Grief doesn't celebrate the holidays

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Episode Transcript:

[Music]

Nnenna: Hi, I'm Nnenna Freelon, host of Great Grief, the podcast. Welcome one and all to a special celebration of the season. A shout-out to my collaborators at Scalawag Magazine and to Andrew Berenson, my accompanist, and OnlyUs Media.

♪ Go tell it on the mountain, over the hills and everywhere. ♪
♪ Go tell it on the mountain. ♪

Yeah. This song began every Black nativity performance. As a kid, we'd always do This play that celebrated the wondrous, the wondrous silent night.

♪ Go tell it. Go tell it. ♪

It makes me wonder about the posture of a people in bondage who surely sang this very song in the midst of impossible circumstance. Go, go and tell it. I wondered at the quality of the air they breathed in order to sing. Was it tinged with the smoke of sadness and loss?

New Year's Day was coming, right on the heels of Christmas. At the old plantation, the monstrous practice of settling debts on the auction block was coming nigh. Dark night of the soul when families, fathers sold from mothers, children from parents, siblings divvied up like so much cattle.

♪ Go tell it on the mountain, over the hills and everywhere. ♪
♪ Go tell it on the mountain. ♪

Pressed against the chest of silent night were fears and hopes of those who were the tasked. For the enslaved, the new year could bring the possibility of heartbreak, the separation, the fear of being sold to a faraway plantation. It could mean that you were hired out to satisfy a debt, a debt that was not your own.

♪ It came upon on a midnight clear. ♪

It came upon a midnight clear the grinding anxiety held in the auction block's looming presence. Absent of any blessed assurance that life would offer a bit of respite for love for family, they sang anyway.

♪ Go tell it on the mountain. ♪
♪ Go tell it on the mountain. ♪
♪ Tell it over and over and over the hills and everywhere. ♪

And so and so and so here we are, time travelers, the children of survivors, the survivors of unspeakable horrors finding ourselves face to face with wrenching fears and doubts about what tomorrow may bring. Uncertainty, it's no new thing, yet we claim that it is so.

♪ Change is going to come. ♪
♪ Change is going to come. ♪

Consider the song which says it so clearly. Our divine ancestress, Octavia Butler, proclaims that God is change.

♪ Change is going to come. ♪
♪ Knock, knock, knock went Joseph on a stable door one night. ♪
♪ "Can you shelter a family and be a good friend to them?" ♪
♪ "No room, no room," said the beast from Bethlehem. ♪
♪ "No room, no room," said the beast from Bethlehem. ♪

No room. Let us pause from all the holly jolly and draw breath from the imagination of what could be. Heads bowed and bended knee, let's continue to make art out of all the little pieces of our lives. Let's go tell it on the mountain, the mountains of despair and hopelessness.

♪ Go tell it on the mountain of restoration. ♪
♪ Go tell it on the mountain of love and kindness and grace. ♪

Let us listen to the whispers of our ancestors. Now, grief is ever-present, our ever-present companion. And she doesn't own a watch or consult the calendar and so does not attune herself to the seasons at all. She accompanies change, shape-shifting, her face reflected in the bits and pieces of what used to be. This year, last year, 100 years ago. What difference does it make to grief who lives and breathes in a portal outside of time altogether?

♪ Go tell it on the mountain. ♪

Join me now as we step into a moment to sit with the holidays.

[Music]
[Audience Applause]

Nnenna: Good afternoon.

Audience: Good afternoon.

Nnenna: So good to see you all.

♪ Oh, deck the halls. ♪
♪ 'Tis the season. Yeah, yeah. ♪
♪ Don we now our gay apparel, fa la la la la. ♪
♪ Joy, the ancient yuletide carol, fa la la la la. ♪
♪ Deck the halls, ♪
♪ Deck the halls, ♪
♪ Deck the halls, ♪
♪ Deck the halls with boughs of holly, fa la la la la la la. ♪
♪ Deck the halls with boughs of holly, fa la la la la. ♪
♪ 'Tis the season to be jolly. ♪
♪ Don we now our gay apparel, fa la la. ♪
♪ Joy, the ancient yuletide carol, fa la la, fa la la. ♪

Andrew Berenson. Yes, yes.

[Audience Applause]

Let us use our collective imaginations. We're home. We are in a place that's safe and warm. Sounds of laughter, smells of good food on the stove. I don't know what's on your stove, but I smell some collard greens. The doorbell rings. Come in.

