The other two, Rich and Rita, was back from some city they had done gone to after they was educated and they wanted to get on back to civilization, they said.
So that’s where I was. Still with my family. Blood so many places I couldn’t never more keep up with it. Wouldn’t know some pieces of my family if they stepped into my eyes.
When my beloved daughter Always closed her eyes and rested her soul, she didn’t come to me. She passed me by. Oh Lord.
Now … I figured I’d go somewhere and lay down and close my eyes and be gone too. I’m shame to tell you, but that ain’t what happened. I tried my best to get on way from here. Tired of livin without livin. But try as I might, I didn’t go nowhere. Just fell asleep again. Short nap. Woke up fifteen years later, bout 1933 or so. Didn’t know nowhere else to go, so went back to Always’s house.
You know what I found? Like to saw history repeatin itself! I said to myself, things got to get better somehow! Everything looked so peaceful on the top. I happen to stay round just long nough to try to enjoy some of that peace, then when I saw what all was under that peace, I HAD to stay round to see what would happen again, to my blood. My blood. My family.
You all had had wars and famines, depressions and recessions, union fights, labor horrors, poverty worse, look like, then some slavery. For all colors this time! People was catchin hell and didn’t have to die to do it!
Them men up there in them high offices, all over the world, was still lyin to you all. You all was lettin em then. It ain’t changed too much now!
Time. Time and life. They moves on. History don’t repeat itself, people repeat themselves! History couldn’t do it if you all didn’t make it. Time don’t let you touch it tho. God was wise. He sure knew what he was doin! Cause you all is reachin for the moon! Done got there! If the sun wasn’t so hot … God knew what he was doin then too, cause, see, life depends on the sun.
They call Time a old man. But Time don’t age, ain’t old. Every day is new. Don’t nothin age but us and what we make. Wonder why? Time and Life. Well … Time takes care of everything … and it will take care of you.
I was so tired in my soul. Tired of all I had lived and seen, now, I was tired from all I had stayed round to see. I saw my blood spread out all over into all such places I never dreamed of in my wildest dreams. Makes me know, if from one woman all these different colors and nationalities could come into bein, what must the whole world be full of?!
Yet I found more strangeness in the lives of my new blood through my children. Always there tho, was love and fear, and hate lurkin behind. Some happiness. Some pain. Finally I even found some peace. But I’m gettin ahead of my story again.
I’m gettin tired too. And weaker. I seem to be fadin on way from here.
I want to stay … and I don’t want to stay. To see what happens in this world so full of so many different colored people. But, I’m scared to see too much more. Such a wave of hate is being planted up deeper in the world. The devil is the busiest thing I know.
Some kin have been known to marry each other, or make sex and love. Well, life done proved it’s some of everybody in this world, all colors.
It’s some who tries to spread love … and, I think Love will always win. Always. But … what a fight it must make.
I thank God for the people in this here world that tries to spread love to all kind of people. Cause, chile, can you imagine what this world would be like without em?
All my family, my blood, is mixed up now. They don’t even all know each other. I just hope they don’t never hate or fight each other, not knowin who they are.
Cause all these people livin are brothers and sisters and cousins. All these beautiful different colors! We! … We the human Family. God said so! FAMILY!
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
J. CALIFORNIA COOPER is the author of three collections of stories, Some Soul to Keep, Homemade Love (a recipient of the 1989 American Book Award), and A Piece of Mine, as well as seventeen plays, many of which have been produced and performed on the stage, public television, radio, and college campuses. Her plays have also been anthologized, and in 1978 she was named Black Playwright of the Year for Strangers, which was performed at the San Francisco Palace of Fine Arts. Among her numerous awards are the James Baldwin Writing Award (1988) and the Literary Lion Award from the American Library Association (1988). Ms. Cooper lives in a small town in Texas, and is the mother of a daughter, Paris Williams.
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