Perhaps, Willie
I sat on the floor at three in the morning, eyes closed, pen in hand, anticipating Her bright smile. Instead, she showed up in my consciousness with a thin, disheveled, and slightly disoriented Black man. As I peered closely at the landscape of his face, I realized I was looking at an older male image of myself — — my paternal grandfather, Willie. Mornings with Big Mama was about to get deep:
“Why is he here? You didn’t know my father’s father. And I didn’t know him either.
She prodded me to leave her in the background:
Talk to him like you talk to me. See what you need to know.
I turned to face him again. “You? Why would you be here?”
He responded, “I don’t know.”
Fifty-plus years of rage suddenly polluted our reunion. “You don’t know? I know! You turned your wife into a whiskey-worn version of the nurse she used to be. You abandoned your son just when he was about to become a father! To me! To me!
Willie bowed his balding head, his white shirt sticking to his frail chest. He had no words. I had plenty:
“Your big sister was convinced that you were missing. Her apartment was full of police reports, payments to private detectives, even letters to TV shows! Not a single one of them helped her search for you. After seven years, and every dime she had, the detective told her that you were legally dead. Nobody seemed to care that she just wanted to bury her baby brother. She never got that chance. I’m so glad dementia wiped that whole chapter out of her memory, so before she died, she could tell me stories about you that were full of love, instead of all the heartache she carried when you left.
“My father only allows his lips the freedom of speaking of you when he is drinking. He once told me that you sweetly kissed the whole family on the mouth. I still can’t imagine Daddy expressing such vulnerability with another man, especially one with the scent of scotch on his lips. But when Daddy greets his family with a beer-coated pucker at the door, I know he is remembering you.”
Willie’s dark brown lips finally formed a response: “I never left him. I would have never left them. I love him. And I love you.” Without another word, he dimmed into the background, thrusting me back into the present moment.
Willie never appeared in my morning mediation again.
Years later, during a memoir-writing course, I was asked to increase my self-awareness through an exercise called “Perhapsing.” Perhapsing was a doorway to the beautiful imaginary world in which I could begin to make sense of family mysteries and to deepen my capacity for mercy and forgiveness. I wrote a letter of “perhapsing” to Willie:
Perhaps you hadn’t planned to stop at the liquor store that day. You just needed a little sip to ease your morning shakes. After the 5th sip, that other part of you took over, demanding you to inhale the whole bottle. The pint in your back pocket fed your fearlessness, even when you staggered.
You thought you could handle those boys from the block when they rushed from the alley, demanding your wallet. But you were not strong enough to fight off two. How could you be when they looked like five?
You swung. They matched you with a fatal blow to the soft spot on the back of your head. Damn Willie, they did not want you dead. They only wanted the wallet, chock full of 5’s from the dry cleaners you owned. They peeped it at the liquor store while you hurriedly paid your outstanding bill. Why didn’t you just give them the wallet?
Perhaps the sloppy criminals considered leaving you on the sidewalk but were afraid you would wake up and tell somebody before they could get away. So they picked you up, one armpit each, and dragged you to that abandoned building at the end of Fulton Street. Your life ended there.
Perhaps the heroin addicts who saw you the next morning kicked you to the side, their passion for drugs overriding their curiosity around a drunk old man with a black and white photo of a toothless boy in his left pocket. They thought you were one of them, lost in a pack of forgotten souls, seeking love through their veins. You were not one of them. And your family was around the corner, waiting for you to come home.
Perhaps the stench of your decaying body sent those addicts to the next room. Eventually, it sent them to another building. Perhaps the landlord paid those same addicts to burn the building down, along with the rest of the South Bronx.
Perhaps your spirit led your son home that snowy afternoon, just in time to witness the birth of his chocolate, curly-haired baby girl. Perhaps your son took one look at me and saw the depth of your brown eyes when he whispered to my mother, “I’m in love.” Perhaps you leaned over from the Other Side and whispered, “Me too.” Perhaps you told him to always kiss us goodnight. Because he always did.
So, yes, Willie, I know you. And through your son, my father, I have grown to love you. And through the teachings of a quiet Black lady in a wheelchair, I have learned to forgive you.
Dr. Sabrina N’Diaye is a therapist, storyteller, and peacebuilder. Based in Baltimore, MD, she considers The Bronx, and The Bay Area, her other homes. This is an excerpt from her book, Big Mama Speaks: Love Lessons from a Harlem River Swan, based on a series of conversations with the spirit of her deceased maternal grandmother.