Author: Juliet Iwelunmor, PhD
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Keep evenings with family!
What’s so nice about our home in the evening is that everybody is there. Dad in his blue scrubs, sitting on a chair. A child on every chair and grandma too. Rice on the table with fried plantains and fish stew. All of us, smiling, as we eat, hoping the night lingers as we sit,…
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Keep stitches along the way!
Some things help us to keep life as is. Things like a visit to an emergency room for the same cuts, same stitches too. Life forces us to continue, things planned and unplanned, those that depleted and those that persist. How many have stopped when tracks lead to places unwanted. This past weekend demanded I…
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Keep words that leave you breathless!
Words that flow, like eyes that see the bluest moon, leave me breathless. Lavishly they give meaning, a justice that endures. Where they begin, clear and steady, leaves a wide range of emotions that is ushering these words I write in praise. I see windows within my soul open up with these words. These are…
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Keep your stories!
A womb tells the beginning of your story. Life forgets it’s continuity. Yet, if your stories, instead of theirs, your life, instead of their own. All your gains, instead of defeat. Your pain too, instead of deceit. If your lillies bloomed in any way. Your roses only registered thorns. Your days are as days. Your…
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Keep what you got!
I spent the day at the ER with my 5 year old son today. I got a call around 10am to come get him from school because he fell and may need stitches. On getting to his school, the gash was deep and well off to the ER we went. I was actually fascinated by…
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Keep radical wellness for public health!
Are you sure, sweetheart, that you want to be well? This question has always haunted my spirit. It’s from Toni Cade Bambara’s novel, The Salteaters. It is also apt for today. That and what does being well mean for the public’s health, from a social justice lens, radical wellness too and not from experts alone,…
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Keep your failures!
There was a time, all I did was fail with every grant I wrote. Welcome to a new month. I woke up to an email sent to the entire university celebrating a recent success today. I am honored and grateful but I can’t help but remember the times of failure. Yes, failure. Sure the messages…
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Keep this knowing so deep, black mothers!
I have spent the past 2 days sinking into Toni Morrison’s knowing so deep essay. It’s my go to essay when I try to understand my place in this world. The wisdom, accuracy, relevance of her words are worthy of being kept every single day. If black women are to survive, if we are to…
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Keep black mothers, keep black sons! For Tyre!
I think about us today. Black mothers wherever you are. I think about the thoughts we have for our children. The fear we have too. I think about what tomorrow may bring. What today brings. I want to say it will be better. It may not be. I want to tell you to dry your…
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Keep breaking your silence!
I spent 2 hours early in the year, learning, absorbing, and exchanging wellness, healing from what it means to be black and woman in academia. Many of us have been battered. The weights of all we carry chokes and continues to choke. But the power of our narrative, the gifts we offer and the knowledge…
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Keep flying!
‘Won’t you celebrate with me.’ These opening line to Lucille Clifton’s poem is my mood for the year. Today is my first team meeting too. I like to take my time to usher in the New Year. Somethings take time. So I begin this year with my team, asking them to celebrate all our wins.…
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Keep 4 girls and women with ending cervical cancer!
Each day, nearly 28 women die from cervical cancer in Nigeria. Angela Akumuo, my sister-in law, was one of them in the summer of 2021. She was 53 years old. Her death, like those of many women who continue to die from cervical cancer in Nigeria and globally, could have been prevented. It was also…
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Writing with Juliet Iwelunmor 