The Unravelings

I would like to start with a reaffirmation of gratitude from the entire Graham, Roberts, and Graham-Roberts families. 

Hey mom. I guess this had to come eventually right. We were right here six years ago. A little bit different now though. Well here we go. 

I was raised by three women. Three women that were members of this (Metropolitan United Methodist) church, put decades into this church and community [that’s me in the bottom left hand corner of this picture]. Three women whose homegoing services were held here. Three women in whose funerary programs you’ll find pictures of me. 14 when my grandmother transitioned. 29 when my aunt transitioned. And 36 when my mom transitioned. 

There isn’t an hour that passes where I’m not sad that I can’t hug any one of the three of them. There also isn’t an hour I am not filled with gratitude to have known the three of them. My grandmother’s home was the house of my childhood. My aunt was the person who held me when I was born. My mom was the person whose body and spirit made possible my entry into this world. To lose those all by 36, it’s incomprehensible. James Baldwin in The Fire Next Time said “Life is tragic simply because the earth turns and the sun inexorably rises and sets, and one day, for each of us, the sun will go down for the last, last time.” On June 26th, when I was laughing with my mom, helping her pay bills on the computer while we talked about Angel Reese, Bold and The Beautiful, the Orioles, and me seeing Morris Day and the Time and Mya at AFRAM, I had no clue that was her “one day [when] the sun will go down for the last, last time.” To lose someone in that way is the sort of thing that can fill you with a despair that feels without parallel. But James Baldwin also wrote, “You think your pain and your heartbreak are unprecedented in the history of the world, but then you read.” On the other side, or rather alongside, my own grief have been some of the most meaningful friendships of my lifetime. What’s hard isn’t that what I’m feeling is uncommon. What’s hard is that it’s ubiquitous.

I could wax poetic about my mom for eons, but we only have minutes. So, I’ll do my best to use my reflections as an opportunity to chart a constellation of how her care, love, and freedom have impacted me. She didn’t so much “shape me”, as she gave me the space to make, and remake, and unmake, and make again myself. In the spirit of Lucille Clifton, I’ll say some things, pray they hold, and that the lines between them connect. They may not connect for y’all, but that’s okay. I know they will for her.

I ask you to allow me some time, and perhaps some stumbles.

I’m an artsy, silly, quirky, passionate, and profusely driven, oddball of a person who feels big feelings, and has the audacity to want to change the world, and the conviction to believe that I can. And it would’ve been easy for my mom to wring that out of me. It probably would’ve been the “smart” or “responsible” thing according to most. But she was more than okay with me being wired a bit differently.

For example, my mom made it okay for me to be into sports and a nerd. She made it okay for me to be really really into Goosebumps and Animorphs. She’d watch Toonami on Cartoon Network with me from 4-6. She’d drop me off at the neighborhood Toy’s R’ Us to play Pokemon on Saturday mornings and take me to rec-league basketball games on Saturday afternoons. On trips to JCPenny and Macy’s with my mom, I’d regularly (and often unannounced) hold up under a rack of clothes and spend 45 minutes or more reading a book. At first my mom was concerned about where I was. She could’ve used that concern to chastise me or berate me. Many parents would have. Instead she simply asked that I let her know which clothing rack I’d be under, and emerge at a designated time we both agreed upon, with the option of going back in. She saw that I really liked reading, and she found a way to encourage that interest and not extinguish it. Books have proven to be everything for me, and had it not been for my mom’s making room for me to be me, I don’t know that I would’ve felt safe enough or supported enough to learn that about myself.

To that point, books have long been comrades of mine. Whenever I’m expecting a long stay or visit somewhere, I’ll bring a book. With my mom this time, the book was Vinson Cunningham’s Great Expectations. At the outset of his book, his dedication reads as follows “For Renée. I hope you can hear me.” Cunningham’s wife Rene, passed away suddenly in 2023. Mom, like Vinson with Rene, I hope you can hear me too.

I moved to California and my mom didn’t blink. I engaged in political struggle and protest connected to issues and causes I was passionate about, from my teenage years through today, and my mom didn’t blink.  The heavier I got into activism on the West Coast, we’d watch Melissa Harris Perry’s Nerdland on MSNBC on the weekends (10am her time, 7am mine), and it was one of my mom’s way of doing what she could, from where she was, to learn a bit more about why young people like me were protesting and shaking tables for change. I moved again to Philly. And moved again to Rhode Island, and my mom didn’t blink. I hosted an open mic for four years in Baltimore, and she didn’t miss a night. I taught classes on Black History at Temple and she drove up to sit in and listen. I got the position at Brown and she came up to learn more about it, but more than that, she came to see what the opportunity meant to me, and how much it meant to me. I need you all to understand, she didn’t agree with or even like all the stuff I was doing, but she continued to get to know me as I got older, learn about my principles and my values, and trusted in those (which she of course played a huge part in cultivating). That’s parenting.

