First Lesson for D: Being Black in Brooklyn

This afternoon we needed to walk to Daniel's dance class because our new car is in the shop for a faulty door. It was a windy cold day but not an unpleasant walk.  Then we came across a scene I wish wasn't quite so common in our city: four police cars, a police van, and a group of young black teenagers being interviewed by police officers.  The youth were pretty young, maybe Freshman in High School, and this all was taking place outside our local park.  Likely there was a fight or an intent to fight or some scuffle over the rights to the basketball courts, and it got noisy and the neighbors called the cops.  As my little son and I passed by, we overheard one of the officers telling the group of teens that either they tell them what really happened, or they'll all be arrested. The large van stood at the ready.

I hustled Daniel by, but my head and my heart flashed forward 10 years. My son, now a tall strong black teenager, hanging out with friends afterschool.  My son, being questioned by police. My son, being pushed against a playground fence and searched.

Sigh. I knew they were coming, the lessons we need to teach our black son. So we started today. I took a deep breath and started his Education.

Lesson One: Do not get caught up in a group. When trouble starts, GET OUT OF THERE.  I lectured Daniel about how not to stick around if other kids are starting to do the wrong thing (fight, steal). Leave right away or get help. I told him how the police sometimes won't know who the bad guy is and will just arrest everyone. Yes, I told my 6 year old cops make mistakes. Yes, my 6 year old knows what "steal", "arrest" and "jail" mean. Most of the rest of it went over his head, or past his rolled up eyes. But this won't be the last time he hears this lesson.

The hard truth is that cops don't like big groups of black teens. And all it takes is one stupid teenager to cause a world of trouble for a bunch of kids who are just hanging out.

We pray that Daniel never gets caught up in a stop and frisk. We pray that a dumb teen prank doesn't land him in a world of trouble. We pray that we never get a phone call from him at the precinct. But we know it is rare, in our city in our time for a black teen, even a "good kid" to grow up without some negative interaction with police. And Daniel, my wonderful son, is tall and strong and loves sports and loves to hang out with older kids.  It won't be long. It won't be long til he's in a group playing and getting stupid in the park and scaring the neighbors.  So I better start these lessons now.

What will Lesson 2 be? What should it be?

in such a rush to grow up.... he's already asked when he can learn to drive...

That's MY mommy!

So as I've written before (here and here), Lily is going through an Attachment phase. You could call it the Velcro phase, or the Glue phase, or the name-any-sticky-adhesive substance phase.  She's ATTACHED to me.

And it's lovely, most of the time. She's growing in love, she's starting to understand that Mommy is special and sticks around, that I'm not just another long term caregiver, that I love her and I always will.

The parts that are not so lovely about her being attached to my hip are going to the bathroom with a 2 year old chaperone, and how she is treating her brother. Her new thing to do, any time Daniel is sitting with me, is to push him away and shout, "That's MY mommy!"

She knows that I'm Daniel's mommy too. She just doesn't like it.

"cheeeeeeeese"

And frankly, this doesn't bother Daniel all that much, because he is going through an opposite attachment phase... what I'll call the "nay, let's try another family", or the "can I be adopted again?" or the "this family @#$% isn't all it's cracked up to be!" phase.  He's not so sure he loves us, because in his view a perfect parent gives him whatever toy he wants and lets him play video games all day. His ideal mommy lets him eat and drink whenever and whatever he likes, and always has the best apps on her i-phone. (None of that education junk!).  He's finding out that life in a new family is hard, and he's kind of throwing up his hands a bit.

So I've got one kid who can't get enough kisses, and another who wipes them off.

But we keep on.  I keep giving Daniel kisses, trying not to blow my stack when he wipes them off. I keep giving Lily kisses, trying not to roll my eyes when she insists on just one more.

I do long for the day when both of them can say, peacefully and with conviction, "That's my mom."

"make a nice face, D"

This is how children grieve...

Tonight as I was putting on my boots for a quick trip to the store for some after-dinner ice cream, this conversation happened:

Daniel: "Mom, A-------- (his late Ethiopian mother) didn't write back!"

Me: "A-----? Don't you mean G------" (his living Ethiopian father)?

Daniel: "No, A----------! She didn't write back!"

Me: Extremely puzzled look. Then: "She can't write back. She's dead, sweetie."

Daniel: Extremely puzzled look.  "I know that!"

****

And this is how it happens... the sudden shift from the ordinary to the sublime, from prose to poetry. One minute you are putting your boots on and the next you are explaining to your child about heaven and memory and the finality of death.

Children don't mourn the way that adults do. They don't grieve, for example, at church on Sunday morning, or during other times that we adults schedule for our spiritual and emotional connection to the unknown.  They mourn in unpredictable, erratic, cyclical ways.  Little spurts of memory or understanding can propel them to grief at odd times.

Daniel and I have talked about his Ethiopian mother while walking to school, in the car heading to the dentist, while avoiding doing homework, in the middle of hectic dinner preparations, etc.  He's shared the story of her death with his grandmother over ice cream cones, and with his dad during breaks from Superhero play. We purposefully bring her name and her memory up often, but we have learned that we cannot predict nor direct Daniel's grief.  Talking about her over dinner will not trigger tears. But a homework assignment to think of problems to solve will lead him to talk about not everyone having shoes. Which will lead to talking about how his Ethiopian family does not have shoes. Which will remind him that if his mother had had a pair of shoes, she might not have contracted the illness which killed her.

Our son knows, of course, what happened to his first mother.  He was there, watching everything unfold with 4 year old eyes.

Our daughter was a tiny infant when their mother died. Lily's understanding of her story is limited, right now, to "Ethiopia" and "crying all the time".  Recently she cried while seeing some photos of herself from the care center. Today she cried over them a little bit more, saying "I miss my baby toys."

She is very much invested in me as her Mommy. I cannot leave the room for a moment without her following me. When I give her a kiss she says, "Why you kissing me mama?"
I say, "because I love you."
"You love me?" she replies. "All the time?"
"Yes, baby, all the time."

Recently Lily and I started having conversations about our skin color. How she is brown like Daniel and Daddy and I are pink. I can see her 2 1/2 year old brain struggling to put the pieces together:

Brown skin + pink mommy + Ethiopia + missing baby toys = ????

It used to stun me, these abrupt departures into the shaky, murky land of childhood grief. I would struggle to hold back my own tears as I gave space for my son to talk the way that he wanted.  I've grown more accustomed now... but he can still surprise me.

It turns out that tonight for some reason, Daniel remembered how last Mother's Day we wrote a letter to A------ together and then burned it on the roof to send our letter up to heaven.

She didn't write back.  

You might think that this revelation brought our six year old to be stricken with grief again, to cry and to scream. But that is an adult idea of grief.  For Daniel, it is just one more piece to fit into the puzzle of his life.  Dead people don't write back.  Check.

We talked for a minute about A------, and then I finished putting my boots on and went for the ice cream. Vanilla, which my son ate 3 large scoops of.  Then he went to bed and I went to the computer to write.