Hard Realities & Tender Truths
The journey began a year and a half ago. While not planned, a part of me yearned for such a deep knowing, a knowing that a friend on a similar course once remarked caused her bones to settle. It started with my Aunt Margaret sharing a Facebook post about the Price family line. As I clicked on the link, I came across distant relatives, pictures, names, and dates. It was humbling to witness the emergence of a branch in the Ancestral tree that I was previously unaware of. With interest peaked and curiosity abounding I headed to Ancestry.com to learn more, seeking more, yearning for more. What was intended to be a precursory look turned into almost five hours of connecting dots, following leaf buds, and the unintentional consumption of half a bottle of wine.
It was not planned, but I am thankful to my predecessors for beckoning me like the wind dancing through the branches of a willow tree. A beckoning that rang with voices saying, “keep going, we are here, and it is now time.” It was indeed time. As I traced back generations along my father’s line I learned the names of Ancestors who had seemingly been forgotten. The more I looked the more I learned, the more I noticed the more I became. Patterns appeared like circles within a tree trunk. Chronic health issues, migration routes, the shape of cheekbones, and vocational service to religious communities. “Keep going,” they said, “it is now time.” While these voices were unknown, they felt familiar, and I began to trust them. And as I followed, my bones settled.
Over the last year and a half, I have learned so much. Sitting with Ancestors is no easy task. They speak often of hard realities and tender truths, both of which are seemingly impossible to metabolize at first. But it is a holy deed, and a spiritual practice that I feel is so desperately needed in my life right now as I seek grounding amidst the chaos and clamor of my own being. And all of this learning came to a head recently as I saluted my third great-grandmother, Elvira “Ella” Britton Coles.
The child of Louise Britton, Ella is presumably the first freed woman in my blood line. Born during the time of enslavement on a plantation in Virginia, Ella would go on to be free in the eyes of the law, work, love, create community and family, and serve as the principal architect of the Coles Clan with her husband, Ovis Horace Coles (1834–1900). By way of pure luck and sublime blessing I was able to access her death certificate. There I learned her mother’s name (my fourth great-grandmother), cause of death, and most importantly, her resting place in Alleghany Cemetery in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. So, I searched for the cemetery in hopes that a paper trail would indicate where in the city it may be. To my jubilation, not only was there a clear indication of the cemetery’s location, but it is also still used today with a robust preservation society tending to genealogical records of those commended to their perpetual care. With a few more clicks and a brief phone call I possessed the exact location of Ella’s burial. And as luck and blessing combined would have it, I was due for a trip to the city in the coming days as to preach at the local Unitarian Universalist congregation just blocks away.
As I made my way through the winding, narrow passages within the massive cemetery, I became nervous. Thoughts and questions raced through my head at rapid pace. Who is she with? Why is she here? How was this paid for? Questions which all denoted in some way a deep yearning for wanting to know more, and a slight fear that sorrow waited for me just upon the horizon. Upon meeting a representative from the preservation society, he led me to her final resting place. There I greeted her in person upon a gently sloping hill, surrounded by other unmarked graves as the reality of her life came into sharp focus. Flesh meeting flesh, bone meeting bone, blood meeting blood. The man shared that the lot was historically used for those who died without either family plots or the intention to be buried with their kin. My heart sank. Upon his departure, I crouched down and placed there on that holy site a photo of her likeness and a small calabash dish containing cool water. After a few moments of silence, I formally introduced myself by naming my lineage back to her, poured libations, and offered prayers to the Creator that she might be elevated in peace and liberation. After a few more moments of silence, I placed my hand upon the earth which had received her just shy of 100 years ago. As the wind began to blow, I heard the voices of the Ancestors once more, “We are here and you have finally made it.”
In the days that followed I have returned to Ella’s records time and time again. Searching, hoping to make sense of her life if only in the slightest. Why was she there in that cemetery alone? How did she get to Pittsburgh? Did someone anoint her temples and sing her into Glory at the end? Maybe one day I will know, probably not. As I have read more and more records, pieced together by distant family members who carry on the Coles surname and those who don’t, I have come to know some hard realities and tender truths. From what I can tell at this time, Ella’s mother took on the surname of “Britton,” the surname of her enslaver. Horace, Ella’s husband, did the same. But the difference between Louise and Horace is that he carried his last name by birthright as his biological father was most likely his enslaver. There were also other children born to both Ella and Horace before their union in 1866, children who were only mentioned with no record to follow at this time.
I have long known that this was probably a part of my ancestral legacy. The blight, cruelty, and de-humanization of African peoples on this here stolen land goes both wide and deep. It has, and still does, break lineages, bloodlines, and souls. We call one another “cuzin” for a reason, it holds the silent pain of despair and the joyous spiritual knowing that we are one in the same. Like ripples between circles within a tree trunk caused by draught or over watering, patterns continue. There is space growing between generations today. Secrets told and secrets yet revealed which are not mine alone to share. Pain carried deep within hearts. And a striving to live without fear.
Ancestral veneration, or more simply stated, honoring one’s ancestors, is not about worshiping perfect people. If it were, we would be hard pressed to find such an exemplar. This cross-cultural, ancient practice is about rooting oneself among the branches of our being in the grove of humanity. It is about “telling the truth and shaming the devil,” as my people would say. It is about processing the pain and harm while honoring the magical resilience in how we are still somehow here today. It is about the all too real practice that each one of us should be living lives with the knowing that we too will be ancestors one day, and God willing, Good Ancestors at that. Nothing about knowing who we are or “who our peoples be” is an endeavor to locate the perfect. Veneration is about simply finding what can be used for the present, and crafting with our spiritual partners a future that is shaped by more hope than what once was — even amid hard realities and tender truths.
