In the wake of the deaths of George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor and countless others, many of us can say we are not ok right now. That is especially true for their loved ones.
In a timely and impactful episode of Red Table Talk, host Jada Pinkett Smith sat down with Lauren London to talk about how she’s been processing grief after losing her partner Nipsey Hussle to gun violence last year.
“For me, what’s really been important is connecting with God, and that’s been a struggle because something horrible happens in your eyes and you’re like, ‘How God?’,” the actress shared with Pinkett Smith. “It’s not easy. I don’t always wake up on the enlightened side of the bed, you know? And the days that I don’t, I let myself because I’m human. I’m gentle with myself. I find things that matter, and so I try to live with a purpose. When I’m having a bad day, I meditate. I go within.”
What does help London cope is the love she gets from the people who Nipsey touched. “He’s touching people still,” London said. “I find that when I run into people that tell me how he’s changed their lives, what they’re doing with their life right now, it fills me up. He would have loved to hear that.”
Later in the episode, Pinkett Smith and her mother Adrienne Banfield-Jones and daughter Willow Smith sit down with Erica Ford, a gun activist London was introduced to at a Puma charity event. Ford explains the complexity of how gun violence affects women.
“First [there’s] the trauma of losing your soulmate, right? And then having to raise your children. I see women stop living,” Ford says. “I see them losing their lives from a broken heart. We teach them how to move past that pain. If you help the mother heal, you help save the family.”
See the episode in full below: