“If there’s a book that you want to read, but it hasn’t been written yet, then you must write it.” – Toni Morrison

I was 17 when I read this quote for the first time. I don’t remember what led me to do so, but I’d Google’d her and to the right of the link to her Wikipedia page was this quote. The timing was impeccable in hindsight, because about five minutes before that, I realized that I wanted – no, needed – to be a writer. It felt, in that moment, as if she was talking directly to me. I had been searching for my purpose for what felt like forever and there she was supporting a dream that I hadn’t even realized was within me until I read her words. 

I used to be insecure about being a writer, not because I was bad at it, but because when I realized it was what I needed to do, my friends had already decided they wanted to be doctors, nurses, lawyers. I thought what they wanted to do was more impactful than anything I could ever write. Toni Morrison’s writing expanded, combatted, and broadened the American worldview. It gave credence to experiences that only a portion of America bore the burden of. I said that to say that through her, I was able to see that writing can heal the way a doctor does, defend the way a lawyer does, and prepare and comfort the way a nurse does. I can concede the work of a doctor is different from the work of a writer – the artist- but the potential to heal lies in the hands of them both.

Toni Morrison read and read and read and didn’t see enough stories about Black people, our plight or the way in which we persevered despite the conditions we faced, so she penned us in. Her work continues to be inspiring and push the needle forward, but as much as it was her desire to write for us, it was work that America needed to be done. 

In the short time I’ve been here on Earth, I look and look and look and I don’t see love, compassion, genuine discourse and most importantly, I don’t see God and therein lies my purpose. As soon as God showed me writing was for me, I realized it could neither be for my sake nor could it be for art’s sake. But it would have to be for the world’s sake – to communicate that we are not on the same side. 

Last Friday, Toni Morrison passed. To some that’s old news, but she gave me too much – a precedent, a voice, permission to create my own rules – for me to ever consider her gone. This quote is not only permission to create, it is a charge not to let a lack in the world deter me or anyone else from creating. We often say that just because we can’t see something, it doesn’t mean it isn’t there. Ms. Morrison has demanded that when it isn’t there, we have to create it – ensure that one way or another, it gets there.