Young Love
The humidity was high on this warm, hazy day. People moved slowly. Many sat on their porches, fanning themselves, with a beverage always within arm’s reach. It was going to be a hot summer in Virginia; they had already broken records. In a small garage in Fairfax County, Jonathon, a twenty-three-year-old law student, was enjoying helping his father restore cars.
Jonathon was a handsome, outgoing and intelligent Black man born only a few miles away. The community knew and liked him. He was brought up to be kind and considerate, and although he was the only child, he was never spoiled—well, maybe a little by his mother.
His father never had the education Jonathon received, but Jonathon said his most thoughtful and profound words came from his dad. His mother was the strong one of the family, level-headed, calm and always able to restore order in heated situations.
“Time to go home, boys,” Jonathon’s father hollered from the back of the garage. Jonathon put everything away and made his way to the cleaning station where Willie, the mechanic, smiled and asked, “Will there be a second anytime soon?”
“No, we’re going to take a break and revisit this next year,” Jonathon replied.
Jonathon and his wife, Aida, had a beautiful nine-month-old girl named Ebony. Their daughter was a bundle of laughter and joy but enough to contend with.
Jonathon and Aida were in high school when they first met; Aida was fourteen and Jonathon fifteen.
Aida was shy. Not like Jonathon, who she thought talked too much, but she tolerated him since he was funny at times. Jonathon made it clear he wanted to date Aida, but she was uncertain until one day she heard from a friend who heard from another friend that a girl liked Jonathon. At that moment Aida realized she had already fallen for him and decided to finally date him. Once their relationship blossomed, they were inseparable. Seven years later, they were married in a small church just a few blocks away.
Aida was a beautiful petite but strong twenty-one-year-old woman. In Amharic, the language of Ethiopia, her home country, Aida meant happy. Every time her dad told someone that her name came from the 1871 Verdi opera, her mom rolled her eyes and reminded him that he’d never even seen an opera. Her dad always bellowed out a laugh because he knew it was true.
Aida and her family had come to the United States from Ethiopia nearly ten years earlier. They left shortly after her grandmother, her Ayate, passed away. Aida was only nine when she and her two brothers arrived home from school to find a large group of people in their house. She knew what had happened; her parents had sat her and her brothers down to prepare them for Ayate being with Ayati soon. Aida remembered being scared and excited about crossing
