by Darius Phelps  

 

Abstract   

Black People are not taught to address the issues and trauma that plague the foundation of our families. Instead we fast, we pray, we find other means to escape, instead of looking within ourselves to learn from the past, especially from the women who have carried us every step of the way; our mothers. Told through an auto ethnography curated via narrative poems, I will share my story rooted in the triumphs and trials of the women who’ve taught me to lead, love, pray  — emphasizing that my feelings are valid,true, and that I deserve to feel black boy joy. (hooks, 2004) 

In order to reach a place of emancipation, we must honor, learn from and embrace the pain that our mothers have suffered in silence, in order for  joy to authenticate loudly, reverberating into the world.  It is through learning, witnessing,  living with their pain, sorrow, and joy, that I was able to unpack our trauma. Through this I have found my own peace, and come to view  grief and joy as twins walking hand in hand on this road to renaissance. We cannot have one without the other. Without excavation, we cannot truly be emancipated. (hooks, 2001)  

 

My Mother is a Depressed Goddess  

 

I  

Under this  

blazing Georgia 

sun, I kneel 

down to plant 

 peach roses  

for my  

mother. 

 

Each morning, 

I wake up  

and tend to  

her garden  

as she  

watches in 

 reverence  

 

My silence 

 is between  

your  suffering. 

 

Our generational  

trauma will  

forever be — 

a shapeshifter.  

the malice  

in our 

 wonderland 

 

II  

 

There were no  

blossoms  in  

our garden  

Just shrubs,  

dried out soil,   

skulls from 

the remains 

of our  

beloved.  

 

I long for  

a home  

where my  

loved ones 

are present 

& 

not faded  

memories 

decaying  

on the walls  

waiting for  

us to join  

in line to  

prepare for  

the war in  

hell where  

our ancestors  

await for  

us to  

confess to  

the sins 

we didn’t  

commit.  

 

III  

 

I plant 

the seeds 

to regrow 

the garden  

she  burned  

hoping the  

fertilizer 

 known  

as our love,  

will lead her  

to to thirst  

no more.   

 

Mother –  

together 

we will plant  

the gardens  

that will covet  

our new  

world 

 

The spines of  

my peach  

colored roses  

will forever  

break for  

you.  

Introduction  

The bond between mother and child is one that will never be erased, no matter the test of time. The unconditional love of a mother is one that lays the foundation for how a man loves, especially one of color, sets the tone for who he is to become and how he loves those around him, but most importantly, himself.   

When I think of the current state of black women raising young black boys, the following quote by bell hooks reverberates loudly,  “Let’s not kid ourselves, we find mutual love only when we know how to love. And the best place to start practicing the art of love is with the self–that body, mind, heart, and soul that we can most know and change. The one person who will never leave us, whom we will never lose, is ourselves. Learning to love our female selves is where our search for love must begin….rather than embracing faulty thinking that encourages us to believe that females are inherently loving, we make the choice to become loving. Choosing love, we affirm our agency, our commitment to personal growth, our emotional openness.” (hooks, 2022, p. 104)  

Vulnerability, the main brick to the foundation of my manhood, immediately comes to mind when I read and hear this quote. One thing I have learned as a child of a single mother, is that the mother’s pain and trauma is passed down by the daughter, and onto their offspring. For sons, this can mean a plethora of things. We are the ones who bear witness to the respective journeys of both our  grandmothers and mothers. This alone serves as a catalyst for our paths as we learn to give and receive love in different aspects. It is one thing for the daughter to have her mother guiding her as she navigates her journey, but for a son without a father to do just – for  him, he already enters the world wounded and craving an embrace that he may never be able to witness. In return, this makes him naturally more empathetic towards both hurting and healing. He conceives a different struggle that his mother and the women around him have to bear, as they do all they can to raise him. Instead of being spared from the pain, he instead is blessed with a strong sense of awareness, intuition, and openness that has been passed down through generations of queens.  

In order for women, especially Black women to be emancipated, they must be intentional with making and taking the steps to heal and ultimately re-write their  narratives. This is a lesson that I have learned and continue to witness my mother working through til this very day. “Learning how to live is a way to heal” and this is one quote, one mantra, one state of being that has helped shape the foundation for what I want my future to be as the son of a black of woman rooted in radical love. As part of the healing process, I began to sit with my emotions and began to explore the question:  “How do we instigate profound change as we remove borders, with a view from below, while reimagining and creating possibilities for liberation from a space of radical hope, love and possibility?”  This alone, led me to asking questions that I hadn’t dared to mumble or even fathom the last thirty two years of my life, especially when it came to my upbringing…  

 

Part I  Wounds of Passion  

These wounds are deeper  

than what a therapist  

can excavate. 

