Being Davanté

Davanté's heart sinks to the lowest of depths. He cannot lose his mother now. He is only seventeen years old. He has not learned enough about life to be on his own. He does not know how to live. To add to his grief, his long lost father re-emerges in his life with an agenda to make amends.Through a journey of pain, Davanté learns to forgive. He learns to love again. He learns to live anewDavanté Williams senses his mother slipping away. As her only child, he can easily discern between the usual buoyancy of his mother’s spirit and the now weakened trace that is leaving. Davanté’s skin prickles as the shadows of loneliness threaten. He cannot lose her now. He is too young. Barely seventeen. An almost-man.Mother moves on, leaving Davanté to struggle with grief. He shuffles through his last senior classes like a ghost trapped between two realities. In one, he must muster his energies to prepare his senior project for graduation. In the other reality, he reminisces over his mother and wonders about her secretive and tragic past.Love keeps Davanté afloat despite his trials. The love of true friendship. Family. Perfect strangers. His art: the colorful graphic works made from his hands. All work to hold Davanté in place.That is, until his mysterious father surfaces. A man of a dark past. An ex-convict. A rumored murderer. Davanté’s father swiftly becomes a thorn in Davanté’s side. His father wants to amend and make new, but Davanté is having none of it.He lashes out. He rebels. He pushes his father away. Love, he cannot push away so readily. It wraps itself around Davanté again, reminding him of who is, where he is from, and where he should be going.Eventually, Davanté learns to forgive. He learns to love. He learns to live anew.