In memory of Dr. Chadwick A. Boseman
#grief #F*ckCancer #throw2020away
So do not fear, for I am with you; do not be dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you; I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.
Isaiah 41:10
To be honest, the year 2020 has been egregious in informing me of my mortality. This year the sobering reality that death is out here with a sickle twice as large because the USA is nothing but a shiny pair of Jordan’s stitched with rotten thread not meant to be worn past a day. No more precisely, the US is a 243-year-old bookshelf built by those who are darker than blue. Placed on the shelves are nothing but books of lies and those lies have gotten so heavy to bear that the shelves are buckling and cracking right on the heads of those who built them. Not only have we not had a break, but 2020 is progressively getting worse. I dare not mention the countless deaths outside of Covid-19 pandemic. The deaths of Kobe Bryant, Bill Withers, George Floyd, Brianna Taylor, and now our shining prince. I’m hurt, exhausted, and literally looking for the straw coming to break the camel’s back. In the midst of collapsing shelves and busted Jordan’s, I find myself totally in awe at the resilience displayed by Dr. Chadwick A. Boseman.
It’s was a hazy day in May, I woke up after celebrating graduation weekend with my friends. I was texted at 7:45 am to get to Howard University so I could experience the oration skills of T’challa, Jackie Robinson, and Thurgood Marshall. I rushed to get there because I have a direct connection to Africa and given the extensive history of Africans in the United States being teased and negatively portrayed, I felt it was our time. I was finally excited to see a Hero that looks like me. I rushed to get there and to hear what this shining prince had to say. Hailing from South Carolina which is also my maternal homeland, in fact, Pendleton, South Carolina is 30 minutes away from Anderson, I still have distant family there. To add icing on the Cake he attended to Howard, though I did not attend, I grew up in the shadow of Howard listening to graduations, sermons from as far back as 2007.
Sneaking on campus to watch Dr. Greg Carr give lectures during my lunch breaks, staying connected, and just having a space that produced some of the greatest minds that I would go on to quote and become associated with. In fact, I can remember my mom driving back to DC from Winston Salem at 11 am in just enough time to hear P. Diddy speak at the 2010 graduation. I jumped out of bed, my head throbbing from drinking water all night long. I yelled in my African Accent, I am going to see T’challa while playing Afrobeats and brushing off the scent of whatever happened the night before. I rushed to that campus because seeing a glimpse of hope made all the difference to the staunch reality of life. Sweating, needing water, and trying to find my friends I arrived just in time. Though exhausted I had the same feeling I had when I heard Diddy on the radio. I was witnessing history, I was here on the grounds that so many had come before me.
Listening to a positive representation of Black Manhood. That is why I was so crushed to get the news of Dr. Boseman’s Death. I felt like a Good Guy had gotten away too fast. Just as I was hit bluntly on my head with the constant reminder of grief; the hazy May Day replayed in my mind and tears began to fill in the wells of my eyes. I remembered the sermon Dr. Boseman gave, highlighting the highs and lows of being on a college campus. How they can sometimes happen simultaneously. Like validating your schedule but not being selected to be online for the spring, or getting an A in a science class and running to the dorm and finding out your laptop was stolen, what about celebrating your 21st birthday with friends and finding out that same group of friends really can’t stand you. Highs and Lows. It’s interesting that he said that perhaps he was dealing with that dichotomy himself. To be almost 20 years out of Undergrad to reach a level of success beyond what you can dream and awarded with an honorary degree at the same time encountering a bad diagnosis.
You don’t just wrestle with highs in lows on campuses. It’s the Yards and Quads of Life you can experience these two different points. The Hills and Valleys we face do not determine our character. It is how we manage them that ages us with dignity. I write this post with a whole lot of uncertainty for the future ahead given the reality of taken blow after, after blow from 2020
Strength is defined as the capacity of an object or substance to withstand with great force or pressure.
I want the Strength of Dr. Chadwick Boseman to work diligently to strive to be the best while even your body fails you. To tap into the strength that cannot be seen. To live a life that can be your own eulogy. To take into account that I am putting my best self forward even when I feel my worst. As I try to reconcile why God took this shining example of Black Goodness, I am forever grateful that my time overlapped with his. I am more at peace that he can rest. That he is no longer in pain. He no longer has to create a fictional character that says everything is ok. That he doesn’t have to act like there is no pain. I am just glad he can rest. That the director of our lives has wrapped up this scene. He now rests on the ancestral plain. May he be greeted by the one who eternally watches over us. She will ask during his audition to join the celestial cast. “Baby what did you do with what I gave you?” He will answer “Lord I done done what you told me to do.”
picture by @ventoxsol
Photos by Alfonso L. Campbell III
