ancestral painkiller

“it pains the ancestors when we forget”

and they’ve been in enough pain before.

which is why when I can picture them

walking the street

and heading to school

and experiencing joy

and starting their life,

I hope that they are in a little less pain.

It is not easy to picture that.

To mourn what came of violence and oppression

To mourn what was created but is no longer there

To mourn what were the lives of people who struggled

so that you did not have to.

But it is a job that I am willing

more than willing,

obligated,

to do.

To give the ancestors a little less pain in their already painful journeys.

These are people who probably knew they would be forgotten.

Who knew they would not live to see the fruits of their movement.

Whose very existence was denied from the start.

And so when I see them

walking the streets (they built)

and heading to schools (they run)

and experiencing joys (they earned)

and starting lives (they deserve)

They are telling me that they are here.

That they exist.

And that there is space for them

where there was previously no space at all.

quote "it pains the ancestors when we forget" from Lonnie Bunch, founder of the National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington, DC