Twenty-Six Candles

Today is my 26^th birthday. I’m walking back to my mom’s house from the grocery store to celebrate with my family. These grocery bags are heavy, but I feel light. It’s a Friday in May in Georgia, so it’s humid and hot. The sun is beating down on my brown skin, and this is when I feel most alive, when I’m walking or running outside. Free. The sun only thinks it’s a tour de force, a powerful skin darkener. But my flesh and I have proven it wrong time and time again, staying the way we always have been, splitting the middle between milk chocolate (my favorite flavor) and dark (my mom’s preference). I like the skin I’m in. But not everybody likes it.

My Uncle B always used to say, “What a celebration to be a young man of color, but to be old like me, now that’s a miracle.” He was 47 when he was killed. I guess he was “old” for a black man, but he seemed young and fit and like somebody I wanted to be when I grew up. The murder is still unsolved (or, I should say unresolved). Everyone knows who killed him, but since that man has never been charged, we have had to drum up acceptance and forgiveness within our collective hearts. Those who could bring the murderer to justice have turned a blind eye, and the rest of us don’t have the authority or power. We need a movement. What would it take?

All I know is I don’t take birthdays for granted. Life is just different for us, the darker ones. I never really understood it, even though family members, including Uncle B, used to try to explain it to me:

Don’t look suspicious.

                                                              What do you mean? I don’t think I do.

Never wear a hoodie at night.

                                                               But it’s freezing in January!

Always get a receipt from the cashier.

                                                               Who wants to keep up with that?

Keep your car in good shape.

                                                                Okay, fine. Why?

Don’t run at night.

                                                                Good enough for me, I love the sun.

I used to combat these repetitive instructions with eye-rolls until my uncle died. Then, I started paying attention.

Back in February, thoughts of Uncle B haunted me during one of the scariest moments of my life. I was heeding all the advice, following all the “rules,” so I was completely caught off guard when, while I was out for a run, these men started following me in their truck. I, naturally, started running faster, but they caught up to me, stopped the truck, and jumped out. They had guns.

The rest of the story is blank for me. I know I was hurt pretty bad; I’m just glad I got away. With no evidence (other than my injuries) and no eyewitnesses (their faces are a blur to me; I was running away from them), no charges have been brought, and my story has been filed away with the rest of the stories like mine that collect dust. I’d like to see justice brought to my attackers, of course. What would it take?

These are thoughts that sometimes cloud my mind, but today, I’m trying to focus on my birthday and enjoy the celebration. I open the front door to my mom’s house and hear singing coming from the kitchen.

…Happy birthday to you!

That’s the end of the song, and I’ve just walked in. A bit premature? Maybe they are warming up? I get to the kitchen doorway and see, there on the table, a cake with lit candles. No one seems to have heard my entrance, so I joke, “Hey fam, did I miss my own party?”

Not a soul looks up.

My heart starts racing as I look around the room at the faces. Tears. So many tears streaking the cheeks of my family members. Some are looking down at the floor, some are staring at the flames on the cake. No one is speaking.

I look down at my hands and realize there are no grocery bags. Surely this is just a dream. But before I even have time to entertain that idea, like a flood, the memories of that February day come rushing back.

They were relentless, those men. They attacked and attacked some more. It was so very painful, so much blood. I can see it all from a bird’s eye view: my body, lying there on the ground, lifeless.

Lifeless.

I didn’t make it out of there at all. The story didn’t just go blank for me, it ended there. I have no memories from the past two and a half months. In fact, I can’t remember anything from before my walk home this morning. And now I get it. It’s because I don’t exist. Not anymore, not after that day in February.

This is a postmortem birthday party my family is having for me. And somehow, I have been allowed to see it, to be here. But why? What good does it do for me to see my loved ones if they can’t see me? They are the ones who are sad, who are suffering. There is no more suffering for me. I’m just a ghost who got to feel the sun on his skin this morning. Am I supposed to accomplish something while I am here? There is too much suffering in this room, in this world, and I am just one person. Well, I was one person. I’m not enough. We need the entire world to get angry enough to care and kind enough to protect each other. How can we get the powerful to wake up for the powerless? What would it take?

I have so many questions, but I must pass the torch because I am but an observer now. This is too heavy, seeing all the sadness in this room, the pools of tears under each pair of eyes like the melted wax on top of the cake.

I don’t know how to wipe their tears away, but I have to do something. I float over to the table, make a silent wish, pull a deep breath into my invisible lungs, and blow toward the candles. All twenty-six of them, one by one, flicker and burn out.