I Smack My Lips Like My Grandmama
And loss slaps me still. Makes me tongue tied and dizzy.
Loss has altered my DNA. Our DNA.
My body moves differently without my grandmama here. Our bodies move and function differently without our people “here”.
My lungs pull in less air without my nana here. Without my papa here. Without my uncles here. Without my friends and cousins. Without my aunt now.
Every day the world collapses.
I have this dream about Bubbie often. We’re in her old house on Stuart Street near Oakland High School. I smell her in her room with the fabric and clothes everywhere but can’t find her. I start cleaning up, putting her belongings where they’re supposed to go, making sure to be careful of the leftover needles she keeps on the clothes she means to alter.
I go to the kitchen and put some tea on thinking she’ll come in to sit with me. She doesn’t. Even after I’ve played all the songs we listened to.
I wait on the porch, my butt and back settling into the peeling red cement steps counting the cracks. Talking to the ants. Part of me aches and when I stand, I start walking like her. Start limping like her. Time goes by, the weather changes, the door hums, the gate slaps at the old spring that used to hold it. She doesn’t come out. Her car is not here but that’s okay. She’s at grocery outlet or Mickey D’s or Michael’s or Joann’s Fabric or The Dollar Tree.
Eric Garner was murdered on July 17th, 2014, two months before his 44th birthday. Five days ago, the NYPD’s chief surgeon determined Daniel Pantaleo did not put him in the controversial choke hold maneuver and is not responsible for his death. The report also claims that Eric Garner’s cardiovascular system was compromised due to his “poor health” and that is what contributed to his loss of life.
Erica Garner died three years, five months and thirteen days after her father was murdered on December 30th, 2017 at Woodhull Medical and Mental Health Center in New York City.
Erica Garner died at the age of 27 after a severe asthma attack that then resulted in a heart attack. She was placed in a medically induced coma and suffered brain damage. The official cause of death was cardiac arrest. Her two children were 8 years old and 4 months at the time of her death.
The distance between both medical centers is 16.2 miles. If there’s no traffic, it’ll take 38 minutes. If there is traffic, it takes about 55 minutes in a car. If you’re using public transportation, it takes 1 hour and 38 minutes, including walking for nine minutes. This doesn’t account for the time it’ll take to change trains.
Loss means that every part of us is different. Even if we occupy the same places. If we stay at the same job. If we visit the same stores. If we stay in relationships with the same people. All of these spaces have changed. Forever.
Our bones, lungs, bodies constrict, constrain and mirror to meet each other. Maybe we dance. We feel the people we’ve lost. We revisit them when and if we can. We miss them always.
