Devan Sandiford - The Tears Between Us

 

It was in the craziness of events in June that I made the decision. I'm sitting in my apartment in Brooklyn, New York. There's a global pandemic. I'm at home. I just finished a late night of work after helping my five and eight year old sons with their remote learning. And now is when I've made the decision to do the hardest thing that I've ever done in my life. Call my mom. 

 

See, it's weird being a 35-year-old who's afraid to call his mom. But I'm the youngest of three in my family and I just took on the role of the peacemaker in my family. So, whenever my brother and sister would start arguing, I would try and find ways to joke and make everybody back to being peaceful and happy. Anytime my brother wasn't being a good listener, I made sure to always listen to my parents and pick up things around the house, because I just wanted to bring everybody peace and happiness. 

 

But I'm afraid to talk to my mom on this particular night in my apartment, because I know the conversation I have to have with her is not going to bring any peace. It's only going to bring pain, because I have to talk to her about her brother that died when I was little. I don't really know the story, because no one's ever told me. But I've pieced together little pieces and what I know is that when I was six years old, my mom's brother was shot and killed on the front lawn of my grandparents’ home by the police. I can't really blame my mom for never telling me this story, because I know it's really painful. I have a lot of painful moments from my life that I've never shared with her. So, I can't really blame her. There's especially this one painful moment that I have that I never really shared with her, and it happened when I was 21 years old. 

 

When I was 21 years old, I transferred to a new university in Southern California where I'm from. And the university was out along the coast in Long Beach. I had this roommate situation set up, but my roommate just fell through. Even though I was working 35 hours a week, I didn't have a way to pay for my own place out in Long Beach. So, I had to drive all the way from my parents’ place which is an hour and a half away if there's no traffic. And in Southern California, there is always traffic. 

 

So, I had to wake up from my parents’ house and get out of the house by 04:30 or 5 o’clock. If I left my parents’ house even one minute after 5 o’clock, I'd be sitting in three hours of traffic. This was like my daily commute. I would drive to work, I would sleep in my car for a little bit, I'd work for a few hours and then I'd go to school where I was double majoring in biomedical electrical engineering. And then, after my late-night engineering classes would end up, I would usually stop by the gas station, grab myself an energy drink and these Nutter Butter bars, which were just delicious. That's the only way I could get home. I would just be way too tired. I was doing this for a long time and I decided to tell my parents that I was staying with a friend. But I started sleeping in my car next to my work. 

 

Just in this random parking lot, it wasn't so bad though. I could park there in a little secluded area. The only things I would have to worry about really are the bugs getting in and biting me. I'd have to worry about rolling up the windows, so that people wouldn't know that I'm there and rolling down the windows, so it wouldn't get all fogged up. That's what I did. My parents didn't know that I was doing this, but they knew that it was starting to get taxing to drive. So, they decided that they wanted to get me a hotel. 

 

The first night I stayed at the hotel, it was just wonderful. I had this big room to myself and a bed to myself and I could watch ESPN until I fell asleep and ESPN would just watch me. It was just great. But my parents raised me and my siblings to be responsible and independent. I didn't like to just use my parents’ money. So, sometimes I preferred to just sleep in my car still and not tell them. I would do that, especially on nights when I knew that I would have a long day at school, I would do it. 

 

But every once in a while, I would treat myself to the hotel. And one night after my late-night engineering classes, I left the school at around 10:00, 10:30 and I pulled into the hotel parking lot, and to my surprise, I saw a parking spot right by the door of the hotel entrance. I passed it. I wanted to back up and get into this spot and I see a car coming from the back and I slowly back into the parking spot and I grab my backpack and I step out of the car. As I step out, I see the car rolls up and it's actually a police car. The police officer flips on the lights, and steps out and asks me for my license and registration. And I'm like, “That's a little weird.” Like, he came from the other direction. I know this can't be traffic related. 

 

There's been several times where I've been stopped by the cops before for nothing. So, I know exactly what he's doing. When he tells me to sit on the curb, I know it's a routine racial profiling stop. He's going to take my information, he's going to check it against his database, and he's going to come back when he finds out that I have nothing on it and he's going to give me my stuff and let me go. 

 

As I'm sitting on the curb there waiting, I hear these tires rolling into the parking lot and I think to myself, oh, my gosh, how embarrassing. Another guest is going to come in, and they're going to see me here and they're going to think I'm a criminal. I look over my shoulder and I see it's not another guest, it's another cop. This cop car pulls up and it shines its lights directly on me. Two officers step out and stand behind the door. And now, I'm a little worried, like, what's going on? I've never even had a speeding ticket before. I've never had any traffic tickets. I come from a really religious family, so I actually have never had alcohol, even though I'm 21 years old. So, I'm like, “I don't know what's going on.” 

