Don't Cry for Me

by Daniel Black

I was horrified at the arbitrary nature of his life. Only then did I understand his harsh, insensitive demeanor.

They gave more than they had, but less than we needed. They were burdened with a notion of manhood that destroyed so many sons’ lives; but they didn’t know another notion to teach. In the end, many destroyed themselves, too.

If they’d been allowed to dream, they might’ve expected sons who were not carbon copies of themselves. They might’ve imagined boys in all their glory, dancing before the world without shame. They might’ve granted a queer son permission and affirmation to be himself—regardless of the world’s reaction. They might’ve known that some spirits come into the world to disrupt normalcy and thereby create space for the despised and rejected. And they might’ve understood, finally, that every son is an eternal blessing. If they’d been allowed to dream.

Slavery did a number on black people. We haven’t survived it yet. The institution is over, but its aftereffects still linger. We try not to think about it, our time in bondage, but it shapes who we are. I’m convinced of this.

Everything we did, whether we were aware or not, we did with white people in mind. Our life’s aim was to make them believe we had value and worth, so we spent our nights trying to figure out what they liked, then spent our days trying to do it. We still haven’t pleased them, and truth is, we never will.

I couldn’t eat. I couldn’t sleep. I couldn’t breathe normally. I didn’t wash myself. I couldn’t focus on anything. I stopped speaking. I never knew death could consume you like that.

We were perfectly complementary, it seemed—until we got married.

A man’s history is all he has. It says more than his mouth ever will. You’ll see what I mean soon enough.

Now I see why you and your mother read so much. It makes you think, makes you see things you can’t see, and that was my problem. I had all kinds of opinions, but I couldn’t see a damn thing.

I guess we made the same error—allowing the world to define us.

This might sound ridiculous to you, but it was true. Treating a woman as an equal wasn’t even biblical, so I had no idea what it meant. It was inconceivable, really, laughable to the majority of America. Men and women. But your mother wasn’t laughing.

“Don’t nobody live in the past, man! The point of history is to tell you how to live in the future. So people don’t make the same mistakes over and over.”

I was drowning in ignorance and afraid of knowledge. No good to a living soul.

Hurt is worse than anger, you know. Anger dwells in the head, then fades. Hurt lingers in the soul. It rearranges your feelings without your permission. It blinds you.

had no idea you cared about any of this, but in hindsight, it made sense. You were a reader; you lived in your imagination.

hated the way white folks treated our people. You did, too. I saw it in your eyes. While the Wrestler instructed Kunta Kinte in the hull of the slave ship, I wanted to grab you and hold you and never let you go.

No son forgets his father’s tears. They come rarely in a lifetime.

Everything moved your heart, and I mean everything. You cried in church, you cried from falling, you cried when your mother cried, you cried at romantic movies, you cried from disappointment, you cried with joy. I suppose you cried about me.

knew black labor had built America, but I didn’t know how black pride had been stripped from our flesh in the process. We had worked, hundreds of years, for absolutely nothing. I couldn’t conceive of that. It was like going to a job every day, but never getting paid. I sighed with rage.

Guilt and grief consumed me. I stared at the grave and apologized silently. I think I wiped my eyes a few times, if I recall.

I see it all in my head now. It’s funny what you remember in old age.

Perhaps you don’t even remember it, but I think you do. Hurt is hard to forget, especially from a mother.

It was a strange thing, sitting next to people you love but being unable to love them.

Pride really can kill a man. Actually, it makes him kill himself. He justifies his errors and creates his own righteousness in his mind. Grandma used to say, “There is a way that seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof is death.” It’s true.

“A woman is not a toy. She doesn’t like to be played with.”

I got up this morning and stared through the living room window, longing for a world I can’t enter. People walk by sometimes, totally unaware that, just a few feet away, lies a desperate, dying man. I wonder if they’d come in if they knew.

