Southern Legitimacy Statement: The South is the only place where I’m not called country, but rather more of a city girl. Such twang isn’t found any higher than Virginia, the only place I’ve ever called home. I find my identity in the lowest parts of the country, the South being the place I belong.
Everybody Knows Tina
Tina Marie. A firecracker of a woman. Her walk? Full of pure confidence. Her body language fluent in every dialect. Her voice silenced anyone who attempted to “put her in her place,” as her worth was never up for debate. An activist, a mother, a role model, a female boss, she proved that women could be anything and everything they ever dreamed of. Beaming at five feet and nine inches, such a woman was impossible to ignore, her elegance and beauty radiating through everyone she met.
What does it mean to radiate? Oxford Languages says “to spread out from a central point,” which definitely sounds like her. Her love and comfort was free to anyone who asked for it, radiating all throughout families, friends, and every soul that crossed her path. The other definition of radiate says “to send out waves or rays.” To radiate is to send poison waves through her bones to try to dim her of her firecracking spark. To radiate is to grab a woman by her arm and try so hard to drag her into the dirt of what comes after Earth. Tina didn’t let some silly waves or a bit of hair loss stop her, she didn’t let cancer become her title, and she didn’t let weakness become her truth.
At first, the cancer only really existed in one part of her body, the part that she said made her “sick.” I was too young to understand what cancer truly meant, but I knew that it was dangerous, and I’d seen kids my age lose their battles with it. For some reason, littler me wasn’t all that scared when she told me, it could have been because she didn’t seem scared, or maybe it was because I knew that wasn’t what she needed from me. My sister and I were so little at the time, and Tina wanted to cherish those younger years with us. In the beginning, she could still play with us and dress us up like cute little dolls, and we loved spending time with her.
As I grew into a snappy pre-teen, her cancer spread throughout various spots of her body, growing from little to big the same way I had done. I noticed that Tina began to seem frail, a slight limp now accompanying her confident walk and a wince of pain occasionally covering her flawless skin. She would never admit that the pain was getting to her, that just wasn’t who she was. She was supposed to be Tina Marie, the flawless bombshell rocking a fresh bouncy blowout and glittery eyeshadow. She was supposed to be the hardworking, successful, self-made icon. She was supposed to be my grandmother.
I began to notice a new emotion brewing inside of my chest, something that I’d never felt before. It was sour and spicy and bitter and nasty, and no matter how many times I tried to spit it out, it kept coming back to haunt me, choking me up like the most rotten pepper you’d ever taste. Hatred was her name, and she belonged to her friend named cancer. Hatred followed me, lingering in the back of each day. She reminded me of how much pain my Tina felt, and how little I could do about it. She mocked me and laughed at me and drove me insane until she took up so much space that I forgot how to live without her.
When hatred beat me into a pulp until I no longer had lungs to breathe, I had to say goodbye to that firecracker of a woman, Tina.
Cancer and hatred continued to stay with me, appearing in moments where they were never wanted. They scream at my friends and talk back to my mom before neglecting my work and sleeping in on weekdays. When they appear I tell them they’ve ruined me by taking from me a woman as beautiful as a hummingbird’s wing. They do not respond to me, but I know that they can feel something foreign to them, the hope that Tina will reappear.
When I first saw her again as a beautiful garden of flowers last spring, cancer and hatred disappeared for a moment, letting me watch the dragonflies interact with her petals. A few tears parted my face as I finally found peace knowing that she was still there, and she still loved and took care of every soul that crossed her path.