Rooted pain of my diaspora 

for no amount of jack & coke can fix  

what we’ve spent our whole entire lives 

 trying to mix. 

This love is inevitably broken  

But mama, I refuse to be the token 

 rooted in your wounds of passion. 

 

In the beginning of Sisters of the Yam, hooks emphasizes that “Healing takes place within us when we speak the truth of our lives.”(2012,p. 11) and I want this essay to truly be a source of encouragement, a piece rooted in healing, but most importantly a testimony of truth. Struggling is not our birthright, but in fact a vessel to emancipation,  and I am determined to find a way to  liberate the wounds of passion, those my family – my mothers have endured. I want to pave the way for a better future for men, particularly those of color, everywhere and amplify the power of narrative storytelling.  

I can remember the day clearly, as if it was yesterday, when I discovered the work of bell hooks and her narrative style through one of my classes at Teachers College, with Dr. Marcelle Mentor. Inspired to dive deeper into bell’s work and the many books she published during her time with us, I became engrossed in her memoirs – Wounds of Passion and Bone Girl Black, that unapologetically displays her life and the rawness conveyed through her writing. With reading those, I became inspired to tell my own story in the most raw, authentic way, which led to this essay being born.  

The quote, ““When we face pain in relationships our first response is often to sever bonds rather than to maintain commitment.”(hooks, 2001) is one that has stuck with me over the years. Most of the relationships that I have navigated since childhood have caused me pain, whether it be directly or indirectly. bell mentions maintaining that commitment to the relationships and the bonds, but this hits differently when that trauma is passed down from immediate family. My trauma is one that does not define me anymore, but is rooted in the history of my family bloodline and has allowed me to come face to face with excavating my own path to liberation. The start of this revelation and revolution started with my grandmother.

A grandmother’s love is one that is truly irreplaceable. It is rooted in protection, genuine love, but also caution for what we were destined to face on our own journeys as people of color. Evident of the fruits of her labor, we were taught to fall on our knees and praise our God, our savior, but even that wouldn’t save us from the intergenerational trauma and darkness that lies within each seed she planted. Growing up, we – myself,  aunts, uncles, and including cousins at various stages in their development –  were raised in a Chrisitan home where we were not taught to openly express our feelings. Especially those that were rage, anger, and especially sadness – masking the underlying issue that mental health issues such as depression, alcoholism, and even anxiety,  ran strongly on the Phelps side of our family. Instead my grandmother’s infamous response to most of our issues was “Pray about it and let it go”, for she was a woman who stood firm in her faith. Looking back, till this day, I am not sure how she did it, but in the twenty four years I was around her, not once did I see her waiver. Blindly, she trusted someone – a higher power – that many still question even exists.  

To be quite honest, prayer back then served as a mode of communication but also disillusionment from the private hell that we all were suffering individually.  In the Phelps family it served as a form of escape but also as a form of connection, amongst family, amongst one self and  with God. Prayer  was taught to us as if we were having a simple, intimate & honest conversation with God. Since the time we could walk and talk, prayer was a part of our daily lives and routines. My grandmother, the late Mattie Phelps, raised us on a steady and strict routine where our days began and ended with prayer.  Prayer was everything to my Grandmother. Anything that happened in between was kept within until you could turn it over to God.  Keeping things in results in suppressed emotions and constantly sweeping things under the rug without being able to express emotions as soon as they arose within ourselves. Our days and nights were filled with many mundane tasks to keep ourselves busy, to keep ourselves from feeling anything that wasn’t praise.

hooks states that “For black men of all ages it is more acceptable to express rage than to give voice to emotional needs.” (hooks, 2004)  and this is where there have been many times in my life where rage has taken over every fiber of my being. 

 As a quiet, observant only child, I turned to art, illustration specifically, to help nurse my own growing wounds of passion. Many of my thoughts and especially emotions, were so complex that I couldn’t formulate the proper words to express them, so I drew for hours on end at times, letting them flow from the hymns of my heartstrings and out onto the pages. Sadness is something that I have always felt in the marrow of my bones, no matter how cliche it sounds. Longing, loneliness, rage for all that I could not control,  and abandonment were the first emotions that I could really identify with the images I would create when I began drawing at the age of three. 

