More on this book
Community
Kindle Notes & Highlights
It’s difficult to pinpoint the moment I started loving my daughter. I wish it were when she fluttered inside me for the first time. Or when I cradled her tiny body seconds after birth. The truth is, my love for her started much later, when the reality of her conception had faded enough for me to see only her, when I realized that she, like me, was a survivor.
Back then, it didn’t cost much to be free, just a strawberry Charms Blow Pop and the belief you could conquer the world.
My father nicknamed us Castor and Pollux, two of the brightest stars in the Gemini constellation, inseparable, distant twins. Our story is one that could be told in those stars. While the brothers appear close, they are actually light-years apart.
He committed the crime, and yet our entire family was convicted and sentenced to a fate we’ll never escape.
“Forgive these wild and wandering cries, Confusions of a wasted youth; Forgive them where they fail in truth, And in thy wisdom make me wise.”
Now nine years after that horrible day, and a long way from the promises I made, the secret is out.
Trauma changes you, hardens you, leaves its scars.
“Memories. They just sneak up on you.”
Every southern boy is taught ‘Yes, ma’am,’ ‘No, ma’am,’ ‘Yes, sir,’ ‘No, sir.’ I know not one who stands when a woman enters the room. He’s a true gentleman.”
There is strength in her words, a power, a call to action.
Free yourself from this burden and really live. You have so much life left to live.”
We all must be held accountable for our actions.”
“Would you rather be able to reverse one decision you make every day or be able to stop time for ten seconds every day?”
“Time doesn’t work backward, so what’s done is done. Time is a measure of change, and change can only happen in forward motion.
“A person who loves sunrises and sunsets. The real term is solist, but sunchaser sounds better. Like you are chasing the sun on both sides.”
“Your father was a rich white boy from Savannah who fell in love with a poor Black girl from Atlanta. It was never supposed to work. It was the definition of complicated. Your grandfather wasn’t too happy with it. But we loved each other, and that’s all that mattered.”
Nothing prepared me for becoming a mother, her mother, the mother of a daughter conceived from rape.”
we decided that instead of watching him die, we would help him live.”
You took a hit, it knocked you off your axis, but you keep spinning no matter what.”
no matter how painful this truth is, it needs to be free. And we all have to let it be. True freedom comes from the truth,
Sometimes we don’t need to question everything. We just need to let it be.”
Death is the one thing money and influence cannot fix.
Forgiveness, I’ve learned, is like a door. You can open yourself up to it or close yourself off from it at any time. We can’t rewrite history or change the outcome. Life is a series of choices. And we live in and with those choices we make.