Let's take a moment to breathe in a collective breath of gratitude just for this moment. Let's acknowledge the land on which we sit at this moment. The Occaneechi Band of the Saponi Nation, we thank you. We sit here on the banks of the Eno Peoples, the river just up the road apiece. We acknowledge our named and nameless ancestors who worked and built upon these lands. Thank you.

And now, because we believe that every goodbye ain't gone, let's acknowledge and bring into the circle those of us who have ancestors on the other side of Jordan. You can say their names aloud or in your hearts, but welcome them in.

♪ They're just in the next room, just in the next room. ♪

My beloved Phil, my sister Debbie, my mother, Granny Franny, my father Charles, my grandmother Irene.

♪ Come in, come in, come in, come in, come in my beautiful, wonderful, wonderful, wonderful Wendy. Come in. ♪

Grief doesn't celebrate the holidays, and it's a reality that we mourn regardless of the dates on the calendar. And during the holidays, coping with feelings of sadness and loss can be overwhelming. That's why we are gathered here together right now, to make the burden a little lighter.

I don't know about you, but sometimes that long for this jolly season to be over so we can return to normal expectations of how you're supposed to feel, how you're supposed to feel.

♪ 'Tis the season to feel what you feel, fa la la la la la la la la. ♪

And you know the holidays mean a lot of different things for a lot of people. It's a return to the winter season where the days are shorter and the nights are longer. And for many of us, that by itself is enough to really wig you. I don't know. Am I the only one? Grieving in the winter is just harder. The natural world seems to nod in agreement. The trees have undressed theirselves. Seems to be a time for quiet introspection. And sometimes it's a return to the trauma of loss.

♪ Slumbering grief often awakens, stretching her long arms and yawning. ♪

Yeah, she yawns. And we wonder why we have a resurgence of these feelings, the feelings we thought we had already dealt with in May.

♪ Oh no, here she comes again. ♪
♪ Oh no, she comes again. ♪
♪ Oh, oh no, here she comes again. ♪
♪ Everything comes and goes. ♪
♪ Everything comes and goes in its own time in its own way. ♪
♪ Everything comes. Everything appears and disappears. ♪
♪ Everything shines and slips into shadow. ♪
♪ Everything comes, everything comes and goes. ♪
♪ Everything comes and goes in its own time, in its own fashion. ♪
♪ Everything comes and goes. Everything comes and goes in its own time in its own way. ♪
♪ We're part of this cosmic play, everything moving, nothing stays. ♪
♪ Everything comes and goes. ♪

[Audience applause]

Mr. Andrew Berenson. Yeah, yeah.

[Audience applause continues]

Now, if I really think about it, the holidays bring with them all the ancestors that are in the land of love; those who used to sit at the family table. I know somebody knows what I'm talking about right now.

[Audience applause]

Somebody knows. Y'all don't need to be shy. I know I'm not the only one.

You know, in the tradition of the Black church, if you want to feel the spirit move, you got to jump on in there.

[Rhythymic clapping begins]

♪ Silent night, holy night, all is calm, all is bright. ♪
♪Around yon virgin mother and child. ♪
♪ Holy infant, so tender and mild. ♪
♪ Sleep in heavenly peace. Sleep in heavenly peace. ♪
♪ Silent night, holy night, shepherds quake at the sight. ♪
♪ Radiant beams from heaven afar. ♪
♪ Heavenly hosts sing, "Hallelujah, Christ the Savior is born, Christ the savior is born." ♪
♪ Silent night, holy night. ♪
♪ Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. ♪

[Rhythymic clapping ends]

Oh yes, a very silent night in a really little town. Sorrow shrinks our world, people, in so many ways; makes our life into a little town transformed by loss, a deep and dreamless sleep. Shuttered windows and doors, our lives unrecognizable. And what a strange place. Who walks these streets, bearing witness to our lives without our beloveds? That's more than a no-show. Rinsing our hearts with bittersweet memories, it's hard.

♪ This little town, the one we never wanted to visit, this little town. ♪

We've been thrust into by grief is foreign, and we may feel like refugees.

Just a little bit of this. I don't want to go too deep because this is a sad song. All these Christmas songs are sad. They're all sad, aren't they? This is like, Santa Claus is Coming to Town's the only one that's not. That's the only one. Well, that one is not. That's true, that's true. That is true, that is true. But most of them are sad.

