"With You" Celebrating... | My Lou
Cover photo by Ron Lach
Movement 1 of “With You” for me is the folks who, like Naomi did with Ruth, and Anita Baker did with Tony Terry, see, believe in, and support us for who we are. Their care of us is a matter of lovingkindness or chesed, which is loving someone simply because they are. Lovingkindness requires seeing the person in front of us as who they are—not for who we want them to be to us, or according to us.
As Baker purportedly told Terry, these are the folks who in reading our soul signature, “just want us to blow up” and be wildly successful in who we are in life. They affirm us, they support us, and even shield us from how one another and our own selves may detract from us.
To Lou, Second Mom (Mim!),
For being a living, breathing heartbeat. For being the person about whom I once heard someone ask, “Is this bish for real?” because your welcome so exuded Love and embrace that they were loath to believe that you are genuine. Your light and effervescence are obvious and real, and still at first unbelievable in a world where so many of us hide our light of Love under a bushel, or we’ve extinguished it altogether.
We’re afraid that the light won’t come through as we hope, while also ashamed and scared of what we know it can do—the depths to which it will lead us that we’re not ready to venture. (And we, I maybe mean me.)
You so gently and powerfully illuminate the ways that we’re hurting, and let us know that it’s okay to hurt—and just as important that’s it’s okay to heal. We don’t have to live shuttered inside the shadows of what happened to us, or what we’ve done. We have always been more than circumstances and behaviors. We are beautiful because we are.
I remember the day I realized, “Oh, Lou more than cares about me. She loves me.” And it is hands down one of the best days of my life. One of the best people I know loves me. Just me. Not what I do, or what I give them. Just me.
And there was a tiny, persistent voice that kept trying to say, “But this can’t be right! We don’t deserve it!”
Your love is more persistent. Because I remember gradually thinking, “Excuse me, I do not care. Lou loves me. And I’m gonna take it!”
And your gentle brilliance helps us to see and hold one another in our hurt—to reach even beyond our selves to care for and with our family, friends, and neighbors in richer ways. To become the love with one another that you have been with and inspire in us.
Right before I moved away, I was packing, and remember thinking, “Well, who’s gonna love everyone the way that Lou does?” And then had the sinking realization, “Oh shit. I guess it’s gonna have to be me. And I’m not there.”
And I’m still not there. Still got a waaaays to go. It’s a messy journey, and some folks have gotten run over. And some instances I’m maybe still not sorry, because I still think they deserved it. But I also know it’s a journey that I’m continuing in my life and being. It’s part of me becoming myself.
Any time I think of what it means to be received just because I am, I think of you. And any time I think of community, I think, “If it’s not Love, it’s not community.” Because I’m thinking of you.
I know how hard it can be for me to burn and shine my own light when it gets deflected by one another’s disbelief, and even fear and disdain of it. But I’ve always witnessed you having just gone on shining and shimmering…and in pretty short order invite and inspire everyone who experiences you to begin glowing, too.
Which is why, at the end of the event where your welcome felt suspect and overwhelming for a new guest, she looked at everyone at our table and said, “This bish is for. real. I’m here for it.”
When I think my shining is meaningless, or feel compelled in a space to dim my light and my Love, I think of you. “Bish, be for. real. Be you. Be the person that Lou sees in full, and loves to the world. And the folks who want to receive you will do the same.”
Thank you for being Love that cultivates Love that cultivates Love. And for being the person whose face I see when I listen to India.Arie’s “Flowers.”
The world can be so cold but you are always warm
When my back is tired you take me in your arms
You’re the moral compass directing me to light
You’re the golden glow in the middle of my night
In recognition of the person that you are
In celebration of your heart…
That’s why I wanna give your flowers now…