This essay is part of a collaborative project with Black History, Continued. We invited readers and renowned writers to respond to the question “What is Black love today?”
I’ve spent my whole life looking for similarities between myself and the protagonists in love stories. When I lost my father to prison and my mother’s attention to her double duties as a single parent, I escaped through books in an attempt to reimagine what love could look like. But the couples, usually locked in an embrace on the cover of those “harmless” rags, looked nothing like the people in my house.
Abuse ruined the bones of our homes and turned them into rotten structures. My hopes of experiencing romance in the future seemed incompatible with my reality. I had no example of romantic love, not for girls that looked like me, until my cousin, Tiffany.
Two years older than me, and seemingly in control of her life, Tiffany became a blueprint; no, a mirror — a way to see myself clearly. She was everything I wanted to be. She garnered attention when she walked into a room: ash brown hair, freckles and a genuine smile. Tiffany was beyond cool, she was fresh; beyond fresh, she was fly; beyond fly, her energy was unmatched. My cousin was my protector, the way an older sister should be.
Tiffany taught me love by listening. She let me read her books and sing her songs from my favorite musicals. She joined me at my softball games and would sit next to me on the bench when I played catcher. She gave me tips for getting my crushes’ attention (none of which worked). First place in the oratory contest, she cheered. Solo during choir performance, she tossed a thumbs-up sign from the pew. We were inseparable until she went to high school and left me to fend for myself in those unimaginable middle school bouts of self-doubt.
At 15, Tiffany had her first child. A little girl with a light as remarkable as her own, and the temperament of a doe.
When she was pregnant, I asked her, “Are you sure?”
She smiled and rubbed her belly.
And just like that, my purpose was clear: I would have a daughter, too.
Tiffany’s Little Light studied everything. Her mouth was an overturned cup spilling sunshine. They were an emerging constellation when they walked into a room together, stars to anybody who drew breath. They became a part of my vision board for maternal love. Do not be fooled, I too received this kind of love from my own mother. But it was so far removed from my teenage psyche, it wasn’t something I could pluck from my memory easily. You know, the way mirrors neglect to reflect what we’ve been conditioned to disbelieve.
Despite the judgment of her being too young to raise a baby, Tiffany glowed. She glowed so brightly one could even say it blinded the jealous. And when Tiffany had her third child, she moved from California to find her footing in Baton Rouge. Her relationship with the father of her children, who I would later learn became more obsessed with the idea of owning Tiffany than loving her, was a wake-up call: Love is not transactional. Love is not ownership. Love is simply an act of absolute care. While love is an active verb, sometimes it ain’t enough at all.
At 21, I had my daughter with my high school sweetheart. At 23, I left the dissolving relationship for a life that could hold my dreams to secure a future for my daughter. I called Tiffany to tell her the news. She answered, and I could hear her three children playing in the background. Little Light was now the eldest and took her job as protector of her two younger brothers seriously.
“Cousin, are you sure?” Tiffany asked me. “Aren’t you scared?”
I laughed away whatever fear I was carrying and told her I would be back. That it was just for the summer. But Tiffany knew what I couldn’t see yet. That I would find writing and become the woman of my own dreams.
I cloaked myself in Tiffany’s charm and wore it until it became a second skin. This is how I arrived in Bed-Stuy, Brooklyn. I only dated men who called me beautiful. I flirted with anyone who could hold an interesting conversation. I gave love a run for its money because the only thing that truly kept my attention was my daughter’s health and laughter, and my burgeoning career in writing. I carried this new me everywhere: New York City, Poland, Britain and Canada.
When the summer became a year, and the year became a decade, I recognized so much of my cousin in the way I carried myself. I loved how I looked to myself in the mirror. I loved how I looked from the reflection in my daughter’s eyes. Like Tiffany, I began to move through rooms easy like the wind, soundless and certain. This feeling stayed with me, from the red steps of our grandparents’ home in West Oakland to the Bed-Stuy stoops that became my sanctuary.
At first, before she had her fifth child, Tiffany and I checked in weekly, then monthly, after she had her seventh child. Phone calls became text messages as our lives busied. She was raising eight children on her own and re-establishing herself after finally leaving an abusive relationship. Every other year I would visit, and when I couldn’t be physically present, I sent supportive messages, care packages and invitations for her to visit me on tour.
After 15 years of visits dictated by holiday breaks and family reunions, I invited Tiffany to Florida. Tiffany had never been and was on a break from her on-again off-again relationship. I wanted to protect her. I wanted her to see what the world had to offer. She was the very best part of me. She gave me courage. She gave me reassurance. She gave me pep talks. She gave me compliments. Loving and celebrating others was natural for Tiffany. The least I could do was repay her generosity by giving her the space she needed to figure out who she wanted to be.
Through Tiffany’s turbulent relationships, and her absolute love for her children, I began to understand what love costs. When she met me in Miami, a place I traveled to for weekends and took for granted, her eyes welled up with tears.
I asked, “What’s wrong, cousin?”
By the time she could pull herself together, we were walking alongside the beach, our manicured toes leaving kiss-prints on the sand.
“I never thought I would get to see the Atlantic Ocean,” she said, tears sliding down her freckled face. “I feel like all I have is my kids. I’ve never traveled and seen the world like you.”
I held my breath, terrified by the weight of the moment, but ready to rise to the occasion and remind her what she taught me so many years before. Fairy tales might teach us stories of whimsy, designed to mold single Black women into roles of grateful service before they’ve ever seen the world. It was my turn to show Tiffany that we are in fact an entire world ourselves.
Mahogany L. Browne is a writer, the executive director of JustMedia, the artistic director of Urban Word and the first-ever poet-in-residence at Lincoln Center. She recently released her second young adult novel, “Vinyl Moon.”
Modern Love can be reached at [email protected].
To find previous Modern Love essays, Tiny Love Stories and podcast episodes, visit our archive.
Want more from Modern Love? Watch the TV series; sign up for the newsletter; or listen to the podcast on iTunes, Spotify or Google Play. We also have swag at the NYT Store and two books, “Modern Love: True Stories of Love, Loss, and Redemption” and “Tiny Love Stories: True Tales of Love in 100 Words or Less.”
