True Fellowship is The Best Quality of Life Insurance, Part 1

Rev. Lisa Vazquez, the blog host of Black Women, Blow the Trumpet! (listed on the sidebar), is hosting an extremely important conversation in her latest post entitled "Tomorrow Is Not Promised." I strongly urge everyone to check it out and consider the questions she raises. The extreme isolation of so many Black women's lives is a recurring theme and underlying factor in so many of the problems we collectively face. It's one of the reasons I've been so agitated about Black folks' prospects in the current economic crisis. During the First Great Depression we at least had strong family and community ties for mutual support. During this current crisis, many of us have nobody to watch our backs.

Rev. Lisa asks why some Black women don't invest fully into building close relationships with other women. I believe that there are two reasons for this. One, the vast majority of us don't know how to build or (even more importantly) maintain true friendships. Two, those of us who do know how to build true friendships are often too lazy to do the work needed to maintain them.

We usually don't go beneath the surface when we talk about Black women's isolation. It's difficult because doing so dredges up many, many unpleasant realities. It's much more comfortable to keep it lightweight. Her willingness to dig deep is one the many things I appreciate about Lisa's blog. Instead of writing a book-length comment at her blog, I decided to respond at length here.

I've been been concerned about the issue of true fellowship for all of my adult life. Not because I'm such a wonderful, caring, or loving person. But because it's in my own self-interest to pay attention to this. You see, when I was 19 years old I realized certain things about my biological relatives. I realized that, with the exception of my parents and a few other mostly now-deceased people, I can't count on my biological relatives for ANYTHING. Anything at all. Certainly not anything in a time of need. At 19, I realized that I would have to consciously and deliberately build a network of close friends if I wanted support.

My mother doesn't understand what went wrong with my generation of our extended family. She doesn't understand what went wrong between me and my brother. She was blessed to have a loving and supportive extended family. Her sisters are her friends (in addition to her non-relative friends). I can't find the words that would make any of this comprehensible to her. Anything I could say would sound like recriminations about how her generation parented my generation. So, I say nothing to her about this. On the other hand, my father understands perfectly because his family was never close-knit.

I have many, many cousins. Most of them are 5-10 years older than me. A few of the men look good on paper, but I wouldn't wish being involved with many of them on any woman. There are only a few solid family men in the bunch. The women are mostly never-married or divorced mothers. Over the years, I've watched my cousins repeatedly confirm the conclusion I drew when I was 19.

One confirmation was when my aunt was sent home from the hospital to die. She had cancer. I watched while most of our "family" stayed away. Including the various male cousins who had slept on her couch when they needed help "to get back on their feet." Including unemployed adult relatives.

I was one of a grand total of four female relatives who took turns staying with my aunt during her last weeks. The four consisted of me, my mother, her other surviving sister, and a cousin. I sat with my aunt and nervously prayed that she didn't die during one of my shifts. I was too frightened to ask my aunt (who's a nurse) how to tell if someone is dead. I didn't want to burden my already-reeling mother with these sorts of questions. So, I sat. And I prayed. And I worried. And I seethed at the missing in action relatives. I sat with my aunt while she passed in and out of consciousness. I sat while she periodically moaned in pain that wasn't eased by her morphine prescription. My aunt had served as the next "Big Mama" after my grandmother passed away.

I seethed throughout the service for my aunt while the MIAs sobbed and wailed. I seethed at the burial while some of the female MIAs screamed and acted as if they were going to throw themselves into the ground with the casket. I barely resisted the urge to say, "Go ahead and jump in there."

My biological relatives love to have huge family gatherings. Only when the sun is shining and things are going well. If you're sick or having other serious problems, they'll be sure to come see about you after you are dead and buried. I've watched them repeat this pattern with many relatives that they loooove. Since they do this with relatives that they are genuinely fond of, I know I've got nothing coming from them. In my anger over the years at this repeated pattern, I've warned a couple of my male relatives that I'm NOT in training to be a "Big Mama." And there are NO spare couches for them in my home. Of course, by saying this I also offended some of the handful of relatives who behaved appropriately during family crises. I. Am. Not. Sorry. All of this is painful for my mother.

I'm saying all of this to explain why I've always been hyper aware of the issue of true fellowship. Because of my family situation, I knew that I would need true friends. Back to my answer to Lisa's original question: Unfortunately, my family situation is not rare among the current generation of Black people. There are many of us who genuinely don't know what close and supportive relationships (of any kind) look like. As a consequence, many Black women don't know how to build or maintain close, supportive relationships.

Then there are those of us who know better because we've seen better. Many of us are complacent in our lives and too lazy to make the effort that is required to maintain close friendships. We don't do it because we don't have to. We can afford not to. We're comfortable in our marriages, and within our loving and supportive extended families.

Sometimes, those of us who are blessed with certain things are totally unaware of the parallel realities that other Black women live within. For example, because I was blessed to be raised in material comfort I was totally unaware of the world of payday loans and rent-to-own stores. I had never heard of such things until I was exposed to them while working with poor clients. It's a similar thing with this issue. Sometimes when I hear sisters ask why so many Black women cling to unworthy men, I can hear from their voices that they've never caught a glimpse of the parallel universe that some women are living in. They've never witnessed the mental pressure that is caused by knowing that nobody has your back.

I suspect that the only reason I'm not clueless and careless with my friendships is because I can't afford it. My parents and remaining aunts are elderly. Besides them, my friends are the only people who would help me in a crisis.