The Cost of Care is at the expense of Family Connections

Connection - 2023

Burdened By Blood Series

At seven years old I experienced what loss was; my first memory of loss would turn into a continued cycle of grief’s chokehold on me and my connection to my family. My biggest loss was at 15 years old. My maternal grandmother died at night in her sleep by herself in her apartment in Providence, Rhode Island. We all have that one person, who if they died, we could not see the world without them.

My grandmother like many other Black women is the matriarch in their families. They are the ones who hold the family together and carry the burden when the family cannot carry themselves. Even though they do not ask for this role they are taught and raised to take on this role no matter what. Even if it is at the detriment of their own wellbeing. What if like having the tools to know how to cook your grandmother’s favorite family recipe that is passed down, we pass down dismantling the idea that one person carries the burden and create it as a shared accountability in the family dynamic.

The cost of this structure is becoming too high within the black community. We are losing our black women at alarming rates due to levels of stress from grief of their own mourning not being processed effectively or at all. Plus, the strain of carrying the emotional labor of our loved ones is showing in physical disabilities and isolation that leaves families as a whole desolate and no hope for the future.