I Want Toni Morrison to Live Forever
Because, Toni cannot be forgotten
Fairy tales. Make-believe. She was my favorite story. Except, she was not. She was real. She was alive. And now, she is not.
Upon receiving the news from my partner, my first thought was, “Not Toni. Anybody but Toni.” I haven’t written an essay in months. Mainly because I’ve been busy and mainly because I’ve been tired and mainly because I’ve been bored. Mainly because I have not had words in me that felt like they needed to be somewhere else other than in my notes, other than in my notebook, the one I carry on flights and into rooms when people don’t generally look like me, speak like me, think like me. And then Toni died. And now, I have so many words. I have so many things. I have so much I want to share about our majesty, our queen, our lightning bolt.
I needed more time, I think. I thought I would have it. I thought Toni would live forever. I thought I would run into her on my own book tour, or see her in a Whole Foods, and we would both reach for a peach, or an apple, or a piece of ourselves in the same aisle and smile because that’s what Black people do. I watched her documentary with my partner, and I ate popcorn and ordered a sandwich because NYC still has posh spots where viewing cinema is seen as an art. The brother at the counter gave me two free bags of chips. I…
