THE END

Dear Lorenzo,

It's 8:49 p.m. and I'm sitting in the kitchen, listening, but not really paying attention to Pardon the Interruption on ESPN. I should be asleep right now, or at the very least, lying in bed watching The Goldbergs. Instead, I'm wide awake with a batch of beans in the crockpot, a load of darks in the washer, and a ten year old watching Youtube in my bedroom. Unless she isn't feeling well, the days of Amira and I cuddling up on the futon and watching Raven's Home or Scooby Doo are long behind me. Seemingly overnight she went from begging me to play just one more round of Yahtzee to begging me to leave my own room so that she can watch her videos in peace and quiet (i.e, without my snarky two cents). Sadly, I don't even argue with her anymore. Instead, the minute she asks me to leave, I'm out the door before Brent Rivera can finish telling me to "hit that like button" to subscribe to his channel.

Amira's in fifth grade this year, can you believe it? Our baby girl is one year away from middle school. She loves math and science and dance and gym, and she takes both fifth grade and her after school theater classes very seriously.

Lorenzo, we may not have been the perfect couple, but Amira is one thing we got right.

But I spend a lot of time thinking about our mistakes. The petty arguments, the hours we spent not speaking to each other. The disagreements over money, household matters, and how to raise our child.

And it all seems so fucking stupid now.

I wish I'd known then what I know now. I wish I'd understood that our time together was finite and that it would end far sooner than either of us ever expected. Maybe we would have cherished each other more. Maybe we wouldn't have taken each other for granted as much as we did.

Or maybe I'm wrong. Hell, maybe you would have come home from that rehab facility and we both would have been the same stubborn assholes we've always been. Maybe we would have made the same dumb ass mistakes we'd always made.

Who knows?

And the thing that sucks the most is that there's no use even wondering what could have been.

You're gone and as we both know, what's done is done.

I'm Coming Back

"I can feel you in the air I breathe.

You're the center of each thought I think."

Lalah Hathaway

Dear Lorenzo,

I miss being loved.

I miss having someone call me every hour on the hour, to tell me all the details of their day.

I miss your laugh and your bad jokes.

I miss your horrible taste in music.

I miss fighting with you and making up with you and making love to you.

I miss your overwhelming presence in my life.

I've recently reconnected with an old friend and while it's nice to have a man to care about again...

He's not you.

He doesn't watch Golic & Wingo, First Take, and NFL Live on his days off from work. 

He doesn't play Madden or study the draft, and he damn sure doesn't sing football carols when the season's about to start.

He's a wonderful person and a dear friend but...

He isn't you.

No one else is going to be you.

So...what am I supposed to do with all of the loneliness?

I literally have no idea what comes next.

PUBERTY!!!!!!

Dear Lorenzo,

It's 7:47 a.m. and I'm in the kitchen, talking to you, while Amira gives me my weekly dose of her standard Saturday morning silent treatment.

Every, single, Saturday it's the same thing with this heffa.

She wakes up and calls out for me. I leave the kitchen, bathroom or whatever room I'm in the process of cleaning and go to find her lying woefully in the bed. When I say good morning and ask her how she's doing, she hits me with her weekly refrain of: "Mama, I know that I have swim class today but I really can't go because my stomach aches" or "I have a headache" or "my throat feels scratchy" or...

Aw hell, you get the point. Feel free to insert whatever bullshit excuse you can think of because the end result is always the same.

"Amira, you aren't sick, you're nervous and I totally understand that, but we don't run from things that make us nervous, we give it a try anyway, so you're going to swim class today."

Then I leave her to her melancholia, finish cleaning up, get on the elliptical and by the time we're out the door and on our way to class, she's calmed down enough to ask me, rather icily, if she can use my cell phone. I give it to her, she plays video games and ignores me the entire way to class.

And without fail, by the time class is over, she is jubilant.

"Mama, did you see me? That was so much fun! Can we stay for another class?! I love swimming so much!"

Lorenzo, we go through this EVERY, SINGLE, WEEK!

So in conclusion...thanks a lot for leaving me alone with your pubescent, nightmare of a daughter!!!!!!

Not a day goes by that I don't feel like kicking your ass!

Feeling My Feelings (And All That Other Psychobabble)

Dear Lorenzo,

It's 5:23 a.m. and I've been up for the past 30 minutes or so, watching Golic and Wingo and talking to you. I've already got a load of laundry in the washer and am crocking a batch of beans which SHOULD provide your greedy ass daughter with enough stew, chili and homemade nachos to get her through the upcoming weekend.

We'll be leaving for Boston exactly one week from today and I have so much to do;  like laundry, mopping, packing and decluttering every inch of this house. I also need to contact Goldfish in Boston so that Amira can continue her swim classes while we're away, and I need to do my best to convince one of the besties to join Planet Fitness with me so that I can have a workout buddy at long last!

Lorenzo? I'm ready to put in the work and lose this depression weight.

I wish I could tell you that I was a beacon of strength and courage in the aftermath of your death but that would be a lie. I did little more than survive it. I spent the majority of my days fluctuating between shock and denial, all while attempting to anesthesize myself to numb the pain.

And my drug of choice was food.

Lots and lots of food.

Potato chips, crackers and cheese, if it was salty and crunchy I ate it.

And that's okay. I have FINALLY learned to stop beating myself up for this, for being human and not knowing another way to cope.

