When The Party's Over....

I was meaning to drop The Tipping Point, but I'm holding it back just a little. I didn't do a blog in June so I guess I'm one behind. July I will have to Double up.

I had no idea I'd write this one.. but that's usually how this talent of mine works. When it comes.. it comes.

Today, I learned that a friend of mine lost her father. From the interactions and readings of this network, it seems that quite a few people have lost someone recently.

I'm no expert on death. I'm not an expert on anything. I'm just a guy who's F'd up just enough that it left me with the ability to speak on the pain and problems of life with as much honesty and truth as I could possible muster.

As many know, I lost both of my parents before I was 25 years old. If you did not know that fact...You do now.

Everything in this Universe, I truly believe has both a Yen and a Yang. A beginning and an End. It is within thoughts and meditation on this truth that one can see this hypothesis being proven, in no better way than the Uncertainty of Life and the Certainty of Death. Isn't that something? You have no idea what you're going to get in Life... When you're born you don't know how long you'll live or what job you'll have, or who you'll marry or how many kids you'll have or where you'll live and who you'll meet along the way. The part of life that makes it beautiful, and encouraging is the Uncertainty. When you're up, will you go higher? And when you're low, will you sink deeper? One of my favorite artists, Talib Kweli had an Album called, "The Beautiful Struggle" and I think that's an accurate portrayal of what life is and will be like along the way.

However, no matter how hard any of us try we can not truly sever the universal bond between taking our first breath and taking our last. It is in my opinion, that I do not believe we should.

I'll come back to that point, but right now.. I just wanna kinda ramble.

It's difficult at times to accept things that are constant and absolute in our lives regardless of how hard we try to combat them with as much effort as we can. None of us really enjoy hearing an explanation of "That's just how things are and it's how they are gonna be."

Nothing makes us as humans feel more weak, more insignificant, more desolate and powerless as in the death of someone we love. It's one of those things that WILL COME FOR US ALL. Death is a race that you cannot win, but only run in the hopes that your clock ticks as long as humanly possible. Eventually, that opponent will begin to stalk you down, then pull even with you, and then certainly pass you by.

A man once told me, "Live everyday thinking as if it may be your last, for one day, son, You'll be dead right."

The Death of My Father and The Death of my Mother were each totally different. My mother was victim to Cervical Cancer. This was the 1980's. Cancer treatment was nothing like it is 30 years later. Her death was not painless. It was not quick. It was agonizing. For her. For my father, for my family, me, and probably most to my sister, Rosalyn.

I dont have many memories of my mother.. It's like Swiss Cheese in my brain when I think of her and that is ironic because my memory is usually impeccable. I can actually see the memories when I close my eyes but I also literally see the holes in them. They are incomplete completions. I still keep pictures of her and when I look at me growing up I see our resemblance. I do not, however, hear her words as I do my father. She still speaks, but it's channeled through my sibling.

I remember a story my sister told me once of her being in a laundromat with my mother and she had an orange. She had to be younger than 10 because I wasn't born yet and I'm going off memory so I may not be totally accurate. Anyway, there was a young girl in the laundromat as well at the same time. She was looking at my sister eating the orange and my sister told me she recalled it was a look as if she wished she had an orange as well. So Rosalyn, being a normal kid... said she begin to REALLY enjoy the orange. Somewhat teasing the little girl because she had an orange and the girl did not. My mother, all 5'2 of her, came over to my sister and smacked the orange right out of her hand. I remember Rosalyn telling me that and I'm chuckling now because I can really see the orange falling out of her hand in slow motion, hitting the ground and then rolling away.

I remember Rosalyn telling me something like our mother saying, "You shouldn't do that to people. Be thankful for what you have because you might not always have it.. Like you no longer have an orange."

Roz, if you reading, and it's different, feel free to correct me... and I am now wondering if I didn't get my witty sarcasm/ a hole side, from my mother. They say she was funny.

From that story.. I did learn a little more about the woman I couldn't remember much. I know that Rosalyn is now a total 180( Not 360 for those of you who screw that up) from that day as a child and it's rubbed off on me. Actually, both our parents were like that. If they had, they gave to those who did not. I think that's why me and my sister both have a voice that sounds how ours sounds. We are usually ones people come to for advice because we are both very straight forward and raw. Roz is a little more straight forward than even I am.. I think I am a little more "Ah-ha ish" if that's a word. You'll get Roz's point more often right then and there.. With me, you usually get it a little later down the road.

Dad's death was unexpected. I believe that's why I took that one so hard. I had just talked to him the night before and honestly, if things didn't happen in a certain sequence of events, I never would have got to have that final conversation. I've told a few stories of me and My father in previous entries so I won't re-hash them here.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that although death puts a barricade up between the ones we love, nothing can block out the memories and life lessons that they taught us.

For all the things that my father bought me.. wanting me to have the best of every thing... not one of those gifts, or toys, or trinkets compare to the knowledge he gave me growing up.

Telling me things such as certain Bible verses like, "Guard your heart.. For where your heart is, your treasure will be also." And the stuff would come Random and I'd be like, WTF?

Or, "Stop being predictable.. You've done that move three times now.. A good guard is gonna see that and start timing you and it won't work. Stop thinking so much and let it flow."

Funny, I hear me say both of those things often now. Telling some of our players the same stuff he taught me. Scolding Jax the same way he scolded me. Caring for others, even those I did not even know the same way he cared for me.

Even though he's gone and been gone for over 7 years the pain doesn't get any easier. The hurt is still there. There are still moments early in the morning in the shower when Jax is still sleep that I may softly weep as the water runs down my face and hides some of my tears.. Wishing he was here to watch Jax grow. Or a phone call away to ask for advice.. or to meet a lady friend of mine and ask her what he thinks..

For my sister, it has to be double the agony because she has vibrant memories of them both.

Back to the point that I was making earlier.. It's the time between the first breath and the last breath we take that gives us the only weapon we have against death. Living a fruitful, plentiful, filling and memorable life.

It is in this that we can take solace. When we lose a grandmother who held the family together or a mother or a father, or close aunt or uncle.. We honor them and their memory by being the best we can each day that we have with them, and being even better each day we have without them.

Death is the balance to unbalanced equation that is life.

So laugh.. make good memories, enjoy time shared and love shared while we have them, but when they leave us... Mourn and Grieve, Sob and Cry.

Nothing of this world lasts forever. We're all eventually going to return to the dirt from which we came. Ashes to Ashes.. Dust to Dust.

Speak in the wind to them.. They will hear you. Ask them to Hold it down until you join them.... but until then Live your life to the best that you can.

It's what those who Death has already came for, would want you to do.


This is The Middle Finger... Wondering if you look at your life up to this point... If Death asks you, are "you ready" ?