The Bluest Day: Losing Toni Morrison
By Lisa D. DeNeal
My mornings are pretty routine. I wake up, speak to God, stretch and leave my room. I assist my Dad with getting dressed for the day, prepare our breakfast, and his pills. After he is taken care of, I sit down, eat and power the laptop or go through my phone.
It rained overnight and since then, the heavens are split with two moods; overcast gray and bright blue. The brightness eventually wins, but my mood is fighting me. For 21 years, August has not sat well with me. I said goodbye, for now, to my 68-year-old mother, Ada, on a stifling, hot August 23 evening.
This morning, after powering the laptop, the first alert caused me to gasp out loud, cover my mouth, then let out a sob. One of my literary mothers, Nobel Prize laureate, Pulitzer Prize recipient, and 2012 Presidential Medal of Freedom recipient, Toni Morrison, had physically left this bittersweet planet. Ms. Morrison, born Chloe Ardelia Wofford in Lorain, Ohio, Feb. 18, 1931, died Monday, Aug. 5 at Montefiore Medical Center. She died of complications from pneumonia.
Like many Black writers, particularly Black women writers, reading, seeing or hearing the news of such a giant in Black American literature making an earthly to eternal transition, has me reeling in emotions. Throughout most of the day, and for what will be on repeat, we are in mourning. We dropped our pens and pencils, paused before allowing our fingertips to touch the keyboards, and stared in disbelief. Sports fans, fans of singers, actors, etc. may scoff at the attention we’re giving towards Ms. Morrison’s passing.
Writers have heroes, too. I call Morrison a literary mother because she gave birth to stories that will never die. She birthed stories that she wanted to read. Her stories are about African-American lives, history, love, hatred, relationships, mental illness, mental anguish, betrayal and forgiveness. They actually go beyond these terms. We read her books because we know these stories from our homes, and families, friends, communities, and history.
My first experience with Toni Morrison, was in my teens. I read a copy of her novel, ‘Sula.’ ‘Sula’ is a story about a friendship between Sula and Nel that starts as little girls and grows into adulthood. The friendship, while strong during the early years of some innocence, shatters years later due to a betrayal from Sula.
I did not read her 1970 novel debut, ‘The Bluest Eye’ — I was three years old — until early adulthood. By then, I had been writing unseen short stories, poems since I was 10, and my thoughts on pages of journals since I was 13. I can’t even remember if I read other books by Morrison as a class assignment, like ‘Tar Baby’ and ‘Song of Solomon.’ I just read them.
Then ‘Beloved’ was released in 1987, my 20th year of life. I knew about it, but did not read it until a few years before the motion picture. ‘Beloved’ is described as historical fiction, because it is inspired by the true story of Margaret Garner, an African-American slave who escaped Kentucky in 1856 and fled to Ohio, a free state. The story of Sethe, a free slave who is haunted by her baby, earned Morrison a Pulitzer for Fiction in 1988. I eventually read, ‘Jazz,’ a couple of years after its release in 1992 and ‘Paradise’ as soon as it was published five years later. For those unaware, ‘Beloved,’ ‘Jazz’ and, ‘Paradise,’ is a trilogy.
The last Morrison novel I read was, ‘God Help the Child,’ about a dark skin daughter, her light skin parents, stereotypes of dark vs light, self-love, and living in a world that works to destroy you because of the color of your skin.
Ms. Morrison’s transition is now a part of my August angst. She was one of my literary mothers who inspired me to write what I want to read about, and not worry if others will or won’t. I welcome her as a literary spirit mother who will watch over me as I create characters, and give them chances to tell their stories.
