JUST LIKE FAMILY

I am pleased to introduce Lucia King who has posted the following essay about the African American woman who raised her and her experience of confronting the nuclear age.   She, like many others, struggles with the conflicts and confusions, as well as the presence of love, that the relationship engendered, which continue to haunt her today, and the absurdity of  the possibility of nuclear war.  I think many will recognize and empathize with her experiences.

In addition to being an essayist, Lucia King is a poet.  Her poem, A Litany On The Origins Of Our Nuclear Dilemma: 1981 is published below as part of this post  after the “More” tag.   Despite it being written in 1981, the themes of the poem are relevant today.  She writes about loss in childhood.  “Childhood–the great burial ground for human pain.”  And “How does a child understand this skewed picture of life–this split?”  And nuclear war’s verisimilitudes that converge with memories of childhood.  ‘ “We are now a global nuclear community tied together by warheads checkering our global landscapes, not unlike those seemingly random memories from childhood landscapes.” ‘

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Honoring Julia

by Lucia King 

               In 1981 I wrote a poem entitled “A Litany on the Origins of Our Nuclear Dilemma.”  I wrote it around the time of significant negotiations between the U.S. and Russia on nuclear arms reduction I call “Litany” a therapy poem.   I was engaged in family systems therapy when I wrote it, trying to give voice to the many dualities that had marked my childhood.  As described in the poem, one of the dualities I was struggling with was how we treated the black woman my mother hired as our maid in 1948 a few months before I was born and who worked for my mother and father for 24 years until I and my three siblings left for college.              

Julia Miller and Lucia’s Sister

As toddlers we couldn’t pronounce Julia, so we called her Ju-Ju.   My experience with Ju-Ju, was loving and fun, and yes, she scolded us when we were naughty. However, from the perspective of the white, segregationist culture in which I was raised,  my relationship with her in childhood created a painful duality I could not understand, and a duality in which, as an adult, I have harbored a lifetime of guilt.  Ju-Ju fed me, changed my diapers, rocked me in the old wooden rocker, took me out on strolls, and listened to my ramblings when I came home from school–you get the picture–she was the other woman who mothered me. But I was taught that she was different from me, and therefore she, and those like her, had to be separate from me.      

           In the poem I refer to meals with Julia–she did not eat at the table with us.  I took a little poetic license in that verse– Ju-Ju did eat at the table with us, but only when she attended us on family vacations.  In our home Ju-Ju had her own bathroom off the kitchen. We called it, “Ju-Ju’s bathroom,” even though we used it.  After the workday, she lived in a separate neighborhood across the tracks. She didn’t have children.  I always thought of myself as her child, as well as my mother’s. As I learned in Memphis in the 50’s and 60’s of my childhood, there was a litany of do’s and don’ts that were supposed to separate Ju-Ju from me and vice versa.  I was taught that Julia was not like me and I was not like her, all because of the color of her skin. Of course, no one ever said we were actually separate because  of the color of my skin.

               How does a child understand this skewed picture of life–this split?  I couldn’t.  I was confused by this picture.  But I accepted it and from my culture learned to internalize that difference. That split in my culture became a split in my psyche. I had two mothers, one who loved me  because I was hers, and another who loved me unconditionally even though I wasn’t hers. 

               In 2012 I signed up to take a course on the craft of writing poetry at a place called Writerhouse in Charlottesville, Virginia, near where I live.  The last assignment the teacher gave us in that first eight-week session was to write a poem about my mother’s kitchen.  Ju-Ju figured prominently in that poem.  One poem about Ju-Ju led to other poems about my life with her, and other poems led to essays,  my first one describing  my experience in attending her funeral.  Julia died in 1983.  Now, thirty years after she died, Julia’s love is still sounding within, helping me let go  of the guilt about the culture of segregation in which I was raised and allowing me to give voice to my unresolved grief and love for her–and to honor her.

Julia at the beach

               In my exploration of Julia’s presence and meaning in my life, I realized I needed to read more about the culture and history of the south.  I needed to come out of my silence and face the history of my place of birth and culture.  In my research I have heard a term which was new to me–intergenerational trauma.  Understanding its meaning  and realizing that it applies to both the oppressed and oppressors has opened up space for me.  At the time I wrote the poem, “A Litany on the Origins of Our Nuclear Dilemma” in 1981, I did not realize that my “therapy” poem was giving voice to that intergenerational trauma.  I did understand my need for reconciliation and peace. This has been and is a lifetime journey for me.  Here is “The Litany.” « Read the rest of this entry »