EnShanté

Learning of the passing of beloved social media personality and mama of four, Tamara “Tammy” Wiggins, publicly known as @livingwithlilac, immediately made me think of younger me and how afraid I was of my parents dying. I was about 10 years old when I realized my parents were going to die someday. I can’t recall if anything happened to spark the thought; I just remember lying on my bed and thinking, “Wow, my mom and dad are going to die. I’m going to die.”

My mom was always the greater source of anxiety regarding this because, in addition to being the “sick parent,” she was also the one that I shared my brother’s with. If anything happened to her, I knew that I would go with my father, but where would they go? Their fathers were absent losers, so they were out of the question. Her siblings would never, and her mom… might have taken them for the money, but probably not because she was already raising my uncle’s three kids. My brothers’ fates would have been in limbo, and I would have been sick AF if they were put into foster care. I probably would have snatched them up and run away before they could be taken, honestly. 😂 I could see 12-year-old me on the run with a 6-year-old and an infant — we probably wouldn’t have gotten far, but dammit, we would have gotten somewhere!

When I realized we could be separated, I started to plead with the universe: “If my mom dies, please don’t let her die before I turn 18.” When I turned 18, that morphed into “…before I finish college” and then, “…before I get myself together.” 20-something years later, and the parents are still kicking (thank you), but I’m down a brother (fuck you).

Anyways, I say all of this to acknowledge that no matter how hard you pray, wish, and hope for the best, life is random and fucked up at times. It doesn’t matter what you want because what you get is what you get. I don’t know why it was Tammy’s time, and I didn’t know her, but my heart aches for her children. I’m happy they have each other and I hope they be okay. Consider donating to their GoFundMe if you can.