STRAW IS ENOUGH TO MAKE YOU EMOTIONAL

I watched STRAW and I didn't cry. Did I get emotional? Yes! But did I cry? Only at the part where her mom called and said “We lost her Janiyah! We lost her last night”. I cried because no mother deserves to lose a child, no mother deserves that. 

But for straw? It's a story, a life I have seen too many often. It was like seeing people I know in real time acting out and playing out their life, but just that this time, it's a scripted life I am watching. 

I know too many Janiyahs. I know too many women who have known pain, losses, sufferings, rejections, heartbreaks, women who have carried burdens for too long, carried crosses that wasn't theirs alone to carry, women who work 3 jobs: corporate, menial,odd, any job just to survive; one day at a time.

Women who have lost their homes, their kids, their marriages, livelihood, their essence, their dignity, livelihood, just because…they had to walk the walk alone. 

I know women who have walked into hospitals with a pregnancy, but left with a dead baby, a sick baby, a baby whose life would depend on drugs and hospital visits for survival. I know women who had gone for pregnancy scams but came back with results that said “You have Ovarian Cyst!” “Oh! It's cervical cancer!” “Oh! We see a tumor growing alongside the baby the fibroid is threatening the baby”. 

I know single mothers with sick babies, who are parenting alone with an income that can't even cover feeding alone. 

I have seen and I know a lot of Janiyah in my life. I have them, I know them, I see them, and so! That story to me is a regular. 

I have seen pain in women! Raw pain that came from pregnancy (ies) loss, marriage (s) loss, family backgrounds, spousal losses, child(ren) loss, job loss, financial loss…the list is long. 

I know women whose mental health is on the edge, they are just holding on, by a thin thread, a very thin one, that might snap anytime. Why? Because they have been carrying the burden for too long. Doing it all by themself for so long. Janiyah broke because she doesn't have a support system. She has to be everything to herself, at every point. She is all she has, there was no one else. 

In a black culture that is designed to shame and humiliate, help is rare and scarce!

I know women who have had to be breadwinners to families they didn't procreate. Women who have been disgraced over and over cos their kids aint like *the other kids”. I know women whose husbands bolted cos the child didn't turn out “as he expected”. I know women who the medical personnel drilled and questioned over and over, cos the child isn't what is termed as “normal”. 

And I? I have had to be a shoulder to many women, even when I carried my own cross. Like Janiayah co-worker (can't remember her name right now) I have offered support, strength to others even when I needed the help the most. I have had to speak up for people who are struggling to get out of “the trap” called “situations and circumstances” 

While the story might be so emotionally drilling, it's something we see everyday, if we look within: the cousin who can't stay married, the aunt with 3 kids and 3 husbands, that niece who is a baby mama, the nephew who can't get it together. We all have a Janiyah in our lives. 

There are many Janiyah in our lives, each living a story that silently screams “Help me! I am hanging on to the last strength in me’ 

We all have a Janiyah in our circle, our midst, a Janiyah who isn't broadcasted on national television, but a Janiyah whose struggles are real. A Janiyah who have had to be everything they didn't set out for, but life threw at them, and they embrace it, even when it's draining. 

The part she said “No one has ever stood up for me” touched me and I reflected. While I might have people that stood up for me, at different phases and stages of my life, I realise that there were times that I needed the people that mattered to me most to stand up for me, not strangers, not random people, but people who I shared something in common with, and did they? I don't know! Cos I truly don't know. 

For me, while I will give Tyler Perry his flowers for always delivering, and Taraji Henson for embodding the character so well, it's a narrative that many women are living our there, and many, so many are hanging on by their last straw, and before the last straw that will break their back, I pray they find help, solace, comfort, mental clarity, and finally they find themselves in the midst of it all. 

Till then, we will keep praying for every Janiyah not to break, cos breaking isn't a beautiful sight. 

Be kind always. 

Not only with your words, but your looks. 

Don't look condescending on the other woman, you never can tell, you might never know…the silent battle.

And when you find a Janiyah, don't turn away! Please!! DON'T!!!