IN THE VALLEY OF DRY BONES

In the valley of dry bones are the bitter and defeated living dead. They are the ones who always have a scowl on their face and have nothing positive to say. They are also the ones who have given up on living a joyful life. How does one get to such a desolate place in their life? They get there in many ways. Loss is one of them, and betrayal is another.

In life, you will experience losses of many types, and one of them will be so profound that it will thrust you into the valley of dry bones. A place where living is reduced to mere survival. Where breathing hurts, and all you want to do is go back to the past before the event happened. After a while, you will find yourself living more and more in the past with the dead instead of being in the present with friends and family. You close yourself off, finding it difficult to get up and leave the house. Everything bright and exciting about a new day is gone, and all you can do is get through one more day.

Some of us have been hurt by the people that we love. That betrayal cuts the deepest. While others have endured a series of slights, back stabbings, and deceptions, causing them to become callous and respond in kind, they have developed a hardened demeanor. I saw this phenomenon as I was growing up and vowed that I wouldn’t become like that.

I have never wanted to be a bitter old lady, and I’m grateful that I’m not. But I have been living in the valley of dry bones for far too long. The death of my mother was a devastating loss for me; one that I have struggled to overcome. My mother died nine years ago, and I hadn’t realized how long I had been grieving. Although I will continue to mourn the loss of the woman who meant so much to me, I can now begin to live fully again and let the dead rest. I’ve asked God to give me back my joy, and I’m trying to do my part by living my life with gratitude. I’m grateful for the time I had with my mother, and I'm thankful for the time I have left with my family.

If you have found yourself in this desolate place, perhaps you can reflect on how you want to live going forward. You are not alone; many have found themselves in the same place. I’m a woman of faith, so my faith has helped. Joining various clubs and spending time with my grandkids has been instrumental in getting me out of the house. I’ve taken college courses for fun and written three books. My writing has been very cathartic and opened up new spaces for me to roam. Joy has begun to creep back into my life, even when grief makes an unexpected appearance.

I won’t look back on the valley of dry bones; instead, I will look forward to what each new day has to offer, and I hope that you will do the same.

A DEFINING MOMENT...NOW IS YOUR TIME

Being Black in America has never been easy, and unfortunately, I don’t see it getting easier for us as a people any time soon. I was a child during the Civil Rights Movement, so I, like many African Americans who missed that pivotal moment in Black history, wonder if I would have been a brave participant or just an observer. I hope I would have fought, but to be honest, I don’t know if I could have left the North to go to the South. Passive resistance in the face of such brutality is difficult to watch, let alone to embrace as a strategy and practice. Think about the willpower and the discipline that it took to endure the abuse that was heaped upon them.

The Black Lives Matter movement, founded in 2013, was in response to George Zimmerman's not guilty verdict in the murder of Trayvon Martin. Racial and economic justice, police and criminal justice system reform, and upholding the rights of marginalized people were some of the goals the organization wished to address. The Movement reached its peak in 2020 with global protests over the death of George Floyd. 15 to 26 million people protested throughout the United States, making it one of the country’s largest protest movements in history. And yet I sat that one out. I was in my fifties and fear kept me on the couch, rooting for the brave young people marching in the streets. The Black Lives Matter movement had me hopeful that maybe White America would finally look in the mirror and see the ugly truth of who they are as a nation. Maybe they would see that a country built on the cornerstone of a white supremacist ideology can not stand forever. Perhaps they would stop teaching their children to hate, and instead, they would begin to believe in the founding document of this country. “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

It is shocking and appalling to see how Christianity has been distorted to justify wickedness from this country's inception to now. Guns, Religion, bigotry, and White Supremacy have been conflated into a White Nationalist political ideology that has transformed the Republican Party. This thing that the Republican Party has become would have you believe that it is rooted in family values and Christianity, when in reality, there is nothing Christ-like about it. I will not speak about their family values because not every family shares the same values (enough said).

It is almost nine months into Trump's second term. I’m exhausted by the daily bombardment of ICE raids, threats to militarize American cities, the Big Beautiful Bill, the bombing of a Venezuelan ship, the building of an Alligator Alcatraz in Florida, a new patio in the Rose Garden, and a ballroom at the White House. All of which is to distract the American people from the fleecing of the country and the Epstein files.

“Move along, nothing to see here.” This is what the White House would have us believe. If that statement were true about the Epstein files, it would be easy to prove by simply releasing them. So, I ask you to use your common sense and draw your own conclusions. If you are comfortable or okay with having someone who has either slept with little girls or knew little girls were being sexually abused and sex trafficked remain in the White House, then keep the status quo. If the possibility of having a pedophile or someone who protects pedophiles stay in the Oval Office is abhorrent to you, then you must act. Every Republican in office who refuses to vote to release the Epstein files must be voted out.

If you are like me and have wondered if you would have acted during a pivotal time in history, you no longer have to wonder. Now is the time; the fight will be as close as your polling place or your mail-in ballot. Now is the time!

SUMMER WITH THE BOYS

My parents, who lived in Las Vegas, would keep my son and his cousin for a few weeks in the summer. I would drive from Altadena to Vegas early on Saturday morning to drop my son off for his summer vacation with his grandparents. My son, who is now forty years old, still recalls fondly his summers in Las Vegas with them. So, now that I’m a grandmother, I get to return the favor. My husband and I have been keeping our grandsons for a month each summer for the last three years. The first year, we only kept the oldest grandson, who was almost eight years old. The second year, we tried to get away with only having one grandchild, but my son asked if we could also watch the youngest one. The youngest grandchild was four years old, OMG!

After my husband and I discussed how the heck we were going to watch a four-year-old for a month, we told our son that we would be delighted (ha ha!).

Delighted is not the only word I would use to describe our summers with the boys, but it is certainly a word I would use. Tiring, exhausting, annoying, adventurous, and fun are other words. Spending that much time is a gift not to be taken lightly because there will come a time when they will not want to spend their summers with us.

When I was a single parent for the first fourteen years of my son’s life, I wasn’t able to do a lot of the exciting things I do with my grandkids, but as a retired grandmother, I can do so much more. Our summers are full of eating fast food, going to Big Bear and Wrightwood, swimming, going to the park, bike rides, going for walks, playing ping pong, and stargazing. This summer, we spent a few days at a resort in Indio where they spent their days and nights in the swimming pool. My youngest grandson said we needed a couple more days there. We are definitely going back next year. However, the best times are the times that don’t require any money. It happens when we are sitting around the kitchen table playing Uno or gathered as a family having a movie night. It happens when I feel the youngest grandchild sneak into bed in the wee hours of the morning, reminding me of his father when he was little. Watching the boys playing with their Paw Paw, or when the little one starts dancing, with a big grin on his face, and announces that he’s dancing because he’s happy. It’s in those moments that you wish with all your heart that you could live in that feeling.

The boys went home last night. This morning, the house is quiet, and I miss them already, but I had the best sleep last night!