Resurrection

From an old journal, dated December 2002: I write as a means of resurrection. I raise all I have loved that is gone from me now— people, places, dreams, hopes; even my old vows, intentions, and promises. I raise them up and love them again. 

This morning I had a WhatsApp video talk with Mama Ntombi, an old friend in the Zulu region of South Africa. She is 83 now. Only one of her seven children is still alive, along with a scatter of grands and great-grands. Her children have been taken by AIDS, drug-resistant TB, and undiagnosed illnesses. In an earlier life, I sent one of her daughters to university for five years, and two months after she graduated, she died. Mama Ntombi’s closest grandson, now a qualified teacher who cannot find work at home, leaves July 21 for Taiwan. He faces loneliness and isolation there, but he believes he has been spared so he can help to support what is left of the family.

Tomorrow will mark four years since my beloved Palesa died. She had Covid-19 during the South African food riots and fires of 2021, and in the smoke and chaos, her lungs were overwhelmed. I am learning to focus on the love we shared, the time we had, the wishes she had for me. I have sent money in her memory to one of her closest friends in Lesotho. They are having a cold dark winter, and they need the money for fuel.

Tonight I’ll join the Good Trouble protests. I’ll stand by the ICE Detention Center as I have done many times, one vulnerable body outside the iron bars facing the guards with shields and weapons. What else can I do?

Comments off for a little while. Sometimes I need to be quiet.