 

Before I can process this, I see the lights of another car coming in and it's another police car, and it pulls up behind me, and it's shining its lights on me and another officer gets out. Finally, the first officer comes back and he's asking me all these questions. He wants to know where am I coming from and what am I doing here. And then, he asks me if he can search my car. I pause for a second, because I know my rights and I know I can tell him no. But as a black person, I also know that that could make me look more suspicious, that I'm hiding something. I'm not hiding anything. So, I tell him, “Sure, you can search my car.” 

 

He begins to search my car, and he looks all the way through with his flashlight. When he finishes, he asked me if he can search my trunk. I think to myself, no. Like, “Don't search my trunk. I haven't done anything.” As I'm thinking this, I see another police car pull up. And now, there's four police cars and six officers all surrounding me as I'm sitting on the curb and I feel like the scum of the earth. I tell him he can search the trunk. He searches through the trunk and he eventually goes back to his police car. I'm just sitting there and I'm so frustrated, because I had been doing everything I was supposed to be doing in my life. 

 

I was double majoring in biomedical and electrical engineering. I was working 35 hours a week to put myself through school. I was even thinking about my parents’ money and easing their minds to not have to do these long drives and still I'm sitting here on the curb surrounded by cops like I'm a criminal. And finally, the officer comes back and he hands me my license and registration and he says, “You're good to go. Somebody called about a suspicious person. When I saw you park your car, I thought you might be trying to get away from me,” which makes perfect sense, because usually when people are trying to get away, they take their time to back their cars into a parking spot and step out slowly and wait for you, that's how you get away. 

 

I know it's a complete lie. What strikes me in that moment is it doesn't matter if it's a lie or not, that this police officer is in a position of power and he can say anything he wants and I can only just sit there and take it. I'm so ashamed that I just sit there. I don't fight back and I don't resist, but I also don't want to end up dead. As I'm sitting there, I think about my uncle and I visualize what I've always thought about even not knowing the story, that his face is face down on the ground dead somewhere and I just say, whatever, I got to get back into the hotel and just let go of this. As I'm walking away, the police officer looks at me and says, “You know, you had that Nutter Butter in there. It looked like you had a really great dinner.” This really throws me off, because he laughs to himself. And I'm like, “This was a joke to him and this is not a joke to me.’ 

 

I walk inside the hotel and all the people who know me from the days before, they're like, “Oh, my goodness, I can't believe that happened to you. Are you okay? Can we report this? What should we do?” And I tell them, “No, I don't want to report it. I just want to get to my room, and I want to get in my bed and hide and pretend like this never happened.” And so, that's what I do. For my whole life, I pretend like this didn't happen and I don't tell anyone. I tell my parents just small details. But every time another black man comes into the news with a death, I picture myself on that curb and I picture my uncle and I know that I have a lot of pain, and so I want to call my mom and find out what has happened to my uncle. So, I finally get the phone in my apartment and I call her. 

 

As I get ahold of her, we talk. I tell her about all these dehumanizing moments in my life. I open up to her and I tell her all the pain that I have. I finally ask her to tell me about her brother and what happened. She tells me about his life, them growing up. She tells me about the dress that she was wearing. She was wearing this red dress on the day and my uncle was going a little crazy, and the cops had gotten called and they had calmed him down, but when he walked outside, the cops were out there with their guns drawn all around him. My dad was there saying, “Don't shoot. Don't shoot. Don't shoot.” And they shot him anyway and said that he had a weapon on him. But when they searched, they didn't find one. 

 

As my mom tells me this story, she's getting a little emotional. But it's not until she gets to the part where she talking about my grandma and how my grandma used to always just retell this story anytime a visitor would come over to the house. Every time my grandma told the story, my mom had to relive the moment all over again. And for the first time in my life, I'm seeing tears fill into my mom's eyes. I can just feel her pain. I feel so bad that I've brought her this pain. I thought I was supposed to be the peacemaker, but all I have done here is bring her this pain. But I know that I had to do this, because I know there's so much pain inside of me and I haven't been able to give my heart to the people that I love and to bring peace to anyone from the pieces of my broken heart. 

 

As my mom continues to tell me more things, we talk for three hours, I realize that what I'm really looking for was a connection to my mom and to break the silence that I've been holding onto and to break the generational trauma that my family has gone through before it passes on to my sons. And now, all I can do is hope for healing as I continue to share my story and to share about the things, the pains from my life. I think that begins as I speak my uncle's name for the first time. My uncle's name was Roland Edwards, but I called him Uncle Ron. Thank you.