Daughter of the African Diaspora
I am a daughter of the African Diaspora. Across the ocean of countless waves, when I sit sure ‘nuff still, I hear my African ancestors call to me from over 400 years saying, “You will always be ours.” Their hopeful voices reverberate around me and create an invisible garland of protection, which I wear like a long lost family heirloom. It drapes ‘round my neck three times and is gathered at the end and tied off like a sacred amulet. My ancestors comfort me whenever I call on them to help me stand. They rally around me and give me the courage to live my life all the way out to the fullest measure of God’s imagination, and that’s a mighty long way.
When I feel some kind of way, I wonder: Is there still some semblance of my first African mother visible in my brown eyes, on my dark skin? What words of my first African father are stamped into my spirit echoing up from a slit in my soul saying, “I am always with you, my girl, don’t be afraid.” I imagine that slit in his soul, the one that was permanently etched there when he left the golden shores of Africa, eventually mended by and by. That is how he survived, but he passed that wound in the heart of his soul on down for hundreds of years. It’s inheritance only expired 4 generations ago when my great, great grandfather rejected it and ran away from the plantation.
That first act of defiance branded him as a renegade, and I took right after him. He was an unconventional, courageous, compassionate, audacious, creative, believer. He believed he deserved to live life, to be free, and have the audacity to love. At least, I imagine him this way. Of course, I never knew him. I never learned his name. I can’t call it. It’s the blood between us that binds us. A good measure of his boldness remains in my veins and that essence that he imparted to me makes us kin at the core. We are family forever. The garland of protection was his idea. He blessed it together with God. That’s how it got its power.
I suppose a man like my fearless great, great grandfather made his way into the arms of a steadfast, hopeful, miraculous woman. Who was she, my great, great grandmother? How did she reclaim her own freedom? What did the safety of her bosom feel like to her first daughter? How did she love herself after the imposition of slavery and every day all over again after the assaults against her beautiful black body? Tears squelch the fire of rage in my mind as I ponder these questions. I have no room for hate and rage in my mind of God. I cannot hate those enemies. Too many centuries have elapsed between us. Besides I believed Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. when he said, “hate cannot drive out hate. Only love can do that.”
Love. A deep gratitude washes over me when I think about how much I have been loved in my lifetime. I am in awe of it. I know I deserve love because I am a child of the divine loving God, and yet I am baffled by the magnitude of love that has been poured over me. Like a holy oil meant for anointing, I have been transfixed by all that love in my life, and I was made whole by it even when I was still a little girl. The endearment that I feel for the gift of the way I have been loved makes me weep with joy from a sacred place in the upper, inner room of my most high self.
Great grandmothers, grandmothers, husband, aunts, uncles, cousins, friends, my very precious mother, father and little sister, I pour out a libation for each of you. I call back out to our ancestors, and I ask them to help me find the expressions from a deep place within me to make you feel how much I am thankful for you. I want to tell you from my spirit to your spirit how much you helped me see who I really am — to know that I am worthy of living the life of my heart’s desires. Because of you, I have the confidence to reach back and claim all of myself — my African American, African, God-given self.
I have returned to my beloved Africa — the Motherland. From the moment I landed in 2008, she recognized me as her own. It seems there was a cord dropped deep down in the ocean on the horrific middle passage, and over centuries our cord was anchored safely in the great depths of the Atlantic. The cord, a tie around my heart nurtured me all the way back home to her shores. I am here. I am gratefully here at home. I am thankful for my family on the other side of the ocean who loved me into believing that I, a daughter of the African Diaspora could make it back.
Thank you for reading my work. ~Renicha (Nish) McCree Tetteh-Kujorjie~
