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I started this post almost a month ago, and couldn’t post it. I just wasn’t ready to, but I had to write something because at that point I felt like I had been going in circles since the 28th of August. Trying to work, trying to focus, finding myself staring into space while idly pulling on rubber bands.
It’s almost ironic how loss feels like added weight. I felt heavy in my mind and my soul in a way that I had only ever felt for the passing of a few close relatives. So much so, that while people were doing Black Panther watch-togethers and having ableism and cancer arguments on social media, I had to log-off and take some time to sort out my feelings.
At first, I found myself avoiding any material that had Chadwick Boseman’s face or name on it. His voice and laugh were especially hard to take. Futile attempts to maybe stay in a sense of unacceptance and disbelief.
This couldn’t be true? Maybe if I ignore it, it might not be.
But by the day after his death, I was actively looking for him. Interviews, speeches, pictures, anything to reconnect, to get more of him. Remembering bitterly that none of it was actually new, already relegated to the past, to who he ‘was’. We would have no more of him. He had given all he could give, and was now gone.
I thought back to a lot of things. Like the last time I felt this heartbroken over the death of someone well-known. I wrote about it then as well in my tribute to Maya Angelou after she passed.
She is still a light and an inspiration to my heart.
I also thought about the very first time I felt the blow of a true fan, waking up one morning and hearing that someone you looked up to had passed away. It was Aaliyah then, and I felt like my heart was broken for a solid year. I was 14, begged my older sister to sneak prints of her at her office job, and plastered them on my bedroom wall. They only came down when I left the room many years later.
With Aaliyah, there was no social media. I am not even sure I had access to the internet. When Maya died, I was already on several platforms. However, I wasn’t as engaged as I am now, so I peddled my grief silently. But this time I found out on social media. It’s only when things like this happen that you realise how exhausting these social sites can be.
You can’t attend to everyone else’s thoughts when yours are already so muddled. It’s been both a blessing and a curse, as the constant stream of memories has kept me crying, but kept me healing. Believe me, I understand how weird it sounds. Though I was touched by Chadwick’s life, I barely knew him, and I am struggling to accept his loss. A month later, the ones closest to him must still be in an unbearable amount of pain.
However, before I get back into regular blogging, I feel like I need to address his passing. Not because I want to join the bandwagon of voices, it’s way too late for that anyway. I just need to reach a point of acceptance, and writing is how I heal.
So why was Chadwick Boseman so important to me?
Well for one, he looks just like my younger brother.
They cut their hair and trim their beard in much the same way. They are both dark brown skin, ‘young, black and gifted’ men. They both have a full, toothy smile. And his look isn’t one that you see on screen often. Most of the time black men are clean-cut and shaved down in the movies. But in real life, most black men look like him, and like my brother! So when Black Panther came out, no doubt I immediately found myself drawn to Shuri. I mean, if my brother is Black Panther, that’s who I would be, right?
For my mother’s birthday in 2018, our entire family went to see it together. I painted my face like Shuri and saluted my subjects as a princess of Wakanda. Letitia Wright’s spoken-word piece for him touched me the most as I felt like she was saying everything I was feeling.
Before Black Panther, Chadwick Boseman was an actor I appreciated and wanted to see more of. After Black Panther, he became the older brother I never had. I followed his career, cheered him on, and felt proud every time he walked onto a stage or in a room. His words meant more to me, and it’s a connection that I am sure many fans have with him. We took him on like family and would have bourne any struggle with him. I am sure he knew that, which is why he kept the biggest struggle to himself.
Other than being a very private person, I honestly feel that Chadwick just didn’t want to worry anyone with his illness. This wasn’t a question of what the industry ‘expected’ of him. He was too joyful, too grateful for the chance to be in a position to touch lives, and too clear about what he wanted in life to be someone that others took advantage of. I truly believe he made a conscious decision to be there and to keep working despite any pain he was in because he wanted to be there and understood the importance of it.
Think about it.
Between 2008-2014, he made about 5 films. Between 2016, the year he found out he had stage III colon cancer, and now in 2020, he made about 10 films. That’s twice as many in a shorter space of time. Does that sound like a man being ‘forced to work’ to you? Does that sound like a man being manipulated by the cogs of the ‘system’?
It sounds like a man on a mission, a man who’s on the clock. A man who knows he has a purpose and a small amount of time to accomplish it in. And the roles he took on were of people who were larger than life, who changed the world with their talents and their thinking. He wasn’t just working, he was picking those roles on purpose. It takes a steely resolve to focus on your work when you are in pain, and I am sure there were moments when he was tempted to despair in his situation. But he wasn’t just making another movie. He was leaving behind a legacy.
“I just want them to know
That I gave my all, did my best
Brought someone some happiness
Left this world a little better just because, I was here – I Was Here, Beyonce”
I wanted him to continue. I wanted him to keep inspiring and keep living a beautiful life to a ripe old age, like another legend, Sidney Poitier. But we don’t get to choose how much time we have, we just have to choose what we’re going to do with it. And Chadwick broke the mold in so many ways. He used his little time with us ten times better than some who have lived twice as long as him.
He led the kind of life that makes you wonder if you are really doing all you were meant to do, and if you are holding back yourself in anyway. Purpose and finding it isn’t just about you achieving some goal. It’s about the lives that you touch on the way while living on the fullest frequency which only your true purpose can accomplish.
I am so thankful that I could live in the era when Chadwick Boseman existed. 20 years from now he will be somebody’s Google search. They will read all the articles, watch all the speeches, watch all his movies, and wonder what it felt like to go to a Black Panther premiere or engage with his posts on Instagram. Even though I never met him, I am grateful to witness his greatness.
I am not going to justify feeling sad over the death of a man I did not know personally either. If you do not understand why or how I can feel an acute sense of his loss, not just to the world but to me specifically, then maybe you don’t know how to use feelings. Because sadness is completely natural when someone dies, and instead of demanding that me, and others like me, rewire our feelings, maybe you should be the one seeking help on how to properly use yours.
That being said, if you feel nothing, it’s fine. You don’t HAVE to feel anything. When Kobe Bryant passed away I felt very little. I wasn’t a fan. I thought it was horrible that he and his daughter died at the same time. What a double whammy to his family! But I do not follow basketball. The only reason I know of Michael Jordan and Shaquille O’neal is because of Space Jam and Shazam. But I gave people the space they needed to mourn him as a figure of excellence in their life that they looked up to. Even today, I’m still liking Kobe posts on Instagram from people still remembering him. It’s called support.
Well, until we meet on the Ancestral Plane, goodbye brother Chadwick. Your will was always to protect your people, lifting us up while shielding us from your own worries and pain, like a true king. We honour the sacrifices you made daily, even hourly, simply to inspire us and show us a higher form of purpose and a better way to live, even when you were facing death’s door. I hope your welcome into heaven was this dope.
– Written By True Nicks
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