BEFORE YOU GO: AN OFFERING by Sharon Brigforth
before you go: an Offering queerly explores a daughter's relationship with her aging mother who has dementia. As she cares for her mother - she reflects on her own failures as a mother - which expands her ability to forgive/grow and heal.
Made of memories/prayers/letters and dreams this book Offers embodied/conjured releases and journaling prompts to the reader... all of which serves as an invitation for those that receive the Work to engage in their own healing rituals for themselves and their Loved ones.
"My experience has been that the more I tend what is broken and hurt in me, the better I am able to be with those I Love. Diving deep. Holding a mirror up to myself. Excavating and articulating what's under the surface. Walking with haunts and haints. Moving through grief. Seeking technologies for Transformation... has always motivated my writing. Having had the privilege of walking with mentors who Lovingly pushed me in Circle with my Work has rooted me in my Life's calling... to use art as a vehicle for social justice. This has instigated intergenerational healing within my blood family in ways that I could never have imagined possible.
"My queer bodied/woman Loving prayer is that before you go: an Offering will be of service to those that receive it. A resource for us all to be ourselves most fully as we care for ourselves, each other, the Earth and all therein.
"May we stand in the Light that is us, lock arms, open our hearts, protect each other, and Lovingly/fiercely make the world a better place.
"Blessed Be all who
worked/dreamt/died/bled/suffered/prayed/danced/Visioned it so.
Ache.
Amen.
Sho nuff.
Fukyeah."
— Sharon
if you hadn't been so beautiful a girl feeling ugly and wrong.
Who would you have been if you had had a chance to name your dreams.
Who would you have been if you had felt you had a chance if you had felt safe
if you had felt you had enough
if you had felt that you were enough
if you had had the space to open your heart fully
Who would you have been if you had known how to Love yourself.
Perhaps these are the wrong questions
—from before you go: an Offering
OTHER TITLES IN THE SLEDGEHAMMER SERIES:
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Inducted in the Texas Institute of Letters in 2025, Sharon Bridgforth is an Associate Company Member at Pillsbury House + Theatre, a Doris Duke Performing Artist, recipient of Yale's Windham Campbell Prize in Drama, the Playwrights' Center Core Membership, McKnight National Fellowship and the USA Artist Fellowship. A touring artists since 1991, she has received support from Creative Capital, MAP Fund and the National Performance Network. A New Dramatists Alum and recent MAP Fund Scaffolding for Practicing Artists Coach, Sharon's dat Black Mermaid Man Lady/The Show is streaming on the Twin Cities PBS platform. 53rd State Press published bull-jean & dem/dey back in 2022 and will release a collection of Sharon's performance texts titled, From The Marrow, in 2026. Sharon's work is featured in: Volume 110, No. 4, Winter 2022 of The Yale Review; Teaching Black, The Craft of Teaching on Black Life and Literature; Mouths of Rain an Anthology of Black Lesbian Thought; Feminist Studies Vol 48 Number 1, honoring 40 years of This Bridge Called by Back and But Some of Us Are Brave! More at sharonbridgforth.com!
