Good Dirt

by Charmaine Wilkerson

“Most of the trouble in this world boils down to one person not recognizing the worth of another,” Gramps said. “But sometimes, that can be an advantage.”

Now that Ebby is grown

Surely, she is not the only person holding in a world of hurt that pushes against their skin like water against the walls of a dam.

Her dad’s mom would like the soil around here. Good dirt, she would say. There is a town, not far away, that is famous for its clay. Ebby has been planning to visit, maybe buy a souvenir for her grandmother. Granny says clay runs in their family’s blood, but Ebby’s father sees it differently. Ebby’s dad likes to say it’s the sea that courses through his veins, that he inherited a yen for the water from the sailors in his family. His father was descended from men

But the Freemans were black. People saw their skin, not their history.

Be aware of a beautiful moment as it is happening. Take note of your life as you are living it.

So much of life must go forward on faith.

“For Isabella Baumfree.” Lem understood his wife’s motivation to name their baby after the nineteenth-century abolitionist and women’s rights activist. Although Baumfree, better known as Sojourner Truth, had died in 1883, she remained an inspiration to the contemporary civil rights movement. Maybe even to those students at the lunch counter.

What had they done? This was the question that hung in the air above every black family that had ever run into misfortune.

And not only. It was a subtext understood by so many women, of any color, who had ever been harmed. It was the question that few dared to ask out loud but many had in mind, with regard to families that struggled to pay the bills. It was the question asked by those who wished to avoid acknowledging that responsibility might lie elsewhere.

What did ...

People were wired to persevere. People were wired for hope. People might feel hurt, but they still liked to laugh. They might lose someone dear, but they still wanted to love.

Ultimately, the idea of becoming a mother pleased Ebby more than it terrified her.

Then sat in her bathroom, alone, whimpering, when she saw the blood. She called the doctor, not her mother, when the cramps began. Went to the clinic alone. Sat on the sofa alone and rocked back and forth after the miscarriage.

Every moment in life is a confluence of events and you can’t see it all coming. You need to try not to, Ebby thinks. See it all. Otherwise, it leaves no room in your head to simply live.

He could forget that he was an old man, more than forty years of age. He

“There will always be men willing to steal the freedom of others if they think it will bring them an advantage,”

In the world of the free, he would need two names. And so Willis from the South Carolina backcountry became Edward Freeman in Massachusetts. Because words had the potential to remake a man.

“Meaning, women of color are more likely to suffer post-traumatic stress disorder,” Henry’s mom said. “I think anyone would suffer PTSD, Mom, if their brother had been shot to death in their home.”

“In a way, it’s true, Daddy. That it happened to us because we’re black.”

Maybe all you can do is give yourself permission to embrace the rest of your life. To play, to love, to risk. To take the beauty that someone brought into your life and share it.