To be clear, I’m not putting my mom on a pedestal, I’m putting her in context. It’s about sharing with you all what is possible when parenting is approached with an eye toward supporting children to become the selves they want to be instead of shrinking them into the selves you think they should be.

Part of what may not be clear when I’m talking about the room my mom made for me to make myself, is that outside of her, there wasn’t really anyone making that room for me. This isn’t unique to me by any means. I work in the arts, and this is quite common for many of us who work in the arts. It’s why so many artists leave home. It’s why so many writers leave their countries. It’s why so many activists become exiles. But see, that’s the cool thing about my mom. Being someone who practiced piano in elementary school, excelled in arts and music education, always had one of those stylish French beret’s in her closet, and a general lover of art, when she saw my imagination and precociousness she didn’t crush it, she cultivated it.

She took me to Toby’s to see Purlie Victorious and The Unsinkable Molly Brown as a kid. She sat and watched Maltese Falcon and Some Like it Hot when I took a film class at CCBC. We’d started watching Jingle Jangle as an annual Christmas ritual. At the same time, we’d watch every Maryland women’s basketball game, from Kristi Tolliver to Shatori Walker Kimbrough to Bri Jones to Diamond Miller to Shyanne Sellers. People always ask why I’m so into sports, the quick (and true) answer is my mom. She could tell you about Torrey Smith as quick as she could tell you about Leslie Odom. She could tell you about Roberto Clemente as quick as she could tell you about Audra McDonald. She had made herself into such a dynamic and well-rounded person, and she did everything in her power to make space for me to make myself into my own version of the same.

I struggled with the whole making myself thing for a long time. In fact, it was pretty difficult until my mid 20s. I wanted to have friends, I wanted to be cool, I wanted to please people, I wanted to fit in somewhere, even if that meant shrinking myself. It wasn’t until I moved to Oakland that I was able to really understand what Audre Lorde knew, “if I didn’t define myself, for myself, I would be crushed into other peoples fantasies of me, and eaten alive.” Had I stayed in Baltimore I would’ve kept shrinking, and I think she knew that. Mom never begrudged me leaving or made me feel like I needed to come back home. She knew that home didn’t have to be just one place.

The influence of the woman who packed crates of Cloverdale milk and juice and drove around the city (me attached at her hip in the burgundy 93 chevy Lumina) making sure kids in the city had lunch when they needed it is a huge part of why I do what I do. She got that I’m driven by something different, because she was too, and she never ever tried to push that difference out of me, instead she encouraged me to let that difference be my north star.

I’ll miss the texting, the strings of emojis, the frantic texts when I don’t pick up 3 minutes after you call, the smiley faces in every letter you mailed and in your notebooks, the waiting to yell on the phone for a Lamar Jackson touchdown because you know my tv is a few seconds behind yours, the reminders that it’s RISD and not RISB. I’ll also really miss your silliness.

You always wanted to read what I wrote, hear what I said, and see what I do. I hope you knew how much you being who you are made all those things possible. In all that I do, you’ll be with me, you already are. 

One of my mom’s favorite musicals was Gypsy, with lyrics by Sodenheim. Her favorite song from it is “Together (Wherever We Go).” I am looking forward to the Audra McDonald reprisal, and before all this I was hoping to surprise my mom with a trip to see it locally when it makes the rounds. On countless car-rides, she’d sing the beginning lines of that song, reminding me that it was her and me. 

Wherever we go, whatever we do,

We’re gonna go through it together.

We may not go far, but sure as a star,

Wherever we are, it’s together.

I like to tell people who meet me that I’m a soft kid from a hard place. Instead of trying to make me hard in ways I didn’t want to be, didn’t need to be, and never will be, she helped me find the strength in my texture of softness. My mom’s the toughest person I’ll ever know, and she showed me there’s more than one type of tough, more than one type of strength. 

As a mother, she made room for me to make myself. And when I reflect on that, I am filled with gratitude, humility, and love. Shoutout to my road dog, shout out to a real one, shout out to my mom, shout out to Marie. 

Before June, I was telling my friends that all I wanted to do after this whirlwind of a semester was see the stars this summer. Now when I look up, when I gaze through the telescopes and chart the constellations, I’ll see you too. you too.

**note: this was delivered and written by me at my mother’s homegoing service**