Category: Mourning

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We Need Rescue

James. Randy. Brian. Cedric. Jason. Quinton. These are the names of men I love. Men who are my father. My uncle. My cousins who are like brothers. My brother. Men whose blood and love runs through my veins. Men who are my family. Men who are black.

My daddy left this earth 11 years ago. The others have found a way to thrive here.

It’s hard to survive on this earth and it takes just about a pure genius to thrive here.

One day I hope to marry a black man and one day I just may have a black son. I haven’t even met them yet and I worry about the trauma and loss that can come with their blackness when it’s hard to survive on this earth.

The type of trauma and loss the families and friends of Alton Sterling and Philando Castile are walking through like a steel fog that refuses to lift.

It’s hard to survive on this earth. It’s hard to survive on this earth.

And it takes just about a pure genius to thrive here.

I want to believe the sheer weight of humanity means something today in 2016. I want to believe that we can be more intentional to preserve life. I want to believe.

The city of Dallas is rocked this morning by deep grief and inconsolable tragedy. Five police officers are dead and several more injured along with two civilians, ambushed by a shooter who “said he wanted to kill white people – especially white officers,” because he was upset about recent police shootings.

AtlantaMy mother spent nearly 30 years of her life serving as a civilian employee with the City of Atlanta’s Police Department. She assisted heads of police, loved and encouraged the officers and absorbed the losses of those killed in the line of duty as if they were our own family.

Black people, blue uniforms, we all have the common gift of hearts that beat and blood that moves through our bodies. Humanity ties us together.

But the loss of human life in these recent incidents feels insurmountable. Their heartbeats no longer beat and they were valuable. The people they beat inside of were valuable. People made in the image of God, with purpose. People woven into the story He’s written for this world.

Race is the conduit through which much pain and offense channels its way into our lives. This struggle is bigger than race. The very nature of our souls is the conversation topic on this table.

Souls that get blinded and lose heart. Souls that don’t detect and remember another person’s humanity. Souls that need rescue.

We all need rescue. God is the only one who can bring us out of this.

It’s hard to survive on this earth. It’s hard to survive on this earth.

And it takes just about a pure genius to thrive here.

In this difficult time in our nation, I invite you to mourn with those who mourn, with the families and friends left in the wake of these deaths. A heart-wrenching journey the loved ones of Christina Grimmie and the Pulse victims continue to walk through. An agonizing journey the loved ones of Lane Graves are experiencing because he was lost too.

Orlando

Lament with sorrow for the overwhelming loss of life in these shootings. Life is a gift God gives us.

Lament with sorrow for the tension and pain existing between communities of color and law enforcement. Decades of distrust and injustices keep people on the offense on both sides.

Lament with sorrow for the hate and bitterness that led human beings to take the lives of other human beings.

Lament with sorrow that left to our own devices humanity has no hope in this world.

Turn your lament into thanksgiving that God is our hope. He works through the details in disasters to redeem, restore, and heal.

Keep praying.

It’s hard to survive on this earth. It’s hard to survive on this earth.

And it takes just about a pure genius to thrive here.

For my black brothers, I see you. Don’t lose heart even though you have every plausible reason to. I want things to be different for you. I want you to be safe. I want you to be safe. 

For my black sisters, I feel you. We’re scared for the black men and boys in our lives and we’re tired of mourning the ones we lose. There’s a special fortitude in our DNA. Maybe God placed that in us for times such as these. 

For my non-black friends who stay in this heaviness with us as if this grief were your own, thank you. Thank you for really viewing this through lenses that push you beyond your own experience and beckon you to enter the black narratives we’ve been writing about our story for hundreds of years. The narratives that yell in bitterness and sorrow, ” This IS what is happening to us! Do you see US?”

For my non-black friends who don’t understand what’s happening in your news feeds on social media and why many of your black friends are angry, choose to enter into this with us. Choose to be willing to understand. Read the news. And not just the news you know. 

