Not because the road has been kind.
But because our blood remembers how.
I keep holding on through my ancestral relationships — through the quiet counsel of those who walked before me, whose names may not all be written down but whose fingerprints are pressed into my spirit. I feel them when I rise before dawn. I feel them when my hands touch earth, when I light a candle, when I whisper gratitude into the unseen. They are not gone. They are organized in the spirit.
And when I call on High John the Conqueror, I am calling on that laughing defiance that slavery could not crush. That cleverness that slipped chains without always breaking them. That sacred joke that says, You thought you buried me, but I was a root all along. He stands in the unseen with that knowing smile — not loud, not boastful — but certain. Certain that we will endure.
Through the steady discipline of remembrance.
We keep holding on by feeding our ancestors — with clean water, with good food, with spoken names, with stories told correctly. We feed them with our upright living. We feed them with our refusal to forget. And in return, they feed us courage. They feed us dreams that refuse to die. They place confidence in our backbone.
My Indigenous and African ancestors speak in different tongues but carry the same drumbeat: Stay. Stand. Survive. Thrive. Their traditions are not relics. They are living technologies of the soul. Prayer over smoke. Protection at the doorway. Roots in the pocket. Psalms on the tongue. Earth under the fingernails. Memory as medicine.
Holding on is not passive. It is active resistance. It is sacred labor. It is waking up each day and choosing alignment with those who survived worse than we can fully imagine — and honoring them by walking with dignity now.
When my knees feel weak, I remember: they crossed oceans.
When my voice trembles, I remember: they sang anyway.
When the world feels uncertain, I remember: they built worlds inside worlds to keep us safe.
So I keep holding on — not alone, but accompanied. Not afraid, but fortified. Not empty, but fed.
Because the root still lives.
Because the drum still sounds.
Because the ancestors are not behind me.
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