The Wild Reed: In This Time Marked By Grief

Thursday, January 28, 2021

In This Time Marked By Grief

Actor Chadwick Boseman died of colon cancer five months ago today.

On the 28th day of every month since his passing, I’ve honored Chad in some way at The Wild Reed. I continue this honoring today by sharing an excerpt from Joshua Barajas’s September 9, 2020 NewsHour story, “What Chadwick Boseman’s Death Means In a Year Marked By Grief.”

The grief Barajas is referring to is, of course, the grief caused by the coronavirus pandemic, a pandemic that is still very much with us, even as the roll-out of vaccines continues to slowly pick up steam.

Because the pandemic is still with us, the grief – both individual and collective – is also still with us. Barajas' article is thus just as relevant in these early days of 2021 as it was five months ago, back in 2020. Indeed, it could be retitled, “What Chadwick Boseman’s Death Means In This Time Marked By Grief.”

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A boy freezes as a TV reporter delivers the news that someone important to him has died. Wearing his “Black Panther” costume, the boy drops his action figure of King T’Challa.

“Daddy! Daddy! My h-hero is gone!” he cries in his father’s arms.

The boy is the center of a comic by artist Courtney Lovett, who at first didn’t believe the news that actor Chadwick Boseman had died. After seeing the late-night alerts on social media, she went to bed thinking it could have been a dream. But the next morning, the headlines hadn’t budged. Lovett said she doesn’t normally get emotional after a celebrity’s death. But this was no normal year.

The overlapping crises of 2020 have been acutely felt by Black people in the U.S. The novel coronavirus has worsened pre-existing disparities, both in health and financial security, and claimed a disproportionate number of Black lives. Police violence against Black people has not let up, touching off outpourings of anguish and months of nationwide protests.

Since COVID-19 began infecting and killing Americans, our rituals for grieving have changed. Not everyone can attend funerals of loved ones. Time spent reminiscing and honoring the dead has to be spent farther apart or over video chat. The process of grieving itself can be more isolating now.

At risk of understatement, Boseman’s death was shocking – the reactions on social media were swift in their immediate disbelief and despair. The official statement from the actor’s family revealed that he had been living with a colon cancer diagnosis for the past four years. The actor who had spent his career embodying towering Black figures in history – Jackie Robinson, James Brown, Thurgood Marshall – hadn’t been vocal about his diagnosis.

“It’s a lot to take on at one time,” said Monnica Williams, a clinical psychologist and associate professor at University of Ottawa’s School of Psychology.

“Every Black person I know is exhausted just from life right now,” she said.

Lovett, heartbroken, began to see the pictures posted by parents of children memorializing Boseman – a figure who had embodied Black lives in America and Africa. There were many Wakanda salutes, many makeshift memorials for Black Panther with superhero toys paying their respects.

With those images in mind, Lovett created a 10-panel comic that not only paid tribute to the 43-year-old actor, whose work and storytelling she admired, but to also leave a message of hope for the children who looked up to Boseman or his most famous character, King T’Challa, as an idol.

In Lovett’s comic, a black panther appears to the boy, who’s in bed grieving. The panther comforts the boy and then leads him to Boseman who delivers a message from the afterlife: The child, too, is a king.

Lovett said she wanted to end her comic by telling children that, “You are so great. You can still do these things, even though you feel that your hero is gone, we still have heroes here. You are a hero.”

[. . .] Lovett said she received comments and direct messages from people thanking her for her comic. Several said it helped them to grieve. Lovett said some parents told her they hesitated in telling their children about Boseman’s death, fearing that such news would make them feel defeated. But Lovett’s comic provided a doorway to a conversation around the loss of their hero.

Lovett said the outpouring after Boseman’s death felt like a “collective release.” Grieving for Boseman and his family was, in a way, also grieving for everything that has happened this year.