Entering elementary school, art class was my outlet where I could create new worlds and spend time letting my deepest emotions and desires flow from the pencil and onto the page; sharing my world with anyone who was willing to listen. When I finally became older, I began to fall in love with poetry, words, and the rhythm of words as they amplified my private, most inner thoughts I am forever thankful for my  passion for art because  it has kept me rooted in a solid foundation that provided a safe haven, a culture of belonging, a path to liberation – one I still to this day turn to when I need a place to rest my weary soul.

  

Part II:  Can you hear the Mourning Song?  

A Woman’s Mourning Song 

 

When the sky cries 

 on my behalf, as a woman …  

am I still allowed to mask my pain  

as the sun wipes these grief stricken tears from my face? 

This is my mourning song.  

Let it reverberate from my veins  

as I foolishly learn to rewrite my wrongs.

 

The women in my family have all struggled with learning what it means to show self love and truly fall in love with themselves. As someone who is determined to learn from the wounds of his family members and lead with his heart, often I find myself looking back over the trajectories of their lives, especially that of my own mother. There have been many nights where I have lain in my bed, reflecting on and wondering just how much pain and suffering my mother was enduring to the point  where she contemplated ending her life in her early and mid twenties. As we have begun to have these excavating and healing conversations, she has adamantly admitted that it is our bond – our genuine love –  that has helped her heal and saved her, many times. hooks reminds us that “Women in love offer to the world our inner gifts, seeking companions to share mutual regard and recognition – a communion of souls that will sustain and abide.” (hooks, 2022, p. 244).   

Everyday for the past thirty two  years, I watch my mother struggle with her mental health, with loving herself, but, the one thing I know that she does without a doubt, is love me unconditionally, and through our bond we have found a source of unconditional healing for us both. Inspiring and encouraging each other to never give up on our respective dreams, but even now, I will never understand the rhythm, the hymns of her woman’s mourning song, for I am only a man, truly just trying  to rewrite her wrongs and create a new world where my own offspring can be free…With this, comes my own set of inhibitions, worries, and doubts on my journey to cultivating healing within both my life and family. 

Mama, don’t’ worry  

I do not / show nor / mention the / dangers of New York —- 

the city/ she’s always / dreamed of / to my worrisome/ mother. 

 

I do not let / her know / that I tremble 

in fear / every second / of everyday/ anticipating / that my 

 

I do not share / that grief / still holds /  my hand

shielding me / from unearthing / my own joy. 

 

I do not whisper/ “I am lost in / a world you / brought me into.” 

I do not / pray / like I used to / and I know this / will upset you. 

 

I do not know / how to be a man / but I know I’d /

rather die trying / than disappoint / you. 

 

I have no choice/ but to become / my own / hero.

 

One huge area of deficit in the upbringing of both my mother and her mother, was the implementation of knowing what it means to engage in the act of self love. Some things cannot be prayed, cannot be willed away.   Deep within my heart, I firmly believe that my grandmother suffered from depression as well, but instead of letting it consume her, she obsessively turned to her faith, ran from her problems,  into the arms of her lord, letting her pain be carried away by the hymns of her own mourning song.  This is the generational curse that has plagued us for decades, centuries if that –  one that I had no control over and had to come to terms with unexpectedly…

 

Part III  Everyone Prays in the End 

“Grief, I’ve learned, is really just love. It’s all the love you want to give, but cannot. All that unspent love gathers up in the corners of your eyes, the lump in your throat, and in that hollow part of your chest. Grief is just love with no place to go.” ― Jamie Anderson 

In life, nothing and no  one can prepare you for the hurt that is destined to come.  Even if the wounds seem healed on the outside, the ache still is there, waiting for the moment to take center stage. There are no words of condolences that can truly take away the pain that comes with losing a loved one. The truth is that grief looks different on everyone. Some people immediately fall apart, while others break down at a slower pace. Regardless of the crumble, it is still evidence that we loved and were loved.  

“Intense mourning in traditional African American ways of dying, grief without ceasing, must be mediated by a sense of celebration” (hooks, 2000, p. 3). For me, there was no celebration, not when the person you’re burying was  the only one who loved you despite how the world views you. When my grandfather passed over a decade  ago, I lost myself in a sea of emotions and eventually succumbed to being numb. It was too much at once to process – losing a grandfather, a father, and my very best friend all at once. They say the first heartbreak always reverberates the loudest, and he was that for me. 

