This Will All Be Over Soon

by Cecily Strong

  One night in Chicago a couple years ago Rashida and I were in a hotel room playing Connect Four. We were participating in a twenty-four-hour comedy and music fundraiser our friend Heather puts together yearly as a way to raise money and gifts to be delivered to families around Chicago on Christmas. I got to go help deliver once. I was humbled to get to be any part of that day, but the thing that stays with me just as much is how many of these homes saw us as a possible threat. Mainly white people showing up at your door. Sometimes we could tell there was an adult hiding in the house because they might have been undocumented. We were there with money and gifts, but these families lived a life where any day the group of mainly white people at the door could be there to take a family member away.

  Rashida and I were taking a break from the show and back at the hotel to have a drink and hang out. We played Connect Four because Rashida was determined to beat me finally. This is part of the big sister/little sister relationship. She’s never gonna beat me in Connect Four. She’d have three in a row and I’d pretend to not notice and she couldn’t help but start to smile and get excited (bad poker player, see?) because she thought she was about to win. I liked to pretend to almost drop my disk and then switch at the last minute to block her move. I am a nerd who does all kinds of puzzles, numbers and words, every day. Of course I’m gonna win! And in the same vein, my grandmother “Dear,” my mom’s stepmom, could beat me every time. She’s a big-time puzzle fan too. She and I each have a subscription to Games magazine.

  Actually, while we are on the subject, I have to fess up to Rashida here. She used to always take my iPad to play solitaire. Now, I don’t judge the solitaire. I use my iPad for puzzles 90 percent of the time. Then she started hiding it from me as a little-sister prank. She’d pretend not to know where it was and that smile would start to show, totally giving her away. One night, I woke up in the middle of the night and went to my living room to see if Rashida had done her prank. I went to one of her two hiding spots, under the chair that once belonged to my landlord Howard. There was my iPad, of course. I took it and hid it deep at the bottom of a basket full of who knows what on a high shelf in my closet. Then I went back to bed. In the morning I went through the moves of pretending to look for my iPad and then giving in.

  “Okay, sis, where is it?”

  She smiled, so proud of herself, and pretended she didn’t know. We played this little game for a couple more minutes until I finally said something like, “It better not be under the chair.” Rashida was about to burst. I looked under the chair and said, “Okay, where is it?”

  Her face dropped as she realized it wasn’t there.

  “Wait, where is it?”

  I pretended we were still playing the game, but Rashida knew that was where she’d left it, so the game took a turn. She immediately suspected I’d moved it. I pretended to suspect her too. Normally, I’m a horrible liar. But when it comes to lies that don’t matter, I can be frighteningly good. I sometimes wonder if this makes me slightly sociopathic. I kept making her swear she hadn’t taken it, as if I really didn’t trust she wasn’t playing the game anymore. She promised me over and over she put it under the chair and hadn’t moved it again. Neither of us knew what had happened. I pretended to be stressed that it was just gone. Then I did what I would have done in that situation and sort of shrugged in defeat like, “Well, nothing I can do. I just have to accept that it’s gone.” She kept looking, of course.

  I waited a week and then texted her that I found it under my bed.

  Are you sure you didn’t hide it there and forgot?

  I swear I don’t remember putting it there.

  I’ve never come clean with her about this until now, and she never hid my iPad again.

  Anyway, we are playing Connect Four over and over and I win every time. This is not really a brag on my part. My love for puzzles isn’t quite “cool,” and I remember I used to hide every Games magazine frantically if a boy was ever coming to my house. God forbid he find out I like crossword puzzles and sudoku-style puzzles. He might realize I’m not the supercool badass he thought I was.

  At one point we laugh about something or another, and I realize I used to laugh this way with my old best friend from junior high and high school, Liz. And I look up at Rashida and I say, “I really wish you could’ve met Liz. I think we would all have had a lot of fun.” She says, “Me too, sis.”

  About two months earlier I got a Facebook message from Liz’s sister Laura. I assumed it was a funny video that would make the three of us, and probably only the three of us, laugh so hard we’d cry. But it wasn’t that.

  “We lost our Lizzie today.”

  I had and still do have a really hard time with this one. We were joined at the hip for those years. How did I end up here and somehow she’s gone? We had fallen out of touch a bit, but when we talked we easily and immediately fell right back into the silly secretive world we had created over countless sleepovers, or the sing-alongs we’d have driving around aimlessly in her dad’s red car, or all the times we cheated playing Spades with friends by passing secret signals to each other (we were always partners of course). If we touched our forehead with our right hand, we had the ace. Nose, we had the queen. Chin: jack.

