What Will They Remember

Five helmets click into place and we push off down the driveway into the quiet streets of our neighborhood early on a Friday morning. My hands feel sticky on the handlebars with the humidity in the air but the morning wind from the bike ride cools my bare skin.

Our path takes us by the elementary school, still and vacant even on this last day of school. Around the quiet lake, smells of the ghost of summer’s past waft by. Then down Minnehaha parkway, our favorite creamery and coffee shop and pizza cafe beckon us. All the while, nostalgia trails behind. That’s the thing about taking a familiar bike path. Every landmark reminds you of another memory. Every street feels like home. The bike practically leads like a horse might to his barn. It knows. We know. Except I also know that today will be different. Today the end of the path will lead us to a place none of us have been to before, not in this way.

We know when we have arrived because we know this address well—38th and Chicago. There is a laundromat here where I pushed a tiny Leo around in a wheeled laundry cart while my dingy couch cushions washed. A couple blocks east is the breakfast spot where we toasted with mimosas three years ago when our offer to buy a home was accepted. A beautiful mural stands on the corner where I took pictures with my children on last summer’s street art tour. That beautiful mural with it’s swirly rainbow colors now sits diminished next to the new murals that line this corner today—images of a man whose life was taken insensibly 11 days ago. 

This is the site of George Floyd’s death, now the site of George Floyd’s memorial.

This is what brings us here today.

We dismount the bikes and pull up our masks. While Mike lifts Leo onto his shoulders, I pass the flowers to Elliott and Caroline. Normally eager to explore, they both stand timidly by my side. Their eyes are wide, scanning the scene. I take their lead and do the same.

It’s early, but pockets of people already gather, paying respect to Mr. Floyd with flowers or signs or just quiet contemplation. I hear music playing from a speaker somewhere, Rastafarian, influencing a more carefree mood than I anticipated. Visitors walk with coffee and a few children eat donuts, crumbs falling to the chalked pavement below them. The sunlight not quite crested glows behind the brick buildings in front of us. It is oddly peaceful and inviting. My nerves quell slightly with this tiniest of hope breathing here today. 

We walk up to the middle of the intersection to a halo of flowers and signs and candles encircling chalk drawings faded and muddy from the previous week’s rain. I approach with the children, unsure if I should explain or just stay silent and let them observe. I default to mom mode because that feels safe. "Why don’t you put your flowers here with the others," gesturing to the pile. Elliott tosses his bouquet with a careless force. My instinct is to reprimand his thoughtlessness, but it feels like energy I can’t muster, so I let him wander off with his dad. 

Caroline still cradles her flowers in her arms. I leave her to choose when she is ready, because sometimes my children know better than I do. I’m struggling to lead here. I feel caught between the enormous responsibility of guiding my children to learn this piece of history we stand amongst today, while also allowing my own personal grief to breathe. Parenting always feels like one big decision after the next.

Like grace, she grabs my hand, so I don’t have to choose how to be.

We walk together around the circle and then make our way to the corner where another collection of offerings scatters the ground under an image on the brick wall of the Cup Foods. It is the image seen plastered on every news outlet these last two weeks, a mural of bright blue and golden yellow, with the name and face of George Floyd—a man who I never knew and yet feel desperate to not forget. 

"Look mom!" She drops my hand to walk closer, pointing at the mural. "It’s that picture!" I guess I’m not the only one paying attention.

She draws closer to the painting and without my direction chooses this place to lay down her flowers. When she returns to grab my hand I take this as my invitation to speak. 

I tell her what it means to come to a memorial, why we bring flowers, light candles, shout pleas in the form of painted cardboard signs. I tell her that when someone dies, it is always important to remember them.

"Like when Winni died," she interrupts me. "We still remember her." Her dog died last summer, her first real example of losing something you love to death.

"Yes, exactly. But this time, with George Floyd, it is even more important. We have to remember him, even though we never knew him, because we can never forget how awful he was treated. How awful so many black Americans are treated still to do this day, just because they are different. We remember in order to be reminded to do better. To be better. We just…can’t…forget." The words choke me as I let the grief and desperation and shame surface. Without even looking up to my face I know she recognizes my tears, as her hand squeezes tighter on mine and she leans her body close. I know my tears worry her. But she doesn’t run from them. Instead, she draws closer, as if recognizing the need to offer comfort, even in her smallness to my big.

