Bomani - (from the Malawian language) strong soldier
“They had all this foreign shit. They didn’t have shit on my brother, man.”
Doughboy
When I was little I used to cry. I was a sensitive child. I can think of certain parts of movies that would leave me crying everytime they came up. Hell I cried during G.I. Joe the Movie cause I thought Serpentor had killed Duke. As time moved on I didn’t cry as much. In most recent years it took some moment involving a father and son and my personal anguish on the subject was all that could bring it up. Before my aunt (my godmother) died me and a friend of mine had to carry her up the stairs of the house I grew up in. At her funeral I didn’t even cry until my cousin stopped me outside of her funeral and held me. I didn’t think I would cry at all that day, but something about him trying to comfort me made it all come out. I’ve been watching the news and seeing people cry over a loved one who has died or been killed and it kind of puzzles me. I don’t question their loss…I just wonder why it’s not as easy for me anymore. I can’t really think up the number of people I know who have died. It’s like trying to think of all the girls I ever dated, the more I think the more names I come up with. Honestly, I tend to think that both situations are a little sad. Pouring out beer is easy all I have to do is tilt my wrist and watch as it splash and spread across the concrete. The funny thing is I don’t even see crying in these cases as something a man shouldn’t do. I just wonder why it’s so hard for me. A friend of mine was in Africa and at a funeral some of the younger men and women started shooting into the air. An elder asked why they would do this and they responded, “We have no more tears.” I wonder if this is the case for me? Have I known so many people that died that I expect my friends to be killed? I’m not even sure if I feel numb…I can’t even describe it anymore. It’s like hearing gunshots. I don’t get nervous or worry, now I guess the caliber of the weapon judge if shots are being wasted. When I turned 26 I enjoyed myself. I said that I had made it that I hadn’t been killed and I wasn’t a statistic. Now it seems that more black men are being killed up until they’re 28…I guess I have to make it a few more months. Eric “Bomani” Knight didn’t make it. He had just turned 26 at the end of 2005 and this weekend he was shot and killed on N. Smallwood. Now he’s gone. I haven’t seen anything on the news about him. I saw alot of things on other people, missing people the guy who was killed at the movies last week. It seems like the rest of the city isn’t shedding tears for him either. I can feel the burn behind my eyes. It’s a sign that tears would like to well up around them and find their way down my cheeks. I haven’t tried to fight them, they just won’t come. I keep thinking that seeing him in May was the last time I’d see him alive. The conversation we had is the last one we’ll have. I remember thinking he was doing good. I remember laughing to myself at some of the questions he asked the Sangoma. I remember telling Swad about it all and explaining to Nana why I thought it was funny. I keep thinking back to things about him hoping that maybe something will trigger and I’ll be reminded that I do have emotions and that I will miss my friend. I don’t have to lie when I say he was a good person…I don’t think badly about myself cause I haven’t shed a tear for him. I just wonder if I’ll be able to cry.
I hear you talking my brother. They say that sadness is a natural feeling which, if unfelt, just stays in our array of unresolved trauma knots. As with other emotions, if you feel it then in time it will go away. Resist feeling it and you run the risk of it hanging around forever, periodically erupting inappropriately in our body’s attempt to rid itself of associated trauma knots. I did a thesis years ago on tears and how decades ago, the average individual it was said saw it as being very unfashionable to cry, most particularly back in the 50’s and 60’s man.
There were many negative judgments commonly made about those who did so in public. But looking at all of the pain, the strife, war, death, pestilence, etc., that today that seems to be changing. We all need to feel sadness and grief at times. If we are not to remain emotionally disabled, then we need to allow whatever sobs need to wrack us and whatever tears need to roll down our cheeks. Poor a little liquor for those fallen soldiers, and keep their memories alive.
Comment by Luke Cage — June 21, 2006 @ 4:42 am
Because there are no tears doesn’t mean that you’re not crying. Very moving post.
Comment by jali — June 21, 2006 @ 12:05 pm
i experienced loss and didn’t cry, but watched “the notebook” and cried my eyes swollen. i associate not-crying with numbness or disbelief in that moment in time. tears may come later down the line, it did for me. i don’t question your loss. holla at me so we can wrap.
Comment by yodit — June 22, 2006 @ 12:03 pm
I’m sorry for your loss. Just because it’s okay to cry, doesn’t mean you have to. I hate when people try to MAKE a person behave the way they feel they should emotionally. Whether your cry or not, you still feel the loss. That speaks for your feelings still being alive.
Comment by Breez — June 22, 2006 @ 6:07 pm
Last time I cried, was an apology i had to give…and before that was when i saw my pops in the hospital bed, dead. I too have lost the ability to cry, its not a good thing…not at all. Make you…cold. I watch my son cry…secretly I smile. He does it for both of us.
Comment by gunner kaufman — June 22, 2006 @ 11:01 pm
I’m sorry to hear about your friend.
I don’t know what else to say.
Comment by God's Child — June 23, 2006 @ 4:39 pm
People mourn in their own way. As tough-as-nails as I’d like to think I am, and as I can be, when my youngest niece died this past year, it hit me like a ton of bricks, as I’d never had anyone that close and immediate to me, die like that. I didn’t react that way when my estranged father passed almost a decade ago, because, simply put, I didn’t have any type of rapport with him.
Before my niece’s death, I didn’t think I was capable of that sort of emotion. It still hits me unexpectedly, from time to time.
You’ve been dealt many losses, perhaps you’re tapped out. I don’t think this makes you stoic, or incapable of feeling, however.
Comment by coffey0072 — June 26, 2006 @ 3:58 am