  I remember telling people this on that Sunday I flew back to Chicago after a show, my foot in a boot after breaking it on vacation in Spain right before going back to work. We didn’t have her body for the service because the county hadn’t released it. My friend was “evidence” still. So we spoke in front of many pictures of her, and although it was hard, I knew wherever she was, if I didn’t speak she would dramatically show her disapproval. I loved how dramatic she could be. She was also the best singer I knew, and everybody spoke about her voice at the service. But I wanted them to also know how funny she was. How much time I spent laughing so hard with Liz and Laura. She was fucking hilarious. I had a surreal moment where these sweet people we knew in high school came up to me to say how sorry they were, as they knew how close we’d been. And I sincerely thanked them even though in my head all I wanted to do was say, “You’re being so kind, but Liz and I definitely used to laugh together about something weird you did that we found hilarious,” and then laugh through tears about how bizarre it is to be consoled by them while simultaneously thinking of the weird thing about them that used to crack Liz and me up.

  The hardest part for me, I think, or at least for now until some new phase of grief takes over, is that I have so many inside jokes that I can’t quite remember, and the only person who knew the other part of the joke isn’t there anymore. We had so much just between us two chickens. And those laughs were precious to me. Those jokes and secrets made up the majority of my life at thirteen, fourteen, fifteen. It felt like those years went when Liz went. It still feels that way.

  And that day in that hotel room with Rashida, I realized I was again having a slumber party and sneaking off with my best friend because we had the most fun just the two of us—laughing and shit-talking. And it felt like a gift.

  I like to think the universe brought Rashida into my life as a way to help me grieve my friend, because Rashida was a reminder of all of my favorite parts of that friendship. And it was nice to think of those moments and think of Liz that way.

  And Rashida and I realized I was also brought into her life for a reason. Because of how quickly I became her older sister and she fell into the role of little sister just as fast.

  Rashida lost her oldest brother when she was a kid. She has other siblings, but their relationship was different. The way she talks about him now, you see the admiration she feels for him. And she lost him in such a painful way.

  She grew up on the South Side of Chicago. The city didn’t have a trauma center on the South Side at the time, despite the fact that a huge number of people lived there. So when an ambulance came for him, there was nowhere close by to take him. Because there wasn’t a fucking trauma center.

  Our city failed Rashida and her brother and her mother. I grew
up outside of the city in Oak Park. I’ve always known about the racial segregation in Chicago, of course, and I knew the city had seemed to have forgotten about huge neighborhoods. But as a white person from Oak Park, I had never truly felt what that meant. And I don’t mean to say that I do now. But I know Rashida and her family have lived with not only an insurmountable grief, but also the horrible unfairness of systemic racism that is very much a part of what happened to her hero, her big brother. Why was it okay with all of us to ignore these parts of our city? And it is part of what motivated Rashida to become fiercely protective and care about her community, because she’s experienced a world that doesn’t seem to care about her community much, and so she’s had to do it herself.

  I say all of this only as a friend admiring the strength and superhero powers of my friend. It is not my story to tell. My story involves Rashida in so many ways, and I’m forever thankful she came into my life. I could go on and on about what an amazing person she is. She volunteered as a mentor for kids on the South Side for years. I say “volunteered” because although it started as a paid position, as in so many other cities and neighborhoods and school districts, funding was slashed and there was no longer money for her work. But that didn’t stop her. She worked a night job at Second City and paid for her own transportation and materials and everything you could think of to remain an amazing mentor to these kids. I’ve had the honor of getting to meet a couple of her mentees, who have gone on to college to pursue business degrees and art degrees and writing degrees and filmmaking degrees, and I’m even more proud to know my friend, who tried to do what she could to make sure these kids had a more equal opportunity to reach their potential because the city (and the country) was not safeguarding that opportunity the same way they do for other kids. And isn’t that pretty damn important?

  Thank you, Rashida.

  She and I used to joke because she said Owen was the first white boy she had a crush on. I told you, the girls love him! My little cousin Leda and Rashida became good friends over the last couple of years. Leda was a teacher and mentor to kids before going back to school to get her master’s degree in sports management. That’s the other reason Rashida and Leda are so close: those two can talk basketball for hours. I like basketball, but they really like basketball. They text each other about draft rumors or ESPN alerts and a million other things I’ll never understand at that level.

  Rashida was there with me in California that awful day in January. I knew she wanted so badly to do anything. I could hear her crying downstairs. She’s my family too. Owen is her family too.

  She came to the beautiful service. I was glad not only for me but also for Leda, since I know how much Leda loves Rashida. But there was never a question. It’s Rashida. Of course she’d be there.

  She also flew in when my dad told me about the diagnosis. She wanted to be here with us. I was so grateful to my little sis and got her a first-class ticket for the trip. On her way home after coming to be with my family, the flight attendant stopped her from boarding with the other first-class passengers. She pulled Rashida out of the line to double-check her ticket was really hers and really first-class. Rashida called me from the plane crying. She was embarrassed. Out of the blue, for no reason except she’s Black. It was another instance when I felt a fraction of what the statistics and numbers and systemic problems really translate into in real life. It’s beyond just “unfair.” It’s painful. It’s humiliating, exhausting, and just really painful.

