hi guys. it’s suicide prevention month & today is also world suicide prevention day. not only that but today is the day my mom said yooooo I’m outta here. peace. girl, i feel you tho. honestly. truly. anywho, i had therapy today & my therapist asked me what one of my favorite memories of my mom are. so writing a little piece about three.

i lived 3 blocks away from my mom & grandmama. i was 26.27. i’d ring the doorbell. they’d buzz me in. the staircase was circular and i' could see the top of the staircase from the first floor. my mom and grandma would wait at the top of the stairs with smiles and their arms out.“hiiiiiiiii, Sarah. i love you.” & said the sweetest things ever. we’d have an entire conversation before i reached the third floor. they’d greet me with the biggest hugs. eyes lit up. & a big warm hug x 2. i miss that. feeling so loved in a very intimate & homely way. I miss being a part of someone’s skin. feeling at home with their touch. the way she’d run her hands across my shoulder in casual conversation. rub my back while i talked to her. being apart of someone’s skin. i miss how proud she was of me. for little things or big. the pride was infinite. immense.

“To the world, you may be one person, but to me, you are the world.”

i miss the way she would sing love songs to me as a kid. Tony Braxton’s I love me some him in particular. but she would say YOU instead of him. she’d sing that to me and my brother as if it was a dedicated love song to her children. she loved her some us. sweet serenade. i guess the way a mother loves her children is a way you may not love again. dancing in the kitchen to all that i can say by mary j blige felt whimsical while cigarette smoke danced in the air with us. i think of her everytime i hear sara smiiiiiiiile. for as long as i had a name, she sung that song to me.

i miss how fun she was. i miss the way she loved my friends. she would gather the kids from the neighborhood and walk us to the swimming pool, where we’d spend the day swimming. she used to be a lifeguard before she had babies. she’d throw us in the pool and make us swim to her. encourage us to dive off a diving board standing at 3 eleven into 10 feet of water. the fear. but my brother was fearless. the only thing we could rely on was the fact that she’d save us if we didn’t come up on time. speaking of, i remember the first time i jumped into deep water. i was about three years old. my first memory. i had to pee so i jumped in the deep end of the pool in the sunny hills of san diego. i made it to the bottom. looked up & my mom looked like an angel falling from heaven. the light from the sun was around her like a halo. once, she swam out into the ocean so far that she turned into a little bitty dot. i cried the entire time because i though the sharks were going to eat my mommy. this was in san diego not the lake in chicago. when she returned, we caught crabs on the rocks & put them in potato chip bags. lollllll

i miss the way my mom loved the way other women loved me. when she got sick and couldn’t care for me anymore, she was never jealous of the way other women loved me or took me in. she was so grateful & it made her so happy. i was blessed to have her blessing. she would always ask about the women who took me in from my teachers, my friends’ moms, mentors, stepmom. she was so grateful to know that i was so loved.

Prevention’s Memorial

🥰

You are my friend.