Hip Hop Lunch Break #1

Spilling your guts to the world via the internet is exhausting. 

Not so much physically, although carpal tunnel is no joke, but more emotionally and spiritually. Someone once asked me how I feel after I write my blog entries, and I told him, "It feels like throwing up. When you are in the midst of it, it can be wrenching and even painful, but you feel so much better once it is all out."

Anyway, one of the ways I recharge my spiritual batteries is by listening to good hip-hop music. Now I don't mean wackness like Soulja Boy, or "Swag Surfin". or whatever the hell else. I mean hip-hop like the kind that provided the soundtrack for most of my adolescence. 

It has been a long week for me, and I am just too depleted to write right now.Anyway, I figured while I am recharging, I figured I would share what I am vibing to. I hope you like it:

Common ft. Kanye West - "The Food"

Reflection Eternal - "The Blast"

Jean Grae - "Love Thirst"

Addendum to "Turnabout Is Not Always Fair Play"

I talked to my friend last night and as it turns out, what everyone thought was a tragic situation turned out to be a colossal mistake by professionals who should have known and done better. She is not completely out of the woods, and for all of you who extended prayer and positive energy to her, please don’t stop. But we can all take a measured sigh of relief that things are not nearly as bad as we originally thought they were.

One thing I think worth noting is that during the 48 hours or so that my friend was under the impression that the worst had occurred, her faith and strength of spirit never waned. Even in the throws of sadness and despair, she never allowed waivered in her love of and faith in God.

 I have spent a lot of time on this blog talking about fictional characters that are casually termed as superheroes. I want my friend to know that I definitely see her as a spiritual role model, and I find her strength of spirit in the face of what we all thought was tragedy, truly heroic. 

Turnabout Is Not Always Fair Play

I have spent most of the time on this blog exploring some of the issues related to death of the love of my life, Jesika. The few entries I have written have related to how I was feeling or how my life has changed or how I reacted to a certain event or occurrence. As a matter of fact, I had planned on writing an article outlining my reflections about leaving the apartment that Jesika and I shared. However, after giving it some thought, instead of talking about myself, I want to tell you about a dear friend of mine.

During the month of April, as the severity of Jesika’s medical condition began to unfold, my physical and emotional state began to unravel. I was so racked with stress and concern with Jesika that my body began to break down. I could barely sleep, my nose would bleed for an hour at a time, and on several occasions, I had people asking me if I wanted to go to the emergency room. On one day in particular, I went to work shortly after finally getting the definitive word that Jesika had late stage small cell ovarian cancer. Not a good idea. As I walked into the facility, with a towel pressed to my nostril to contain the bloody mess, my friend saw me and asked, “Kevin, are you OK?”.

Now I had my “official statement to coworkers regarding Jesika’s medical condition” down. I was ready to give them the “according to the American Cancer Society” response, but I couldn’t hold it in. I just blurted it out. “She has ovarian cancer.” My friend took me into a conference room, brought me a box of Kleenex and asked me, “Kevin, how are YOU doing?” I explained to her how Jesika’s health was failing, and how I didn’t know what I was going to do if she died. I told her how I felt like the very foundation of my life was being shaken. She in turn recounted her own experiences in losing of the love of her life after an unexpected devastating illness, and told me the angst and turmoil I was feeling was normal. She also told me that I couldn’t help take care of Jesika if I didn’t take care of myself. She asked me if I needed to see a doctor, and when I refused, she told me that I needed to go home and get some sleep and be at my strongest to help Jesika. And after Jesika died and all the drama with her family ensued, my friend told me that I needed to lean on my loved ones, and not to be afraid of the range of emotions I would feel in the coming days. When I told her that I was afraid to share some of the thoughts thrashing around in my mind because I didn’t want to upset or burden other people, she responded, “That’s all normal. I know exactly how you feel. I KNOW. So if you can’t tell anyone else, tell me.” And in the coming weeks, I did. During lunch breaks, my friend sat with me and bore witness to my grief and rage stricken brainstorms, and would provide me real and practical insight for coping with my loss. She would always say, “Me going through the loss in my life isn’t all bad, if God gives me the opportunity to help someone else going through the same thing. Kevin, one day you’ll meet someone who will need the same kind of help, and God will lead you to help them.”
Those words would prove to be almost prophetic.

