Sometimes I feel so sad for my step son.
Then I remind myself, acceptance is an act of love.
I was eagerly awaiting the Facebook notification for Black Men Meet: Brotherhood Beyond Blood when every video my partner ever uploaded or went live with popped up under his name.
Curiously I scrolled, looking for fond memories, music I love, freestyles he may have left there and long moved on from that I could enjoy and highlight for others who might have missed it. But eventually, scrolling just far enough into what I call a dark period, I started to see videos of his life when he was a married man and new father to his first son.
I didn’t like his wife, O, by the time they became married. I told him then that being with her was a bad idea, that I knew she was abusive and he was being mistreated. I told him that I wished the best for him, knowing her intimately enough to know she wasn’t anywhere near that. Yet, that was his partner, and he was sticking by her. There was a line drawn in the sand. He and I were just friends in community and never anything more, so I was fine with not crossing that line as long as where I stood was clearly visible to anyone in our circles. I wasn’t fine with this unhealthy, abusive dynamic among friends then, and I never will be. That’s my line in the sand.
So here I am on Facebook having flashbacks, and a beautiful video in particular catches my eyes and heart. Looking at me in the thumbnail is the sweet child who I help to raise, Niajee, and his mom O, with a caption that reads “Musical Genius at 17 months, thanks to O”. Nevermind her starring in the clip, or that my partner was shouting her out for her mothering and music. Of course I want to watch more of this grinning baby in the thumbnail!
So I do. I watch the baby figure out this instrument his mom is playing, who is a gifted artist in her own right just like my partner. We all know each other through our art, afterall. I see him touching it, and her playing patterns. Him with a stick for his mini tambourine, trying to learn more about it through his mouth and her taking it out of his mouth to show him the right way to use it. I remember the caption my partner wrote praising his then wife for creating his son in the image of musical genius. The moment was beautiful. I only wish it was a true reflection of them in their entirety.
When my partner got with O, her and I were a part of an artist collective. He’d been with a woman who was accepted, and beloved, but who wasn’t Black. She was actually White. This budding relationship with O was a welcomed change. We all were elated that he switched back to the home-team and got with one of us! It was a win for us all, hitting us in a collective sore spot, making it feel a little sweeter.
This joy was short lived as we began to understand more deeply the interpersonal dynamics at play behind closed doors. It began with another member of the collective, splintering sisterhood and friendship, and continued into this would-have-been Beautiful Black Love relationship. I saw an expression of love, joy, and family in the clip of O and the little one. I also saw the devastation left behind in a family that once was, torn apart due to spousal and child abuse. I cry sometimes knowing that it didn’t live up to its image of sweet, beautiful, fruitful love.
Despite the sadness I felt driving me to capture this in writing, I’m happy to be with my partner and to help to raise his son. It was exciting to be able to speak to, touch, and be close with this little person who I would see around and could never interact with before. I’m delighted to share my home and my heart with my partner and the little one, who I think about so deeply and often so that I contribute to creating our healthy family dynamic.
We’ve been at this for 2 years now, and as joyful as it has been getting closer to these two, being intimately intertwined with their day to day lives from the tiniest to the biggest things. I have been equally upset, mortified, and utterly disgusted with what they’ve experienced before, and disappointed even now at unique struggles of our collective new normal. No new person in the world with such a bright, toothless grin and appreciation for the amazing discoveries life brings should be shielded from a loving extended family and community. He should have never had to miss his mother as a toddler for an extended period of time so suddenly, as a result of his father finally leaving the toxicity which only begat a final eruption of more. He shouldn’t have been endangered, and at risk of losing his life at the hands of the woman who created it.
As my daddy used to say “Shoulda, Coulda, Woulda, but Didn’t!” Yet, here we get to be after all was said and done. It can feel isolating to look back at a particular piece of personal history, or a memory of what once was, when the gaze is based on the pain of what is. I know what unfolded after that beautiful clip for my partner, and for the little one I love and help raise today. It can be hard to accept sometimes the things we very well could regret. So I choose to consider it all, and with the intention for love and acceptance, expand my view outward and remember that every dimension of what was, is, and will be, is all connected and in support of the other and this moment.
Asé
