It’s Coming
I walked in from the gym tonight to find Sam sitting with Ruby at the dining room table. She was shoveling hummus into her mouth with corn chips, alternately chasing it with broccoli, soy milk and a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. It was a meal straight from the food pyramid.
Toward the end of her feast, Ruby reached into the front pocket of her sweatshirt and presented a handful of tiny flowers she’d collected for me at the park. She carefully poured them out onto the table between us.
“Thank you, honey!” I said. “I love them, they’re beautiful!”
She covered them with her napkin. “Flowers sleeping, Mama,” she offered. And then she removed the napkin, pointed to the little pile and said, “Pink!”
“That’s right, they’re pink. What color is this?” I asked, pointing to the pumpkin on the table.
“LO-lahnge,” she said.
“Yup.”
“And what color is this?” Sam asked, pointing to his new book.
“LEL-oh.”
We continued like this for a few minutes until Ruby rested her hand on my arm.
“What color is Mama’s arm?” I tested.
Quiet. Quiet.
Then.
“Black and white!”
“And what color is Ruby’s arm?”
“Black!”
“Yes. Well…really, Ruby’s arm is brown. A beautiful brown.”
“Okay, and what color is daddy’s arm?” I asked as she set her long hummus-dipped fingers on Sam’s left forearm.
Quiet again.
So we asked if it was orange or yellow or peach. We asked her if it had light browns and tiny tans. We asked her if it was white like the snow is white or white like the milk is white. To all of it she just shook her head and said a quiet string of nos, trying so hard to answer the challenge, to categorize and label the color of his skin.
“So what color is daddy’s arm, honey?” We both asked.
“Black and white!” She smiled.
And then I started to cry a little bit.
and then all of us, your faithful readers, started to cry a little too. I feel like my heart breaks a little in anticipation of…well, for now this is so beautiful, doll.
Thank you for sharing this authentic, vulnerable, and powerful moment with us. It gives us all courage to do the same. A powerful gift indeed!
With gratitude,
Amy M.
yeah, it made us cry a little too… how precious.
I cried at your telling of this. I love her curiosity and her determination.
This was so sweet. Back when my daughter started to notice different skin colors on people I decided not to categorize them into black and white so I would just say whatever color they looked like. For example, she was “beigy pink”. Anyway, to this day she STIll says she’s beigy pink and her best friend is peanut butter brown.
“Awwww,” I said, wiping a tear from the corner of my eye. I have to say I hate being “white” the absence of color. What does that mean? My skin is rose, or salmon, or peach or coral, with lots of brown dots. Sometimes its red if I forget my sunscreen… but it is never white.
That is just positively wonderful.
What amazing parents you two must be.
Gosh, it really does bring home how ridiculous it is to call people “white” and “black.” At least we’re beyond the days when Crayola had a “flesh”-colored crayon.
What a beautiful, poignant moment. Hanging in there with her through the ambiguity, as you’ve done, will make all the difference in the long run.
(And but for the Zoloft, I’d have cried reading that too.)
goddammit… er, I mean dagnabit, so did I.
Your daily courage humbles me, and your pictures, your stories, your life make me overjoyed, make my heart burst with love for the three of you.
I didn’t expect tears, but wow – here they are. thank you for sharing this.