I did not gain this weight overnight and I won't lose it overnight either. I will be gentle with myself, I will treat myself with the love, kindness and respect that I deserve.

That we all deserve.

But I will lose this weight because I'm not comfortable in my body anymore and I don't deserve to feel badly about myself.

You died but I'm still alive and...I'm ready to rejoin the land of the living, and feel my feelings again instead of binge eating them away.

It's okay to be lonely, sad and angry.

Those feelings won't take me under.

Because if I can survive losing you, I can face my feelings head on without a big bag of Utz Sour Cream and Onion to cushion the blow.

Humpty Dumpty

Dear Lorenzo,

The prospect of putting myself back together again has been a daunting one.

I spent the first year after your death lying in a stupor on the couch. I watched football show after football show until it was time to pick Amira up from school.

I was alive, I was present only for our daughter.

After playing endless board games, watching funny YouTube videos and making all the slime she wanted, Amira would eventually tire of my company and head upstairs to Grandma and Aisha.

And each time she did, I returned to my station on the couch.

Eventually, the passage of time and the power of antidepressants started me on the path back to living again and during that second year I began to heal.

And today, three years after your death...

I'm fully awake again.

But...as I take stock of what's left of my life...I'm not exactly thrilled with what I see, or with who I've become.

I am genuinely trying to get my life back on track, or at the very least, doing my damnedest to create some semblance of a new one but...

Where do I go from here?

Danielle stepped in and got me a job that I ADORE. I work as a customer service rep at her company and even though I'm only there four hours a day, even though I'm definitely the low man on the totem pole...those four hours have brought so much joy back into my life. You see, when I'm at work, I'm not just the grief-stricken woman who's lost her partner, I'm not just a room parent at Peirce and I'm not just Amira's overly-friendly mom.  For four hours a day I get to be a co-worker, a colleague, a fairly capable employee and...that means EVERYTHING to me.

But work will never be all of who I am.

Next week we leave for Boston. We'll be there for all of August and while I can't wait to go home to be with my mom, my family and my friends, I also plan on spending some much needed time alone to focus on what comes next. I don't have all (or frankly, any) of the answers yet. But I'm ready to start figuring my shit out.

Purpose

Dear Lorenzo,

It's 5:17 a.m. and I should be asleep right now. If this were an ordinary day I would  still be in bed, curled up under the covers and trying to ignore Amira's arm and/or leg which would be flung carelessly across my head or back. If this were an ordinary day I would wake up shortly before 6:00 a.m., throw a load of laundry into the washer, make Amira's breakfast and lunch, and then hop onto the elliptical to workout for 45 minutes while watching Golic and Wingo on ESPN2. Afterwards, I would run downstairs to put the laundry into the dryer, hurry back upstairs to wake Amira, take a shower, get dressed, throw my salad together and hurry Amira along until we are both dressed and rushing out the door to get her to camp, and me to work, on time. 

But this is not an ordinary day. Because on this day I've decided to start living my life with intention. On this day I've decided not to put off my own hopes and dreams for even one more moment.

When I was diagnosed with M.S. twenty years ago, one of the first things I asked the doctor was, "Can I still work out?" You see, I was living in California that year and had even less of a social life than I have right now. I'd joined a gym to meet new people and possibly make some new friends but along the way, I'd discovered the joys and the adrenaline rush of a good workout.

I couldn't picture the rest of my life without it.

And I can't picture the rest of my life without writing either.

Which is why I'm wide awake, talking to you instead of continuing the dream I was having of moving back to Cambridge and making $100 per hour by becoming a piano teacher. (Which is especially funny considering the fact that I can't play the piano or afford to live in my beloved hometown.)

I always thought that becoming an author was a dream reserved for a select few. The James Baldwins and Toni Morrisons of the world. I didn't speak my dreams aloud because I certainly wasn't worthy of them. And so I did what I believe so many of us do. I took the safe route and never even bothered to try.

But that's not who I want to be anymore.

At 44 years old I finally have the courage to say what I haven't said since 7th grade, "Hello, my name is Khadija Jamila Brewington and I want to be a writer when I grow up."

I finally have the courage to try.

And I don't believe it's too late for me. I don't believe it's too late for any of us.

What's Next?

Dear Lorenzo,

It's 8:17 p.m. and I'm sitting in the kitchen talking to you, while listening to Amira's heavy footsteps traveling up and down the hallway that is just above my head. As loud as she is, I'm grateful for the noise. Yesterday, was one of the hottest days in Chicago history and because of this we did not leave the house at all. While I at least attempted to keep myself busy with laundry and cooking, Amira refused to leave my bed at all, save for the times she was forced to get up to use the bathroom or wolf down a bowl of black bean stew. Today was a far more comfortable day weather wise but Amira still didn't want to do too much of anything, electing instead to stay in bed with her slime and YouTube videos of Brent Rivera. I was just beggining to worry that something might be wrong with her when Aisha came downstairs and broke the spell. Just one word from her cousin and Amira was up and dressed and following Aisha up the stairs to pester her while she cooks dinner.

And so finally...I'm alone.

Today was a good day for me. I've been having more and more of those lately. Days where you aren't the first thing that I think of when I wake up in the morning. Days when I can at least attempt to imagine a life without you. Days where the prospect of the future excites rather than depresses me. I talked to your mom about this on Friday. About the fact that...I'm beginning to heal. She's thrilled of course. And I suppose that I am too. I don't know what's up next for me and that's okay. Because I do know that I'm excited to figure it out.