  We talked together, and with her permission, I tried to help in some way at least with the flight. We were able to get her a refund and some baggage perks or something. Later we found out the employee was fired. And while there were some real attempts at righting a wrong in that situation, I’m well aware that it’s just one time out of many similar situations for Rashida. So although I’m glad it was dealt with, there have been and will be so many others that will not be dealt with.

  I’ve been out here in the Hudson Valley—Rhinebeck now—and I am starting to feel okay. Having happy days. Burying my head in the sand by living in my sanctuary in the woods. I know how lucky I am.

  Then last week Rashida texted me.

  My 18 year old niece was found dead after she didn’t return home last night. I gotta get home. just letting you know. cause I’m fucked up.

  Rashida’s mother, Sabrina, lost her first child when he was only nineteen. Rashida has told me about how much this broke her mother for a while. She had to leave because the grief was overwhelming.

  Rashida’s niece is named Sabrina, too, after Rashida’s mom. But Rashida has always called her niece “Monét” when talking about her. Her middle name. Monét, the first grandchild. Monét, who came out to her grandmother Sabrina before anyone else. Monét, who loved the color purple.

  They lost Monét at eighteen.

  It’s overwhelming to even think about that level of devastation.

  I remember the night Hal died was a night New York lost six hundred to seven hundred lives. It was our highest total yet I think. And you talk about it like that, in numbers, in statistics. But people are not numbers.

  I didn’t ask Rashida what happened to her niece, although I know it’s gun violence and it’s in Chicago. I don’t need to know details. Because the details don’t really matter and don’t change anything about her grief. She calls me crying later in the week and she tells me she’s sick of explaining to people who usually immediately respond to news like that with “What happened?,” because mainly I think we don’t know what else to say. But I know my sister. If she wants to tell me about it one day, with details, she will. And it will be a day when she’s ready and when she wants to talk about it.

  I know it’s gun violence. I look to see if there is anything written for her niece yet. I don’t find anything.

  Instead, I read headlines about one hundred people being shot over Father’s Day weekend in Chicago. One article mentions two children—a three-year-old and a young teen—both killed by stray bullets.

  But it’s mainly numbers listed, not names. The numbers people can gaze past while reading the paper, chalking it all up to “gun violence in Chicago.” This broad term that is used at best as a way to separate ourselves from the emotional toll and human suffering. At worst it’s a term used as a political weapon, usually wielded against the people who’ve been so traumatized. There’s a lot of pain that’s been caused by white people. I know I have been confused at how best to be an ally, which is a weird word to say maybe when I really mean friend and sister and fellow human being, because I wasn’t sure what I could possibly say that would be the most helpful or have a positive impact. I’ve been so quiet lately in general.

  Monét is not a number. Rashida’s brother is not a number. This family did not lose two statistics. Gun violence in Chicago is not a foregone conclusion or something we think of in the abstract as a “societal issue.”

  Two amazing and beautiful teenagers were taken from a family who loved them so so so much.

  Rashida texts me to thank me for the flowers. We laugh a bit because the flowers I sent are beautiful and I’m grateful for the florist who arranged them beautifully with lots of purple flowers and got them delivered quickly during COVID, but she’s written my name so large on the ribbon at the bottom of the wreath (which feels strange enough anyway). Only she’s written it as “Tecily.” Rashida says she’ll change it before the small viewing and I say, “If it is something that makes you smile this week, don’t you dare change it.” The importance of laughter.

  After the service, Rashida sends one text.

  She’s with her uncle now.

  I’m so sorry.

  July 8, 2020

  Tommy and Shawn are visiting again. Last night Shawn told us it was the anniversary of his father’s passing. We got to speak about him and be with each other and laugh and celebrate him. He says he misses his dad. He chooses to celebrate him on this day. I feel honored to be celebrating him, too.

  Tonight, the boy
s called me outside because I had to see the sky. “Look how pink it is tonight.”

  And I smiled because I knew it would be pink outside.

  It was July 8. Erica’s “anniversary.”

  The day a train went through a tricky intersection and hit my sweet friend headed home to eat her sandwich. An intersection that is no longer so dangerous.

  I let the boys know about Erica and how I always think of her during a pink sky. And she gave me one on July 8 during this scary year.

  At dinner I toasted Erica and then looked at Shawn and said, “And to your dad.”

  And he said, “And to my dad.”

  I sent the beer story to Erica’s mom as I toasted with a pink sky behind us. In typical Dee fashion, she wrote me a beautiful note back.

  I am crying from your remembrances of Erz, she must be holding you close for writing her story, and I am too. Thank you for writing this piece of her life and sharing it with me. This is golden in my spirit. I love you, will always love you.

  Remember you gave her a waffle iron for her birthday one year?

  Loving you,

  dee

  Cheers to dads, friends, pink skies, and waffle irons.

  July 13, 2020

  I sent what I wrote about Rashida to her. She’s with her family in Chicago now. I got to FaceTime with her and another one of my favorite people on earth: her mother, Sabrina. Sabrina went through the worst tragedy imaginable when she lost her son, but she still managed to raise some of the most amazing human beings ever. And she always looks amazing.