 How does one heal from something of this magnitude when they also took their last breath in your trembling arms? What is life? What is my purpose? How am I supposed to go one without the one person who understood me even in the most difficult silence? These were all questions that initially came to mind as I immediately began to prepare his body, prepare for the funeral, and what our lives would look like once the funeral was over. But, there was no time – my  grandmother and mother were both struggling with a loss they couldn’t even fathom. I had to press out, tune out my emotions and most inner thoughts like I always did, and be the protector – the provider– the boss– the caregiver – that  same quality that has become my achilles heel. Fast forward to 2017, my grandmother passed almost two months before my birthday on September 13th. Losing her battle to Dementia that grew to full blown Alzheimer’s, I had convinced myself that when she died that I would be fine. It wasn’t like it was unexpected. I had been preparing for it since the moment I lost my grandfather. I woke up daily and went through my list of preparations, preparing my mind, body, and soul that any given day could be the day.I told myself that when the time came, I would be strong, that I would be fine. I was wrong. 

There is nothing in this world – no guide, no therapist, and no bible scripture can prepare you for the heaviness and weight of the grief that comes with watching someone you love slowly fade and slip away. Initially, I felt abandoned by God, like I was left to wander alone in this world, never knowing if I  was going witness and feel what it meant to be genuinely loved by another again. Praying felt more like a burden than the  everyday ritual I had grown up participating in. During the first thirty days, I could feel myself slipping but I did what I had always automatically done, which was throwing  myself head first into work. I was on the go constantly, working myself to the bone, dividing my time between  multiple  jobs and going to school full time. My body had had enough and if I wasn’t going to slow down by choice, it was going to make it where I had no choice. 

 

The Grief Garden  

This heightened rage 

 serves as the fertilizer  

rooted in the soil  

of this family’s  

neverending trauma.  

 

Too many times,  

I have watched our beloved 

 return to this Earth  

that has housed the fire even  

our mental illness  

couldn’t contain. 

 

ashes to ashes.  

dust to dust.  

 

Forced into my solitude,  

I lie here– awake 

 in this grief garden  

I’ve built. 

Vine covered walls  

built by the bricks  

of my disappointment  

sealed tight with my pain.  

 

In this garden,  

I know I have to   

keep love out.  

Refusing to let anyone 

 water what now is  

my Sahara of solitude. 

 

Let this heat wave of grief consume every vein,  

every fiber of this human holding cell  

 my heavy  heart’s own  private hell.  

And I am left parched,  

thirsting for something  

I know I don’t deserve.  

 

Just let me fucking burn,  

for it is the only way  

I will ever be purged.  

 

Scatter my ashes 

 amongst the thorn  

covered roses  

you refused  

to pick 

 in my own 

 grief garden.  

We all dream 

 of something 

 intangible.  

 

 

Ashes to ashes.  

Dust 

             to  

                         dust.  

 

Exhaustion haunted me like the black plague and eventually I had no choice, but to make time to force my body to be still – to rest – to listen to what it was trying desperately to tell me.  During my down time, which was caused by her absence, I did a lot of thinking and soul searching. It was during this time that I began to really look at my life and wonder, at the age of twenty four what I could do with my life, now that such a pivotal part of my upbringing was gone. To fill that void of talking daily and being around my grandmother, I began to focus more seriously on crafting poems as a way to challenge myself and channel my grief into something productive. It was the only task that didn’t leave me feeling exhausted and destitute. The more I began to write and put a name to my pain, the more I learned to be patient with myself through the process, realizing both my body and mind had to die in order for me to become a stronger person, a stronger man, a stronger version of myself.  

My relationship with my body is one that is adamantly, still in recovery. In the midst of my grief, I  have struggled with both obesity and anorexia. I have watched my body morph into a shell of how and what I used to be. As someone who suffers from undiagnosed high functioning depression, there are many days where it takes every ounce of my being to show up and show out. As a trauma response back then,  I made sure my schedule stayed jam-packed with little room for me to be alone with my thoughts and deepest anxieties. Thankfully through poetry, I was able to calm down and come to terms with many things – such as being still, working piece by piece through my grief,  learning to love myself- and use the pen as a form of liberation for even my darkest thoughts. Facing my demons head on and holding tight onto my faith, my poems became a form of prayer when I found it too hard to fall to my knees, too hard to thank my God for waking me up this morning, too hard to give living another chance… When it came to winning the war; at the end of the day,  poetry was all I had left in me, so I clung to it with all the remaining strength I could conjure. 