[Audience laughs]

♪ Oh, little town of Bethlehem, how still we see the light ♪
♪ Above the deep and dreamless sleep the silent stars go by. ♪

Yeah, the holidays and grief often arrive holding each other's hands. And it's hard to separate your feelings because they're all mixed up. They're all like in this bowl of your heart. My grandmother cooked by feel. Changing the subject here.

[Audience laughs]

Just letting you know. It's like, "Oh, she went there." Yeah. She didn't use a recipe book or write anything down. And when I'd ask her, "Well, how much?" She would cup her hand like this or pinch her fingers and say, "Oh, about this much." Is that just my grandmother? No?

I don't know if she didn't want me to know or…

[Audience laughs]

But I loved being in the kitchen with her because I could have her to myself. When she made those holiday cakes and pies, and I knew if you were a good helper, ooh, you got to lick the spoon.

Audience: Yes!

Nnenna: Or run your finger around the rim, gathering all that good, sweet batter. I savored that sticky goodness of a soon to be cake or pie. Now, this was before you had to worry about salmonella.

[Audience laughs]

Now they tell you if there's an egg in it, don't lick it.

Now I'm trying to recall in my life at this moment how to feast on what's left over, to grab that little, old bit of sweetness clinging to the edges of a life that's been turned upside down, stirred up and emptied out. So, I'm making sweet potato pie.

Oh, I remember my grandmother. She had a big old bowl. Was a big bowl she'd balance between her knees. And she would whip that spoon around, and it was a steady rhythm. She'd just go. And I always wanted to help. And she'd hand me the spoon. I couldn't even move the spoon.

[Audience laughs]

So, it seemed like magic.

And that's my life at this moment, a thick, rich batter full of memories, savory and sweet and some sour. And I'm grateful for it all, the spicy little bits and the pinch of salt that my grandmother never, ever, ever measured.

♪ Never, ever, never, ever measured. ♪

I grew up in Cambridge, Massachusetts, but lucky for me, my parents were both from the South. My mother was from Texarkana, Texas and my father was from Scotland Neck, North Carolina, Halifax County. They left the South in the late '40s in search of better opportunities, but they brought with them their food traditions and their worship traditions and their food traditions. Turnip, mustards, collard greens, pot liquor, yams, crowder peas, corn bones, sassafras tea, butter beans, and smothered everything. Pork chop, chicken, hamburger steak; everything had a gravy. And if you didn't have a gravy, you said, "What's wrong with you? Where's the gravy?"

Love hovered in the kitchen, and I learned that story hovered in the kitchen too. I asked my grandmother one time about her Christmas. "What kinds of presents did you get?"

♪ "What kinds of presents did you get?" ♪

Now, my grandmother was born in 1899. She told me, well, maybe it was a dress that her mother made, or an orange, or a handmade doll, made out of corn husks. I was a little disappointed by her answers. These gifts seem very paltry to me and so I asked her, "Were you poor?" That's a good conversation stopper. "Were you poor?" She stopped what she was doing and dried her hands on the apron. I knew I was in for it. Well, when they start drying their hands on the apron.

[Audience laughs]

She held my question up in the air.

"Poor?"

The word curled and suspended. You know how when you ask a question and then you wish you hadn't asked the question? And you're not sure if you asked maybe something that was insulting or wrong or not to be talked about or… I wasn't sure if I'd said something wrong. And my grandmother, it seemed to me like she took a very long time to consider the question, "Were you poor?"

Finally, smiling, she said, "Poor? No, we weren't poor. Or if we were, I didn't know about it."

♪ "We always had what we needed and enough to share. ♪
♪ So, no, we weren't poor." ♪

I never forgot her words. "We always had what we needed and enough to share." Her definition of poor and my definition of poor were different. I'll never forget her words.

♪ "We had all we needed and enough to share. ♪
♪ We have the sky and the moon and the land and love to spare. ♪
♪ All we needed, perhaps not much. ♪
♪ We had all that we needed. Just enough. ♪
♪ We had all we needed and enough to share. ♪
♪ The sky, the moon, the land, and love to spare. ♪
♪ All we needed, perhaps not much, but it was all we needed. ♪
♪ And it was just enough." ♪

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