Think about your father, your uncle, your cousins, your brother. Make it personal to you and then you can see why it’s personal to us.

#AltonSterling #PhilandoCastile #DallasPoliceOfficers 

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Melodies & Mourning

UNSPECIFIED - JANUARY 01: Photo of Etta JAMES; Posed studio portrait of Etta James (Photo by Gilles Petard/Redferns)
(Photo by Gilles Petard/Redferns).

Lady Antebellum. Yo-Yo Ma. Etta James. Bobby Womack. India.Arie. Quite an eclectic music mix. In my journey of grieving losses the melodies of these musicians helped me heal. I feel the grace of God as I realize mourning is not a one-size fits all experience.

2013: A Year of Loss

I lost much in a span of seven months. A beautiful 82 year-old grandmother named Lena Mae who I believed secretly had a superwoman cape hidden under her clothes. She was just incredible – laughter and love wrapped up into southern hospitality at its best. She was safe. She was human. And she was mine.

Ten days after my family buried her I was rear-ended by a driver who lost control of her vehicle. The collision totaled my car, which was given to me as a gift six years prior and paid for. The physical impact of the crash required six months of chiropractic rehab for my neck and spine.

The emotional trauma left me with diminished mental capacity, anxiety driving and a fragile heart that wondered “Why would God allow this much pain in such a concentrated way into my life?”

On the heels of these experiences, I also lost the opportunity to mentor children I tutored for three years at a local community center. The center closed due to low funding. Seeing the kids for the last time, I tearfully said goodbye and thought “This is not the way it’s supposed to be.”

Two more losses took place in 2013 – in the spring and at the year’s end – also pouring into this concentrated funnel of pain. My pastor of eight years resigned abruptly. Significant transitions were coming at my job and several people would be leaving following spring.

At times I couldn’t find words to describe the perfect storm of the grief I felt and the hurt that lingered.

When My Words Left

Music became my interpreter. It reminds me I’m alive – in all of its gritty blues, playful twang, honeyed rhythms and sweet succession of its sounds.

Music tells me I will sing again. And when my words left me, melodies took their turn to help me heal.

These specific melodies are my feelings – vulnerable, contemplative, transparent, gutsy and real. I believe when there are no words there is definitely a set of chords that will play the truth of the heart.

Grief silenced my words for a very long time. Music helped me find them. These songs gave me the gift of dreaming again. They aren’t specifically about grief but they amplify my emotions as I’ve discovered how to live from loss. I created my own “Mourning and Living” playlist from these songs:

Words TypewriterLady Antebellum’s “Somewhere Love Remains” is slow and purposeful. It’s full of acknowledgment and asks for pursuit in its hopeful country melody.

Yo-Yo Ma’s “Quarter Chicken Dark” is funky and bold. Its beautiful violin banters and airy moments welcome thoughtful considerations.

Etta James’ “A Sunday Kind Of Love” makes me want to put on a stylish dress, a pair of heels, go to a throwback classic soul dance party and slow dance with my man. It’s full of sass and soulful demands and beckons for love.

Bobby Womack’s “That’s The Way I Feel About ‘Cha” is bluesy and guttural. Full of belly wrenching emotion and truth. It encourages me to feel.

India. Arie’s “Life I Know” is storytelling in pure form. It’s beautifully raw and authentically simplistic.

Feeling God in Grief

God uses different things to help us in life. People sometimes. Places next time. Things this time. Music is my thing right now. And it’s helping me express my grief as I ache for people and experiences that have left my life.

Grief is hard work. It depletes you. It can be brutal. And sometimes people around you don’t know how to respond or help as they see you in the “valley of the shadows.”

When pain enters my life I often ask, “Where is God in all of this?” and “Why did he let this happen?” Do I say he’s a mean God because for whatever reason he permits though does not inflict upon us suffering and violence along with brokenness and traumas that seem to make our hearts break, our souls ache and cause our minds to shatter?