With losing my grandmother, the steady, solid foundation that we had grown used to leaning on, was gone. When she was first diagnosed with dementia that led to full blown Alzheimeers, I was one of the only people she still remembered up until her very last breath. Looking back now, seven years later, I smile knowing that this fact is a testament and now testimony, of how deep our love still is til this very day. Processing this,  I’m still healing and don’t know when or if I’ll ever be truly okay, but have come to terms accepting that simple fact. Time heals all wounds. Everyone prays in the end, even when it seems the hardest. With each day that passes, I am learning to embrace my memories as revelations; an insight into healing my heart. It’s all a part of being reborn, rising from the ashes a better, brand new person. To all those suffering and feel like they are in the midst of their worst storm, hold on. You will get through this. Grieving is proof that we loved and were loved in the first place.

Everyone Prays in the End 

I know I can stop the pain, 

 if I will it all away, 

 for it never lasts  

more than a day.  

false gods.  

            whispered affirmations 

and endless tears  

                                              will never erase

                                                                        what has been born  

out of  

       our  fears.  

When the dawn breaks,  

there is simply nothing  

                          left at  stake.  

At the altar  

of the heartbreak  

church  

           we kneel in   

                 reverence.  

Everyone prays 

 in the  

          end.  

  

Conclusion

Death, mental health, and the lack of self love have shaped the trajectory of how I have come to view the world around me. Every single day, I live my days doing all that I can to rewrite the story of the Phelps legacy. The ugly truth is that  I myself struggle daily with the fight to continue on in this world where my brothers and sister are steadily murdered ruthlessly, blamed for crimes that they didn’t commit.  

Emotional openness – the very term I never imagined both myself and my work would end up being defined as, but one that I bask in now that I have been given a platform to share my most intimate thoughts with the world. Death can either bring a family closer, or tear them apart, or initiate a total rebirth for the direct contact. For it did all three. Without my grief, I wouldn’t have the words you’ve read thus far, especially the poems, the testimonies, that were born from them. Despite its challenges, it is through my grief that I have been able to find joy –  joy in sharing truth, joy in reflection, and joy in learning to love myself unapologetically.  I am a Poet, Professor of Literature, an Early Childhood Educator, and an activist that has made it my legacy to change the world for the better, utilizing the narratives of those that have come before me as emancipatory testimonies, setting the  foundation for my own future children to finally succeed and know what it means to be loved, while learning to love themselves in the process.

Love will always be the foundation. Love is the future. Love is the answer. I will forever be grateful for the unconditional love of my grandmother and mother. It is because of them that I have a voice and that I know my truth. Self love is the key to rewriting our history for the better, for my own children and the generations that will proceed after them. I want them to be able to bask in their inner child, be able to completely let go of the past, to embrace a better and more fruitful future. We are the embodiment of their choices. It is through their love that we will be lifted to our feet, no matter how far we may fall. With this, I plant the seeds from my own grief garden with the intention to create a world rooted in radical love.  

 

I love you, always 

 

She looks at me with the purest intention in her grief stricken eyes 

knowing that the world outside these coveted four walls  

have beaten her internally black and blue  

but this world . . .  

 my world. . .  

is one that she would make sure  

embraces every 

one of my 

 hues.  

Even when 

 the rain  

                                 begins to  

                                 downpour 

 &  you can no longer 

 see your way  

home. 

.  

Never forget,  

I love you, always.  

 

Together – we will weather this storm.  

It is because of her love – our love —  

 that I can finally

experience  

   joy.  

Notes on Contributor 

Darius Phelps is a PhD Candidate at Teachers College, Columbia University, Anaphora Arts Fellow,  and 2023 Recipient of the NCTE Early Career Educator of Color Award. He is the Assistant Director of Programs under The Center for Publishing & Applied Liberal Arts (PALA) department at NYU. An educator, poet/essayist, spoken word artist, and activist, Darius writes poems about grief, liberation, emancipation, reflection through the lens of a teacher of color and experiencing Black boy joy. He serves as Poetry co- editor for Matter and an Associate Editor for Tupelo Quarterly. His  work and poems have appeared in the School Library Journal, NY English Record, NCTE English Journal, English Quarterly, Pearl Press Magazine, ëëN Magazine, and many more. Recently, he was featured on WCBS and highlighted the importance of Black male educators in the classroom.

 

References

Anderson, J. (n.d.). Grief is just love with no place to go.  

hooks, bell. (2000). A woman’s mourning song: By bell hooks. Harlem River Press.  

hooks, b. (2001). All about love: New visions. William Morrow.  

hooks, b. (2004). The will to change: Men, masculinity, and love. Washington Square Press. 

hooks, b. (2014). Sisters of the yam: Black women and self-recovery. Routledge. 

hooks, b. (2022). Communion: The Search for Female Love. Armand Colin.