Thursday, December 17th, 2009, 12:06pm is the single most important moment of my entire life. In my tender and – in hindsight – blithely unaware age of 22 years, a very small, pink little girl with a pouf of downy, black hair broke free of my narrow hips and very serenely began her life. The start of this life – this punch-drunk, hormone cocktail animal mess – was the most amazing thing I have ever done. A surreal acid trip that was actually flesh, blood, bone and love – wearing a hand-knitted hat with a Christmas bauble. Friends – and I mean no offense when I say this – before you have children you can never fully appreciate the heaviness of the word “sacrifice”. 27 months (yes, I’m still counting) have passed since my Little Lady Love Bean was a small, squeaking human curl in my arms, and in that time I have suffered/enjoyed the back-breaking task of learning to Love and to Give (please note the capitalizations here) unconditionally.
But this is no Hallmark card to parenthood. Love is so much more than a slogan on a crimson cutout and black, white or caramel, how much a woman gives of herself to others is a universal experience – and one that author and columnist, Donna Britt, understands well. After decades of presenting her own personal understandings of race, death, love, sacrifice and giving in the pages of The Washington Post, Politics Daily, The Root, Sojourners and other publications, Donna Britt now collects her thoughts in the new memoir, Brothers (& Me): A Memoir of Loving and Giving. In a dinner conference kicking off this weekend’s Saturday Academy Sistah Summit, Britt will sign copies of her book and elaborate on the subject of women and giving with the talk, “Loving and Doing: Do We Do Them Too Much?”
Sponsored by the University of Louisville, the Saturday Academy Sistah Summit will feature a myriad of speakers, discussion groups and activities focusing on issues that affect the well-being of black women – employing the minds of both local and national presenters. Britt’s discussion dinner will be hosted tomorrow evening, Friday, March 23rd at Hotel Louisville at a cost of $30 per plate for those not registered for the Summit itself. Join this pioneering journalist as she speaks frankly, thoughtfully and personally about the lives of women through the powerful lens of her own family story.
Hotel Louisville is located at 120 West Broadway. For more information contact LyShanna Cunningham at (502) 852-2658 or l.cunningham@louisville.edu
Image: Courtesy of Donna Britt's website www.donnabritt.org