Or do I say he’s a gracious Father and a loving Creator who in the midst of all this hell breaking loose also permits and gladly offers us the celebrations, the gift to live and the choice to love, to hold close those we embrace and let go those we’ve lost but will never forget?

Deep Calls to Deep

Suffering is a part of living. God gives the gift of grieving to help our hearts acknowledge, “Yes, I have loved this person, this is how I loved them and even now I still do love them though they have passed.”

God’s grace towards me is tender as I mourn. The first few months after my grandmother died and the car accident I couldn’t read the Bible even though I tried. I had no mental fortitude to sit, focus my thoughts, read and internalize the words.

God met me where I was. He spoke truth to my heart. He gave me music to help me express my emotions. The God of the universe stepped into my grief – sobs, anger, depression, questions – and stays in it with me as he walks me toward healing. I’ve healed a great deal in three years and my faith in God changed. It’s deeper. It’s more human. Way more personal. I’m alive, I’m here, melodies and all.

Originally written September 24, 2014.

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His Ears

“You look just like Jacques.”

I heard these words often, in the smiles and embraces of my mother when she would look at me in my youth and observe the ears, the nose and the likeness of my father in me looking back at her.

Those words were full of sweetness, beauty, pride and love. They made me feel safe and they made me feel connected to a man I knew as my daddy.

His name is James Copenny. He went by Jimmy. Sometimes Jacques. Most times Copenny. He had a twinkle in his eyes, a grit about him, a deep love for seafood and a resilience in him that refused to stop trying in the midst of life’s hardships.

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He’s my dad. I have his ears. I definitely have his smile. I have his love for music and all things soulful. I have his heartbeat for Georgia and the beauty of a city that he loved to call “Ms. Atlanta.”

He gave me both my names, first and last. Melodie was how it was originally spelled on my birth certificate. I believe I’ve always been a song to him, inspiration for him, his only daughter.

There’s a pain and an ache that faithfully re-enters my heart each year. It comes a few days after the joy and exuberance of my birthday. It gently knocks on the door of my heart and sometimes I let it in, sometimes I don’t.

But it always comes, respectfully but insistently.

It’s the grief of celebrating another Father’s Day with the absence of your father. The older you get, you do gain something in the knowing and embrace of your feelings. But knowing why you feel what you feel – sadness, mournfulness, grief, change – doesn’t make the ache any easier. It just makes you feel a bit more grounded that those feelings are normal and it’s okay to be where you are in them.

I can write about a lot of things. Writing about my father is very personal and vulnerable. It doesn’t come easy. It’s labor and it’s arduous. It’s taken me five days to put these words into being. Our relationship at the time of his death was one that was in a new chapter of growth and new beginnings. I didn’t have him as much as I needed him in my early years. Because of circumstances in his life, he couldn’t be present and available and that hurt us both. But in my mid-20s we had the chance to try anew. It was good and it was hard but we were both in it, engaged and intentional. He was my dad and I was his daughter and we were becoming good friends.

Then death came as it often does – unexpected, unwanted and unrelenting. He passed away in his sleep at the young age of 56. His heart just stopped beating. I was 26 and when he died it felt like my heart stopped beating too. With his death went all the things I didn’t get a chance to do with him, say to him, the comfort of the expected in experiences and memories with people you assume will always be around, always be with you.

I miss the conversations that never happened. The ones we didn’t get a chance to get into. I would have loved to talk with him about music. He was a musician at heart. He played several instruments, including his voice. I believe my deep love for funk bands, soul and R&B comes directly from him.

There’s a song by the incredible band Maze ft. Frankie Beverly called “Southern Girl.” This song was released a year after I was born. It opens the way real good music used to: great instrumental intro and a bass line that lays down deep into your heart beat.

This song makes me think of my father. It makes me think of how a good song with the right cadence can make any day feel so much better. It reminds me that music really is a universal language.

Music will always be special to me because of my father.

I feel the happy of the melodies and I feel the sad too.

Both make me grateful for the gift of living and the experiences that come through it.