Elliott comes running over to us. I expect him to tell me he is bored or ask when he can get a donut. Instead he reaches his arms up and says "Hold me, mama." I don’t hesitate, but I'm curious what his five year old mind processes in this experience. "Why?" I ask while hoisting him up, his legs wrapping around my waist and arms around my neck. "Because I like how you feel."

Tears fall again, as I hold him tighter, feeling safe with him in my arms. Unlike his sister, he isn’t seeking to help me. But he does all the same. 

We walk north on Chicago Avenue and he notices a girl winding back and forth on the ground where a list of names lines the entire block, more names of victims of senseless racial hate. He jumps out of my arms to join her. I watch him winding back and forth, joy spread across his face at the freedom to run wild in the middle of a street. Watching him is like walking a labyrinth, each name a quiet prayer. I hold peace and sadness in both of my free hands and I’m not sure what to do with this. So I grab Leo from Mike, longing for the comfort that comes from my children safe in my arms.

"Judge!" he says pointing widely behind me. "Judge!" 

"What, baby? What are you saying?" I ask him. 

"George," Mike responds. "He is pointing to George."

I turn to see another mural of George Floyd, this one taller than it is wide, mostly black and white. The sun finally peeking over the buildings creates sunburst rays framing it’s image. 

"Oh yes, George." I repeat back to Leo. "Say his name" takes on a whole new meaning when it comes from the mouth of babes. A mother is always amazed at the new words their children collect. But this one I wasn’t prepared for.

He squirms out of my arms, and once again I am left following my child out of my own need for comfort and less for theirs. He stops at the circle of flowers and signs, and the words I read at his feet stop me in my tracks, too. 

"I want my Mama." it says. I remember these as the words George Floyd cried in his last moments, words so raw and human. 

Mama, he cried, they cry, we all cry. For in every moment of distress and anguish, all we want to feel is the loving arms of our mother, where we are safe, known, at home. 

Standing on this circle I can hear him crying out still today. I can hear his pleas to his mama, but more importantly to all mothers of the world to not forget his name, to not forget his pain, not let the life after his go unchanged. It is an invocation that must not go unheard. It is why we are here today.

"Mama" I hear. "Mama, mama." And then I realize the echoes are not from George Floyd, but from the baby at my feet, reaching his arms, asking to be picked up.

And so I do. I gather him into my arms, and nuzzle him close, I let him know I am here.

It is the least a mother can do.

As we make our way home, I find myself grateful I know the path without having to think, because my mind is fully distracted by the memories of our visit. We made the decision earlier this week to bring the children to the memorial because it felt like a moment in history they needed to know. But I wonder now, if this was less for them than it was for me. 

I know enough to know that this is a snapshot in time that must be captured, not just in image, not just in words, but in vivid memories. When we remember how we feel—whether devastated, angry, or grieved—we remember to keep fighting.

I must always remember. 

But what about them, I wonder. What is it they will remember? When they see these images in a history book one day, when their children or their grandchildren ask them about the movement that started in their own backyard, what will they remember? Will it be the bike ride that brought them or will they forget how close they were? Will it be the flowers and signs and murals that jump into their mind? Will it be their mother’s tears?

I look behind me, three children on three different wheels, their father in the middle, my whole world, my safety, my home. I want to remember this moment too. All of us together, sad and uncertain but present and paying attention. 

I don’t know what it is my children will remember. I just hope they remember me, by their side, holding their hand, promising to do better. 

This post was written as part of a blog hop with Exhale—an online community of women pursuing creativity alongside motherhood, led by the writing team behind Coffee + Crumbs. Click here to read the next post in this series "Snapshot.”
PS. For more “snapshots” of my life, you can sign up for my newsletter, the Raise & Shine Letter , where I share mid month what catches my attention, and what I want to remember.