When I arrived at work yesterday, I was told that my friend had endured another devastating tragedy the night before. I don’t wish to share exactly what happened out of respect for her privacy, but when I heard about it, the same sort of feelings I felt just over a month before rushed to my head. It just seems so unfair. Sometimes in life, there just doesn’t seem to be any balance. I see people who don’t treat others with respect and compassion prosper while those with the most loving, caring spirits are burdened with the most adversity. I don’t know what to make of it and doubt if I ever will.

But right now, I just want to focus on the task at hand. God has given me the opportunity to stand by someone going through a terrible tragedy. I wish it weren’t the case as I wouldn’t wish these types of events on my worst enemy, much less someone who has been such a good friend to me. It feels weird for me to even be in this position, because I have so many unresolved feelings as it relates to the losses in my life. But I say to my dear friend, please take care of yourself, physically and emotionally. Don’t be afraid to share your feelings and thoughts with people who you trust, and if I am one of those people, feel free to call on me. And most importantly, please don’t give up. Please take the time you need, and surround yourself with people who can support you when you feel unable to endure.

Honestly, I don’t know what else to say. My words are just synthesized blurbs made of all the advice I have I received in the past weeks. I don’t know if there is anything else to say. But I say to my dear friend, that whenever you are ready, and you feel up to it, I’ll be ready to listen.

...things might get ugly."

Meet Luke Cage a/k/a Power Man. Despite his canary yellow blouse open halfway down his chest and his silver tiara, he’s a badass. He grew up on the streets of Harlem, where he hung with gangs and other street toughs throughout his adolescence. As an adult, he was jailed for a crime that he didn’t commit, based on the false testimony of someone who he thought was his best friend. Luke Cage has anger issues. While imprisoned, Luke was approached by a sort of mad scientist, who told Luke that he could get him out of jail if he agreed to be injected with a variant of the same “Super Soldier Serum” that gave Captain America his super powers. Long story short, Luke takes the injection, gets super strength and bulletproof skin, gets out of jail, gets a wardrobe change and becomes one of the founders of Heroes For Hire.

I know you might be thinking, “Kevin, what does this have to do with anything?” I confess, as I contemplated writing this entry, I didn’t know if it made much sense either. But on one of my weekly trips to the comic shop, I was thumbing through the 25 cent bin when I happened upon this issue of Power Man. I saw the cover and in my mind was taken back to a moment a few days after Jesika died. I was sitting alone in the apartment Jesika and I shared, looking out the window, when I saw that I had a missed call on my cell phone. When I checked the message, it was Jesika’s oldest brother. The message said, “Kevin, I know you had spoken to [Jesika’s friend] about not knowing whether you think it would be a good idea for you to come to [Jesika’s funeral] services, and I am going to have to say that I don’t think it would be.” He invited me to call him back, which I did, and he explained to me that his parents were dealing with “too much mourning and grief” and that I shouldn’t come to either the wake or the funeral because, “things might get ugly”. When I asked Jesika’s brother whether “things getting ugly” means angry feelings or physical altercations, he responded, “I’m not sure what might happen.”

As I looked down at the cover of that comic book while I was in the store, I couldn’t help but think of the day of Jesika’s funeral. I can’t even really say I woke up, because I barely slept that night. But when I got up that morning, I felt like I was letting Jesika down. My family had decided that we wouldn’t attend any of the services organized by Jesika’s family, for several reasons. We, along with our pastor, had carefully thought about the situation and decided that if we were to attend Jesika’s “official” services, it wouldn’t be the supportive environment that is so important when grieving such a devastating loss. We decided as a family, we would have our own memorial for Jesika, and it would be there that we would say goodbye. I knew all of that. But there was still a part of me that said I needed to go to that funeral. There was a part of me that was willing to drive to that chapel alone and endure anything because I needed to be there. This wasn’t so much a response of intellect, but a visceral instinct. Jesika was my best friend and my partner. We were like the Black Panther and Storm, like Cyclops and Jean Grey. That instinct told me that no matter how ugly things may get, you need to be there- for Jesika.

But I am not Luke Cage. I don’t have bulletproof skin and I don’t have super strength. As silly as it may sound, I could have seen Luke Cage driving right up to that chapel in Joliet, and if anyone tried to stop him from bidding farewell to the woman for whom he so cared, saying, “ALL RIGHT…NOW IT’S TIME TO GET UGLY!”

But I couldn’t do that, and I felt like a coward. I felt like I let Jesika’s family punk me out. I felt like their efforts to erase me from the record of Jesika’s life were succeeding to the point where I wouldn’t even attend her funeral. I wanted to be heroic, but again, I am not a superhero. So what I did was talk to the person who most resembled a superhero in my eyes.

