buying me a Liz Claiborne purse with a disposable camera attached to it. Boom Boom got love in all of its languages, and had nothing to ever worry about.
Going to Monroe for Uncle Larry’s funeral this past weekend, it hit me that no one will ever call me Boom again. Then I ran into an aunt who Larry introduced me to about 10 years ago. She hugged me, proved that she actually remembered me (black folks be pretending lol), then introduced me to her daughters as Boom.
“Boom” is an emotional inheritance for me.
A Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry, the only play I’ve ever read, is about emotional inheritances. A Black family in Chicago is struggling over how to use a life insurance check after the death of the family patriarch. Beneath the arguments about money is a battle over dreams, dignity, generational expectations, and what kind of future Black families are allowed to imagine for themselves.
I’ve been thinking about the emotional inheritances in our family: dreams, imagination, pride, duty, survival instincts, anger, and bitterness. The last three on the list came to mind while bonding with one of my first cousins over the weekend. It was our first time meeting in person. Someone else’s ridiculousness caused her to miss most of the funeral. She spent most of the morning repeating what happened and how angry she was. On the way to the burial site, I stopped her.
“What happened was fucked up,” I agreed. “But it’s done, in the past. At this point, you choosing to be mad. And you got the right to. But you can also choose to not be mad. And I don’t feel like being mad this weekend, so if you wanna be, lemme know so I can give you space.”
Harboring anger ain’t unique to my cousin or my family. We all been there. And I wasn’t telling her to forgive who did it, just to not let what happened earlier stop her from enjoying that perfect weather and the fact that we were months apart in age, blood cousins, and finally meeting in person! That our sharing a smoke beforehand was sacred, ceremonial. I ain’t want her to overlook how STUNNING the cemetery was. It’s a practically brand new veteran’s cemetery with a river behind it. Herons soaring and shit. Gorgeous. Like, don’t miss these soldiers standing in perfect form, awaiting our arrival. Girl, take this in!
My friend Elbi said I cast a spell when I shared that decision/truth with my cousin.
That made me think of a short story by Lorraine Hansberry called “The Anticipation of Eve.” It came out in 1957 and is about a woman named Rita who’s been in a secret relationship with a woman name Eve. She wants to tell her cousin Sel who’s pretty liberal, but Sel and her husband prove to be homophobic af before she can even tell them. To keep the peace, she let them believe she was too.
While I can relate and empathize with going along to get along, I took the truth route with my own cousin. Because more self-awareness is what I wish for all my cousins. You too, Racquel. Awareness along with the courage/desire to make the decision that’s in our highest good. That’s how you peep the awe around you at all times, like:
- My period coming on the morning I flew out. It’s usually brutal, so I dreaded it. But I recently started birth control pills to ease the brutality. I dreaded the synthetic hormones, but my friend Crystal told me to tell the pill what to do (and not do). I do, every time I take it, and baby, that period was a breeze!
- Speaking of a breeze, when the two soldiers were ‘bout done with the flag folding ritual, a STRONG gust of wind blew. I know I said everything ain’t a sign in that one blog post, but if you read it all the way through, you saw where I said that everything IS a sign too. And that wind was Uncle Larry.
- Leaving the cemetery, me and my cousin stared out at the open fields on each side of the highway. She reminded me how much I talk about collective imagination. We built her house from the ground up! Four huge bedrooms with their own bathroom, two sitting areas, a big porch, and about an acre between neighbors. Then we designed a circle of homes for elderly people who need some looking after, and named each house for deceased family members. In the middle would be the caretaker on duty.
- That evening, me, her, my mom and my son went to a fair. It tore me up. Initially this made me sad because I was missing out, then I realized it gave me the moment of solitude I’d been needing since the plane landed.
Awareness shows you the awe, even in the ugh moments.
That’s the inheritance I’m most grateful for right now—the ability to still notice beauty while grieving. To still imagine while hurting. To still laugh, connect, rethink, and soften in the middle of life doing what life does.
P.S.: Happy birthday, Lorraine Hansberry (and Malcolm X), and Rest in peace, Uncle Larry!
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