Moonflower Archive

By J’Nya Johnson

I never got to say goodbye.

I didn’t have any last moments with you.

I didn’t get to see you before they took you.

They wouldn’t wait for me.

And a week later, they gave me your ashes, all stuffed into a necklace.

It was weird for me, thinking of holding you in my palm.

I couldn’t process it.

And then they said to me, “you’re not gonna say thank you?”

Thank you for what?

For taking my grandmother away from me?

For a cheap black rope necklace that has a piece of her in it?

For sending my mother into a depression?

Thank you for what?

I was 18 then,

just a few days after my graduation.

I was already having a tough year.

Lost myself.

Lost my grandfather

Lost my little brother.

Almost lost my mother.

But I had to keep it all together.

I was only 18.

I felt so much that eventually I couldn’t feel anything.

I wore the necklace to honor you,

but I felt no connection to it.

There were no tears.

I didn’t grieve.

I didn’t have the capacity to.

They swept it under the rug.

They never spoke about you

or acknowledged what they did.

They never apologized.

Five years later,

at 23,

I broke down.

I was finally able to feel your death.

Realizing I would never hear your voice again.

Never get to dance with you again.

Never get to tell you the stories of me becoming a young woman.

I realized I’m more like you than I knew,

and I’ll never get to tell you.

I know sadness now.

I can feel it.

But what I feel most is anger.

Anger because you were stolen from me.

Anger because no one gave you grace.

Anger because decisions were made about your life behind the backs of the people who loved you, and you were taken from us through deception.

I don’t know if I’ll ever forgive them.

And frankly, I don’t care if I ever do.

I just know that I miss you.

That I love you.

That I’ll never forget you.

That I thank you.

And that I’m sorry.