It would not be an exaggeration to say that, as I read, my imagination came alive. I began to conceive things I’d never thought of before. Like what it really meant to be black—not just look black. I discovered I hadn’t loved being black; I had accepted it because I couldn’t change it. I had not embraced it as a gift, had not seen it as divine.

I paused and looked outside as if suddenly in a new world. My whole consciousness was changing. My perception of reality was being disrupted. I was becoming a new man.

My people had submitted to life, and dealt with it the best they could. We didn’t question God’s ways. We simply accepted things and swallowed hard. No one asked, for instance, if I were happy as a child. It’s not that they didn’t care; it’s that they didn’t know they could care. We didn’t think we were supposed to be happy. We were Negroes, after all, Colored people who were glad simply to be alive. Feelings were irrelevant. They had to be. There was no time in our stressful lives for emotions.

I’d never thought of what it meant for a woman to live in perpetual fear of a man. And not just a woman, but a young girl like Celie who submitted because she knew she couldn’t win.

Knowledge is a funny thing, Isaac. It informs by exposing. It shows you precisely how much you don’t know.

Who’d ever heard of such a thing? God had meant for you to be that way? Maybe things were different for white folks. Perhaps they enjoyed the privilege to be whatever they wanted. But black folks had rules and restrictions we were supposed to abide by.

I hope I’m not hurting your feelings. I’m trying to be honest here, to give you my heart, but it’s difficult and messy, so you’ll have to take it as it is—if you want it at all.

At the funeral, Death teased me. I didn’t see her, but I sensed her. Small whiffs of air, like breath, grazed my neck, and each time I rubbed it, I heard faint laughter. Later, she told me it was her. We’ve become friends over the years. She saw my day coming, she said, and wanted to get acquainted before I’d have to trust her. We speak quite often now. She said she never understood why her presence saddens others. She is the bearer of joy and life’s perfect fulfillment. All she ever does is accompany people into eternity. Everyone dreams of it—and fears it—but it is a beautiful existence, she said. A paradise. No one who’s gone has ever wanted to return.

Everything the heart has ever known must accompany it into eternity. Regardless of the pain. Only then can a person see God. A whole heart is Heaven’s requirement.

He said, “Every man needs a li’l mercy every now and then. Know what I mean?” I nodded. I’d expected him to be crazy or at least nonsensical, but his was the sanest voice I’d heard in a while.

Years later, I realized I had prayed the wrong prayer. I should’ve asked God to send me to you, but I didn’t. So I spent years waiting for you—while you’ve spent a lifetime waiting for me.

“Your love was enough.” That was it. That was what I wanted to say to my brother.

Just remember that, although we were flawed, we were marvelous, too.

To be honest, I’ve been dying a long time. For ten years, all I did was work, smoke, read, and listen to music. I hope your generation has musicians equal to ours. I don’t know how anyone survives without them.

It’s not been a horrible life, Isaac. It’s just been a lonely one. But that was my own doing. Reading taught me that a man’s life is his own responsibility, his own creation. Blaming others is a waste of time. No one can make you happy if you’re determined to be miserable. And, for many years, I was.

All I wanted was to look you in the face and tell you I’m sorry. I had wounded you beyond my capacity to heal you. If you get nothing else from this letter, understand that I never knew how to love. I dreamed of it, but I never experienced it. What I knew was pain. So that’s what I gave you. I’d never seen a black life free from it, so my job as a father, I assumed, was to prepare your back for the load. I hope that, after you read this, you’ll return my pain to me.

All I think of now is you. This means I love you. I feel it in my heart—that sense that nothing and no one else matters. I’ve always wanted to know that feeling, and now I do. The sad thing is that you won’t hear me say I’m sorry. But I did say it. Perhaps in this letter you’ll feel it, hear it in my tone, and let my words love you better than I ever did.

This is all I have to say. If this isn’t enough, I have nothing else to give. I would give you my life, but it’s already spent.

Finally, I leave you this charge: Live your life freely, Isaac. Rise above our history and be your unapologetic self. Just remember that I meant well. Even in my failure, I truly meant well.