MY AUNTIE (2026)

When I first heard “Look What You’ve Done” by Drake I immediately thought about my auntie. This morning I was listening to the gospel song “Never Would Have Made It” and also thought about her. I absolutely would not be where I am if it wasn’t for her. 

Over the last few years my feelings had been hurt when we didn’t talk for a while or when she wouldn’t answer one of my texts, but I actually get it. We both moved away from Tulsa and built lives in different states. We escaped so much. We wanted different for ourselves and different for our kids and I guess we felt like we had to get out of there to do that. We joke now thinking how different life would be if we would have stayed. 

I’ve been in an angry state lately thinking about this heavy burden of mothering people in my family. A task that feels like my responsibility as the oldest, even though I never asked for it. And then I thought about how my auntie, who was not only like a big sister being 4 years older than me, but she also took on the responsibility of mothering me and my youngest brother. A 7 year old and toddler taken from her sister’s custody in OKC now sharing a home with her and her dad in Tulsa. 

We would share so much more for years to come, including absolute chaos caused by the adults around us. We survived drugs around us, alcoholics, violence and many projects and rundown roach infested houses all around Tulsa. 

But we did survive. She was 10 toes down for me and my brother, always. I remember us always making sure my brother’s first day of school was extra fly. We would tag team everything growing up in that dysfunction. And when I was 15 and had saved up enough for a down payment, she co-signed a car for me. Thinking back, she was only 19 years old and did that with no questions asked. 

All throughout high school, she was always there for me and my friends. And when she had her first baby, that little girl ran all the streets with me. When I graduated college in Houston and the family came down, got drunk and tore up my apartment - she was there to help me pick up the pieces for my ceremony the next morning. 

This July when we lost my grandpa (her dad), it was us again. We cried together on the phone and then wiped our tears and got to planning a funeral, something neither of us had ever had to do. There we were again, figuring it all out on our own and we did so well. We put the whole family on our backs and sent him off so beautifully. You would have never known how much trauma and heartache this family had been through that day. It was all love and all of our kids running around. 

I always think about how my grandpa saved me when he took me in, but it was just as much my auntie too. I owe her so much and I thank God that we are where we are today. 

Flowers for my auntie. 

SHANI