Honored to be E&P 's 2024 Publisher of the Year, the first time in the 125 years of this award it has been given to a Black woman publisher - and proud to provide you with our FREE ACCLAIMED NEWSLETTERS. Publisher Elinor "Elly" Tatum
One of the ideas I discuss in my book, "Fierce Love" is truth. Many of us have been taught that love means being nice. That being nice means being polite and not being offensive. That not being offensive means blurring the truth about injuries, frustrations, and the unkindness we endure. Love defined in this way means cloaking much of what we feel in lies.
That is not true.
Love means being honest; love carries the weight of candor to build intimacy and trust. In other words, love -- true love -- must handle the truth because the truth frees us to love.
This holiday season, I want to encourage truth-filled interactions. I don't mean hurling violent words at each other, words stored up at times for generations. But I do mean being honest with each other as if these are our last moments, because we never know how much time is left in our lives. I mean being honest and vulnerable. Making amends. I had powerful experiences with each of my parents as they were dying long deaths. We don't have to wait until death is near to curate loving truth. We can do that right now.
Here is an excerpt from my book, on the loving truth-telling I had with my amazing mom, as she was dying. It's redacted from a story about a childhood wounding.
On April 12, the day after her (80th) birthday (party), Mom had another crisis and was hospitalized; this time my dad signed a do not resuscitate order; they were both suffering from her suffering. This meant she was in hospice, this meant her days were numbered. I traveled from New York to Chicago to spend time in her hospital room, reading, watching her sleep, unless she was watching me.
Mom, what are you doing? I'm watching you. Why aren't you sleeping? I don't want to miss seeing your face. You know my face. I want to memorize it, you're beautiful. You are too, mommy. Do you know how much I love you? I do; do you know how much I love you? Yes, but I love you more.
Our words were in a loop, tumbling out over and over again. This was what it was like, to be with her, to watch her watching me, to catch her face in the eerie blue glow of her room, to pull out the sofa bed and make it up again. To hear her cough, to use the tool to suck the phlegm out of her mouth. To fight with doctors and nurses about feeding her, hydrating her, keeping her comfortable.
This is what it was like, to face the truth. Mom was dying, really, finally. Right before our eyes. She had been dying for a long time, but now? Now if you looked closely, you could see her leaving. There was something different about her eyes. They were receding, closing just a little bit at a time. They were knowing eyes, searching eyes, looking deeply into my soul, looking for something, saying something she was thinking but not saying. I'm hurting. I hurt you. I love you. I'm sorry I smoked. I don't want to die. I'm afraid. I love you more, more than I can say.
Living
Mommy was dying, leaving us, leaving me. And while she was dying, she was giving me something to live with. She was birthing me some more, liberating me, pushing me that last little bit out of her. She willed herself to live until she gave it all to me. She knew I needed something -- each of us needed something -- but I know best what I yearned for. It was her blessing, her understanding, her permission to be fully myself, to be a grown woman. It was her gentle nudge for me to finish becoming me. I needed her to hold the (childhood) hurt with me, so we could let it go. It was absolution for both of us, for any sorrow, any failure. It was getting it straight between us, getting the feeling out of each of us. While plugged into noisy machines that made her life possible, mom plugged me into her, for a little while, reconnecting to me as though through an umbilical cord, sharing air, time, truth.
When she birthed me the first time, I came through her, picking up some of her biomes, and now she gave me more to keep me well. More than immune system boosters, she gave me super saturated love, a love transfusion. She spoke words of admiration, words of understanding and grace. She helped me see myself like she saw me. It was a healing, the liberating power of truth in the space between my mother and me. Every time mom said, "I love you more," she was telling me the truth. She loved me fiercely, but she should have known, wish she'd known, yet didn't know about what happened to me when I was a girl...Each time she said, "I love you more," along with it were paragraphs about what she hoped for me. Here is the truth precious: Be you, Jac. You're not too shiny, too strong. You didn't deserve what happened to you and you didn't cause it by being you. It was not your fault.
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Mommy and I had more than one of those moments over the eight years she was living and dying at the same time. We are all, loves, are living and dying at the same time. Is there a truth you need to hear or tell? A love-filled truth-telling -- speaking the truth in love -- might set you free and liberate your loved ones as well. It might be hard, but it might also be amazing!