Chef Ophus

Around this time summer/2024, after a painful day at work and I finally took trip to the ER, I went through a whirlwind of tests. A gastroenterologist visit, an MRI, a sigmoidoscopy, a colonoscopy, and then a laparoscopic procedure revealed two tumors in my intestines. One was benign. The other was cancerous.

No post. No announcement. Just silence. I had the surgery, healed up just enough, and went straight back to work like nothing happened. Because that’s what I thought I was supposed to do. Keep grinding. Keep pushing.

But I wasn’t okay. I’d been feeling off for a while. Ignored the pain. Nights I couldn’t sleep. Couldn’t sit without discomfort. Still, I kept showing up. I was living alone in Austin with no friends or family within a thousand miles. No one to lean on.

And my mental? My mental was all messed up. Depression, anxiety, loneliness, all of it hit hard. But I didn’t want to stay home. I couldn’t stay home. Sitting in that silence with those thoughts felt heavier than any kitchen shift. So I threw myself into work, even when my body was screaming, even when my spirit was exhausted.

Here’s the part I haven’t said out loud until now. I was in no shape to be a good co-worker, leader, creator, cook, or chef. I was surviving, but I wasn’t whole.

Not taking the time to rest and heal, not just physically but mentally, ultimately cost me my job. And more than that, it cost me pieces of myself I am still trying to reclaim today.

Hearing Deion Sanders speak on his journey with bladder cancer cracked something open in me. The pain. The honesty. The strength. I felt every word. Because this idea that we as Black men have to be unshakable, untouchable, always “on”… it’s killing us.

Rest is not weakness.
Silence is not strength.
Pain ignored doesn’t disappear.

I’m still here. Still healing. Still learning how to choose myself. And now, I’m learning to say it out loud.

This isn’t for sympathy. It’s for the next person carrying too much in silence.

You matter. Your rest matters. Your healing matters. And you don’t have to carry it all alone.

Cake on Juneteenth by ain’t just dessert its declaration.

Symbolically, cake on Juneteenth is:

For centuries enslaved Black people were denied not only freedom but also joy. Celebration was regulated food was rationed and sweet things like cake were rare or reserved for the enslavers’ tables. So to bake, to frost, to share cake especially on a day marking our liberation is a soft and powerful flex. It’s reclaiming joy. Reclaiming sweetness.

160 years since .
Let’s run the numbers, fam:

2 parents
4 grandparents
8 great-grands
16 2nd greats
32 3rd greats
64 4th greats ← The first ones who might’ve heard they were “free.”
128 5th greats
256 6th greats
512 7th greats
1,024 8th greats
2,048 9th greats

That’s 4,094 ancestors each.
And for most of us, 3,968 of them never knew freedom.
Born enslaved. Died enslaved.
Didn’t live to see Juneteenth.
Didn’t get the news. Or got it late. Or didn’t get it at all.
But still they held on.

So when we laugh, rest, gather, build, thrive, and take up space unapologetically
we’re doing it with thousands of ancestors riding on our backs, whispering, “Keep going.”

Our joy? Our excellence?
That’s not just resistance.
It’s reparations in motion.

We weren’t just born free.
We’re walking proof the fight wasn’t in vain.

A fresh start is always an opportunity to revisit traditions, to rekindle old joys, and to create new memories around the table. ~