When I was a professional dancer, there was a photographer who would show up at the studio to photograph us dancers.  Knowing he was in the room, we would hold important poses a little longer to make sure he could capture the moment. We looked forward to seeing his prints with hopes that we would find one of ourselves doing what we loved, and our bodies testifying to that mission. 

About a month in, we decided this photographer was the worst ever. Horrendous photos of biscuit feet and unenergetic arms, cast about on the floor for display. We gathered them up just as quickly to dispose of the evidence. 

He explained he was doing a study on transitions and looking at whether less anticipated moments leading up to the notable ones were also valued. I now consider that idea in everything. Moments become pixelated to reveal individual transitions that create a memorable picture.  

People who provide these transitions I call, “just-add-water” people. They exist in families, with friends and in our communities. They tap into their reserve of money to provide that item that makes their child shine, offer accounting services so their friends’ dream business can exist, or work hard hours at a job, with no benefits, while the business reaps the profit. Their history may not directly affect the masses but man are they important!

Many of us get lost in the glory of our accomplishments, but have amnesia when it comes to the history that we have not arrived there with one click of the shutter. The living is in the pixels that create the frame. Like Linda Ellis says of the dash between birth and death dates, ”What mattered most of all was the dash between the years.”

Near the end of her dash, my mother and I sat on our butterscotch-toned Queen Anne sofa. It was backlit by the afternoon sun. Sun was always centered in our lives: life-giving, calming, illuminating and vibrant. I sank into the sofa, just there in the center. Me with my body pressed so close that if it weren’t for the laws of physics I would have dissolved right back into hers. I wanted to be swallowed up by this unintelligible moment and be held in the warmth of her spirit, because the disappearance of the sun was too much to bear.  

I tried to commit to my memory the weight of her arm and the bones of her hands clasped next to my shoulder as they suspended time.  At least it felt like it until I guess it got dark and I suppose we went to bed. Maybe I slept in her bed that night. Smelling her freshly showered skin and memorizing her hands. Maybe I cried all night. I don’t recall.  

I know the next day we were off to the hospital. With many forgotten transitions. Were some of my unmemorable transitions, like locking the door to the home she would never see again, for her actually peaks? 

At the hospital, she began her first rounds of that magical red liquid. We watched the clear be pushed on and the red enter her veins, “hot,” she said. After the first day, the others seem to blend into a month of mumbles. No clear words, but I understood that no one could be any more vulnerable than the people in that ward, depending on specialists to do what they do and their own bodies to react in concert. 

Mommy was a prolific community asset, but not featured on any Black History Month flyer. At 51, how did she spend the very last dots leading up to her dash? What did she do when I was not in the room? From what I heard, she set up shop counseling nurses; they referred to her as their sunshine and my father visited to profess his undying love. They had divorced 11 years earlier.

Celebrated historical dashes are made up of millions of images of the mundane, of labor, sacrifice and death. All so others may have rich lives—families, friends and communities. This month, let’s take a moment to celebrate the multitude of dashes that make up historical life-giving moments and yet remain unnoticed. Happy Black History Month.

Adrienne Jensen is the executive director of Evergreen Meadow Services and the former Sullivan County Human Rights Commissioner.