disclaimers:
1. this is my opinion. it is not backed up in other place but my heart.
2. if there was more time, I would include large piece about the ancestral bounds forged through slavery, however, as I started all that came out is this blog.
3. this blog has been in me for sometime. A question from friend Virlena sparked it again. I just want to be clear that any angst that comes through is not to or at V; In fact, I want to thank her for reminding me that I have some things I want to elaborate on.
prompt:
b: back atcha, my sister from another mister!
q: I am black: if we have same mom different dads, then we are full siblings however, different moms/ same dad makes you a half but not step that is reserved for remarriage. didnt you get the handbook?
v: q: huh? is that an inside joke? re: same mom=full sibling?
q: v: yes and no ...later when I am not a little tipsy and tired will explain. There are times when twitter works for my thoughts, and other times when facebook covers it. But Virlena Reed I created a blog to answer what I thought a simple question.
Undivided Love
I was 13 year old when a friend's mother introduced the concept to me that my sisters (with whom I shared a biological mother but not a father) were my "half siblings". I was reeling. I had never even considered this a possibility given that my mother and sisters were the only thing I knew of familiy.
fully
They were fully everything I had ever known.
They were all I knew of home, of happiness, of hunger, of growth, of sadness, of anger, of hurt.
They were all I knew of love, of laughter, of loyalty, of warmth, of comfort.
They were all I knew of gravity; I was a small shadowy moon to no less than four planets at any given time in the celestial clock wise rotation I called life.
Never half of anything.
They fully shared in the joys of childhood: roller skating at the gardens, penn ave mcdondals, fred's garage, oak park community center, oliver street double dutch, 7-11 slupees, hide and seek on the whole block, girls and boys clubs and kings grocery store.
They fully shared in the moments where innocence was lost: Any of our time spent at the old or new Estes Funeral Home is enough to make memories cascade like a swollen spring waterfall.
understand
I understand the division between whom my mother shared a biological miracle and our collective experience as siblings being raised by a single mother/ by a women village- the other women also raising their kids.
I understand that this women village raised us all-calming infants, combing nappy heads, sending us to corner store demanding change back, sending us outside with nothing to do so we would stay out of grow folk business, who had the same powers as our mothers/siblings but called Auntie and cousins.
DNA, has a role yes!
But I also know what binds us is 1000 times more complex.
There is something unspoken and tangible that passed between my sibling group (and all sibling groups that do not share two biological parents) that shatters DNA with katarina force wind gusts.
And then we arrive at June 30, 2009.
There was no halves in the room.
No half siblings.
No step fathers.
She took a last full breath.
There was no partial loss
(I lost my half sister today)
There was no percent style mark down
(I lost 50% of my sister today)
There was no half break of spirit.
(I am only half broken by the loss of my sister)
She died whole.
I can not hold anymore division.
I am refusing to internalize any further fracturing; I am too splintered from my daily reality as a queer, fat, brown mama.
And truth be told:
I don't need you to validate my family.
I will not make my world small enough for you to understand, I would rather that you opened your understanding wide enough to
hold me.
to hold us.
to hold our truth.
And it is from this place (of healing and tender heart) that I have come to fully understand that all my love has to be whole if I am ever to be whole.
dedication
my sankofa's/the women whose shoulders I stand on daily:
My grandmothers-maternal Lois Anita/paternal Yvonne Blanche.
My mother Anna Lillian.
Sisters-Shawn Yvette, Ericka Dawn, Dorian Anjanette.
Maternal Aunts-Tracy, Adrienne.
Paternal Aunts-Toni, Pecolia, Melody, Bridgette, Belinda.
And countless second moms, aunties, cousins and sister friends.
Sankofa can mean either the word in the Akan language of Ghana that translates in English to "go back and take" (Sanko- go back, fa- take) or the Asante Adinkra symbols of a a bird with its head turned backwards taking an egg off its back, or of a stylised heart shape. It is often associated with the proverb, “Se wo were fi na wosankofa a yenkyi," which translates "It is not wrong to go back for that which you have forgotten."[1]
