Don’t think just because I didn’t lose my temper, I’m not angry. Or lacking a plan…
Angry gets sh*t done.
-American Gods

Late last night, my family learned that Joan Lowther, my grandmother, passed away. Grandma Joan was the most energetic person I’ve known, and I only knew her beginning from her 60s.

Grandma Joan spent most of her life in the Newark, NJ area, and since I went to college in NJ, I got to visit on occasion (but never enough, as she would frequently remind me with a laugh). On one trip, my brother and I got in Grandma Joan’s car for her to show us the Christmas lights around Newark on a chilly December night. The tour came with a few anecdotes - “Ms. Shelley lived here, we used to go to Pathmark together. That family who came to Pilgrim, they lived here. That’s where your uncle used to live.” Newark is a city I’ve experienced in the past tense - so and so was this, this area was that. There are sections transitioning to being more in the present, but the transition has been a slow one. As the tour ended, we saw a few scattered Christmas lights here and there. But it was not the Newark Grandma Joan had wanted to show off. “Well, there used to be more festivity,” she summarized. “Maybe it will be better next year.”

Grandma Joan was an optimist and a helper. Her seasoned not-so-teal-anymore Honda Accord had helped her bring more assistance to her church family than any NJ Transit service - shuttling seniors to and from appointments, bible study, grocery store, pharmacy, always with a smile and never with enough time to do everything.

Grandma Joan lived well into her 80s, coming into our family when my Grandfather Avant remarried years after his first wife (my biological Grandmother, Doris), passed away. Grandma Joan was the closest grandparent I’ve had, regardless of her “step” grandmother status. I am thankful that her passing in 2020 was not due to Covid, because that brings with it it’s own set of questions - did this really have to be? Unfortunately, she lost her battle in this life after complications following a stroke close to this past Thanksgiving.

Grandma Joan made it known before her health declined that she didn’t want to be on life support for too long. Following her stroke, she remained unresponsive and after a few weeks, our family made the difficult decision to remove her from life support. However, as a family, we were able to say goodbye in a manner that the hospital has had too much practice offering in a pandemic-filled 2020. The hospital allowed for a transition off life support on a Webex call that family, friends and church support could all attend virtually with a few close family members in the room. It’s a technology use that I don’t think any product manager would want to think through. Songs were sang, words were said, I offered a few teary sentences, with the only audible sentence, “Grandma Joan was the glue that helped to hold our family together.” Said more elegantly by my brother, Grandma Joan showed our family, that she chose to make us a part of her life.

After my grandfather was killed in an unfortunate robbery (another story for another day), Grandma Joan was the widow of a man she had only been married to a short four or five years. She made the choice - to continue to be a Lowther - to continue to love and welcome her new family and accept them as her own.

She did that with everything - looking ahead to what could be, and remembering the best days that have passed.

I started this post starting out talking about anger. Grandma Joan’s passing has hit me particularly hard, because it feels like losing a strong connection to my Grandfather’s plan. The more I learn about him, the more I learn of the plan he had for his family, and the more I wonder if we’re really executing on it. I’m sure that plan arose from anger at the circumstances. Granddad Lowther was part of the Black migration from North Carolina north to cities like Newark, and while there were more opportunities for a Black man in Newark than in the south, it had to be a frustrating life in so many ways. But he persisted - finishing college where he met and later married my grandmother, having five kids, buying five plus properties, running a taxi business, a restaurant, being a chemist, teaching, and later being a school principle. His five kids went to college paid for by the houses he bought and sold.

And as we get ready to hold funeral services for Grandma Joan, we’ve learned that he purchased enough space in our family’s burial plot to honor her in her passing. Even after his life, his plan is in motion.

He had a plan. And I’m sure he had to be angry at some level - at why some things were possible for Black people in America for some who worked ceaselessly, and why some things would never be possible, no matter how hard you worked.

If I’m realizing anything as 2020 comes to a close, a year that for me, personally, has overall been positive, even calm. But the year has made me angry. My left eye twitched from April - June a little bit more with every new headline that came. If you know me at all, you’ve probably never seen me lose my temper (and hopefully never will). But that doesn’t mean I’m not angrier than before.

Angry that we can’t use America’s wealth to keep people healthy, even before a pandemic exacerbated these health differences.
Angry that it takes the murder of innocent Black people (caught on camera) to incite action
Angry that we have to still fight for basic rights like voting, and being counted in a census
Angry that there are companies who can fake their way to billion dollar valuations while others can’t get funding
Angry that I don’t have enough resources to invest in ideas that are better or that haven’t gotten a chance
Angry that we’re destroying our planet because it makes our lives slightly less comfortable in the short term, and that communities that are least equipped to deal with pollution, get the brunt of its ill-affects in the form of increased asthma rates and shorter life spans
Angry that no matter how many votes Biden and Kamala received, some people will never call them their President or Vice President

I am mourning Grandma Joan and trying to see the positive.

I hope her passing passes her optimism on to the people she’s touched in the city she loved.

And I hope that I, and my family, can continue to expand the plan Grandpa Avant worked hard to make possible.

Battlin' evil, I'm hopin' to win
Fightin' my demons, I'm nice for a reason
…
I'm ready and willing to fight all these villains
No chaos or killings, my style is so brilliant
-”Elevate” from Into the Spider-Verse