By: Jonathan Mathias Lassiter, PhD | @lassiterhealth
I grew up in a religious tradition that taught me that what the enemy meant for your bad, god will use for your good. This cultural wisdom has its roots beyond the Christian church in which I was reared and links to ancient African values. Consistent with Dr. Linda James Myers’ optimal conceptual theory, perceived negative events are opportunities for growth and realization of oneness.
During the dual pandemics of COVID-19 and racism, African values and concepts have helped sustain me through the pandemic. Specifically, the values of community and oneness with spirit along with the concept of extended self have helped me reframe the trials I’ve experienced during the pandemic as opportunities for growth through cultural connection.
I lost my father and my two older brothers since the COVID-19 pandemic began. My father, John Mathis Lassiter Jr., was 70 years old when he passed away in 2021 due to kidney failure. My elder brother, John Mathis Lassiter III, was 51 years old when he passed away due to a stroke one year later. My other brother, Troy Lassiter, passed away from a drug overdose at age 49 two days after John the III’s death.
Too many Black people’s lives have been lost prematurely due to the dual pandemics. Examining statistics from Mapping Police Violence and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, there have been 101,102 and 599 Black lives lost due to COVID-19 related conditions and murder by police – just one small indicator of racism, respectively, since 2020.
COVID Losses
Many Black people, like myself, have suffered losses. These losses and the grieving processes related to them have been complicated for many of us. For some, the social distancing concerns related to COVID-19 may have hindered the ability to gather and grieve as a community. Others may have experienced simultaneous, conflicting emotions of sadness for the loss and anger toward the person for how they did or did not treat them when they were alive. Personally, I have experienced both.
The COVID losses could be detrimental to our health. They could also be opportunities to draw upon our African values. Through connecting in deeper ways with our culture, we allow ourselves to heal, grow, and thrive.
Although earthly limitations like homonegativity, sibling jealousy, and fear of being emotionally vulnerable hindered my relationships with the men in my family when they were alive in their physical bodies, in their spiritual forms, I can have a closer relationship with them. African values such as community and oneness with spirit have helped me see these men as my ancestors and integrate them as part of my community.
From an African perspective, a person never really dies. They change forms. Drs. Piper-Mandy and Rowe describe death and the time after that as beholding and beyond. Beholding is the moment when the spirit leaves the earthly body and joins the spiritual realm.
Hope!
Beyond is when the spirit gains the status of ancestor. In their spiritual and ancestral forms, I can connect with my father and brothers in ways that I could not when they were physically alive. When in life they lacked the emotional skills to hear my fears, and instead offered superficial platitudes or told me to “man up,” now I can invoke their spirit and imagine them comforting me in times of need.
Where they separated themselves from me before, I can now pull them close into my community by connecting with their pure spiritual essence and not their earthly limitations. Through connection with their spiritual oneness, I can forgive the hurt they engendered while on earth and ease the pain of their physical deaths.
