“To My Daughters, Who Will Need to Know” a poem
This physician had recently started a new job when the pandemic hit.
The safety measures put in place at work enabled her to have an extended maternity leave to spend time with one young daughter and her baby daughter born that summer.
Still, the year had many challenges with so many changes at once in the midst of the pandemic.
As a Black woman, she faced additional challenges related to ongoing racial violence in the U.S. and how so many of her well-meaning colleagues at work reacted to this racism. She saw herself as having grown tremendously during that year — both in actions she took herself as well as her renewed reliance on her strong network of other Black women.
She wanted her poem to cement how much struggle she had overcome that year and to also serve as a role model for her daughters.
Listener Poet Yvette Perry
Association of American Medical Colleges
March 2021
To My Daughters, Who Will Need to Know
One day, you’ll want to know how I came to
be so strong and you will need to know:
I grew into this woman
You’ll need to know how hard it was this
past year for me to start a new job,
to be a new mother of two
Running fast, I hit a brick wall
A new virus made the wall harder
The old virus made it harder still
Even though that summer my inbox at work
overflowed with their words of
solidarity, after a while when I’d say
8 minutes 46 seconds they’d be confused
or when I’d say Say her name
they’d wonder Whose?
You’ll need to know that when I
hit that brick wall, I did not fall,
I leaned back into arms of sister-friends
I learned to slow myself down, inhale
good moments, extend grace unto myself
I learned to reject the legacy of
so many women before me who had
learned to build walls that were
hindrances to their own happiness
I see, my Beloveds, me reflected in you:
strong Black woman I grew into,
unbreakable not despite, but
because of my vulnerability
I know one day you’ll need to know so that
when you come to your own brick walls you can
find the doors and walk through