My church organized a prayer service for me to start at 11AM the morning of Jesika’s funeral to help me get through that day. It was about 10 that morning, so I knew I had time. By the time I took the left turn off of 67th Street into Oakwood Cemetery, tears were streaming down my cheeks. About 2 minutes later, I found myself standing at the grave of my father, Charles Smith. Now, my father didn’t have bulletproof skin or super strength either, but in my mind, he was the greatest hero I ever had in my life. In my mind, my dad’s super powers came in the form of his profound intellect, his unwavering sense of morality, and his total love and devotion to his family. I stood in front of his headstone and quietly said, “Dad, I don’t know what to do. Jesika is gone. Everyone is against me. I feel like I need to be out there [at her funeral].” As silly as it sounds, it was almost like I was waiting for an audible response. I stood there, and all I heard were the ducks playing in the puddles a recent rainstorm had left. I began to think of what my father might tell me if he was standing next to me, based on the values and morals that my father had imparted on my brother and me.

Now by no means do I intend this blog to be a space where I go on a religious diatribe on a daily basis. But this is central to the story, so for a second, please indulge me. I could see my dad telling me, “Kevin, Jesika isn’t there with you, but she’s not really there at her funeral either. She is where I am, with the Lord, in Heaven, and she knows how you feel.” I could hear his deep, calming voice saying, “Jesika was a part of the family, and we have all lost her, not just you. You need to be with the family, so that you can all support each other, and let people who care about you help you. If you were to go out to that funeral, you don’t know what might happen, Kevin. Your mother would be worried beyond belief, and you know, you won’t be in the type of environment you need to be in. Kevin, go to the Church. Be with your mom and your brother. You will find your own way to say goodbye to Jesika.” With the message received, I thanked my dad, got in my car, drove home, and walked to the Church.

In my life, there have been times when I felt like I was being mistreated or victimized, I have daydreamed about having the abilities of fictional characters like Luke Cage, or Colossus, or the Thing. Where if someone said something I didn’t like, I could smash my way through walls, and convince them to acquiesce to my wishes. When someone makes Luke Cage angry, he pummels them to the point where they would never dare do it again. But again, I am not Luke Cage and I don’t live in the Marvel Universe. In not attending Jesika’s funeral services, I wasn’t letting anyone “punk me”. Rather, I was doing what I needed to do for my family as well as my own emotional well-being. Yet again, my father had given me what I needed to make the right decision, not necessarily what would seem to be the heroic one. Even though he preferred a collared sweat shirt to a canary yellow blouse, and khaki pants to a silver tiara, my dad was and continues to be my hero.

Non-Linear Grieving

When I was deciding whether I wanted to start a blog that the public could access, one of my biggest concerns was whether it would make me come off looking like a hypocrite or a crazy person. I think when people write narratives of their personal experiences, the author has a natural tendency to want to wrap things up so that the story comes to a resolution at the end. Unfortunately, in real life, with real people, often times those types of tidy resolutions don’t make themselves available. There aren’t even any exciting cliffhangers to make a reader stay tuned for the next episode. As I sit here typing this article, I am reminded of my first entry, “Back To Basics”, where I talk about my anger fading away and being more focused on the loss of my beloved Jesika. After I posted it, people wrote me saying how good it was that I was moving past the anger I felt, and how I seemed to be coming along well in processing my grief. As I read these kind words from well-wishers, I felt like I wasn’t living up them. I am still very angry. VERY angry. There are times I relive some of events of the past couple of months, and it stops me in my tracks. I don’t just remember the moments, I feel them. My body has the same physical responses that it did when they were actually happening. The muscles in my arms tighten, my breath becomes shallow, my posture stiffens. Again, I feel those moments. I just don’t want anyone to think I am waffling when I write entries that seem to contradict.

My experience with grief and getting through it, is that it is not really a linear process. There is no guarantee that on day 30, you will feel better than you did on day 1. In a short period of time, my emotions go from total melancholy, to almost a frenzic level of motivation and spirit, to complete numbness where I don’t feel anything- good or bad. I guess what I am saying is that, believe it or not, I am far from perfect. I know. Try to contain your bewilderment. The only promise I made to myself, and therefore make to you as it relates to this blog is that I won’t lie to you. I may not have everything right, and my perspective on things may not be well-developed or even cogent, but I will really write how I am feeling.

Right now it is almost midnight, and I am exhausted after a night of teaching video editing 101. I am ready to drift off to sleep while watching Bobby Flay make Pad Thai. Good night and thanks for listening.