Family Lore

by Elizabeth Acevedo

come celebrate with me that everyday something has tried to kill me and has failed.

To have a few moments where she owed no one her time but herself was a luxury.

(I have never heard my aunt shy from saying anything that needed to be said, but she can’t say her aunt’s name to this day. Some folks’ names need not be uttered back to us.)

Educators shouldn’t have favorites, but sometimes you meet a young person and you think, how can I advance every desire you have? How can I serve your brilliance? And sometimes you think that and more: if I have a little one, I hope she has your kindness, your curiosity, your unfuckwitable vibe.

There were years she’d commanded, and there were years when her certitude hibernated. This life required so many choices. So many little and big choices to plod to the next moment, and who knew if any of it mattered? They were all each other’s spectacle and then they died.

Slighted things needed you to witness the wound you gave them.

the heart is a burial ground for memories that shame and hurt. You can visit and place flowers there and make it a tomb. Or let those things act as fertilizer and pay no homage.”

when life and death happened was less important than how they came to pass.