My dad and I were close. I mean so close when I got older he would share his fears. There is a wall… a way parents censor themselves to protect their children. So I can’t say my dad told me everything, but what I can say is he was far more open. At the end of his life, he told me he was terrified of dying. He’d also answer questions I asked about what he needed like, “I don’t really know what I want/need. I’ve never died before.”

Losing my dad, it hasn’t been a year yet and I am still reeling from the loss. I’m still crying some days uncontrollably. Of my two parents my father was the nurturer. He was the one who talked to me about my choices and still attempted to guide me. While my mom I guess was more trusting of my own wisdom or… I don’t know. Without my dad, she’s stepped up and I’m getting a better understanding of her.

I can’t draw any real conclusions. Even now my mother is a mystery to me. There are days when I just look at her and long to understand. I’m also accepting you don’t need to understand people to love them. Compassion can cover this… I use to… I’d given up on understanding or trying to love my mom in the verb way. I love my mom, but I didn’t try to be in her life. We’ve always been at odds.

I go months without putting on makeup. I have natural hair. I think the truth is a gift even when it’s disappointing. I need to love people. My current partner welcomes the opportunity to be held and cuddled by me. I need to love more than I need to be loved. Which is why I’ve considered adopting, but that’s another discussion.

My mom is this beautiful woman who I wish allowed me to take pictures of her in various stages of getting ready. She literally a classic act. She won’t leave her house without a full face of makeup. Me not being so involved in my presentation, pisses her off. LOL!!! I try to remind myself that perception could get a whole town burned down when she was a child. I remind myself, whenever they discuss Emette Till my mom always notes where she was when he was killed and when he had his funeral.

As an artist, I have done spiritual work to focus on what is important to me and not so much what other people think. I accepted I couldn’t control someone’s perception. For work or some event that tells me what the dress code is I rise to the occasion. I’ve got more clothes than I’ve got bodies… I don’t like shopping. Unless it’s food or art supplies. I love a full fridge. We don’t share the same interests and since my dad died, it feels like the my mom is meeting for the first time.

My mom often tells my partner things that my partner thought was common knowledge. I have to tell my mom to listen to me. It’s only recently that she has reached some conclusions about me, which she shares. She tells me I’m always up to something. Like… Instead of paying $300 to get my car key replaced and programmed, I ordered the casing online and used my glasses and jewelry tools to set the key in new casing. Maybe it was five dollars with shipping…

In any case, my dad use to listen to all my theories. He use to test the theories he was learning on me. Like he told me things… I’m trying to focus… That after he has passed, I’m coming to believe were true. I wish we could have that discussion, where I can say you told me. My life is big on accountability and being honest. My dad would tell you the God honest truth in a way that wasn’t offensive or even pushing guilt. He didn’t believe people were always what they’ve done. Hitmen are literal murderers. Someone who hits a child chasing a ball into the street, isn’t a murderer. In many of those accidental death situations, the punishment people give themselves is greater than anything the law can apply. Being found not guilty or not being charged, doesn’t actually make them free.

My dad was a wise man. His wisdom lives in me and is evolving. I could tell how surprised he was with what I knew… And that was a gift. My mom, she wondered why I thought so much… Which is saying a lot cause she’s a Virgo. If you know astrology… Drifting. I’m back.

I started this post, because my mother’s oldest brother called me this morning. He was just checking in to see how he was doing. I was in the middle of writing, but I had headphones on so I took his call. I like to set aside time to talk to him. We could talk a couple hours. I miss him, and dream about when I’m in town what restaurant I want to visit with him. He treats me like a dad, but he’s a little more hands off. He listens and affirms my choices or says why would you do that… LOL!!!

Anyway, last week he sent me a rainbow. He’d taken a picture on his phone in my hometown. The rainbow was beautiful. It also touched me deeply that he shared it with me. Let me lay on the love here. He doesn’t know how to use his phone. He’s got a smart phone, but he also has five smart children, who are tasks with keeping his phone able to take calls. When he says, I’m going to text you, it use to mean they were going to text from his phone. He text me that picture himself, standing out in the world after taking the picture.

Just the thought of him thinking of me and is moving me to tears as I write. This uncle of mine is all spirit. People use to say he didn’t talk much. As I’ve grown, I’ve learned a lot of the ways he communicates is nonverbal. When my dad was dying he didn’t go two days without checking on me… Sometimes he’d come sit with me outside my dad’s when someone gave me a break. We didn’t speak, we just sat, let the breeze and the sun do the talking.

When my dad was refusing to go on hospice, because that meant they would stop giving him “life saving” treatments… I didn’t believe my dad would die. My dad had beaten death at least five other times I personally knew of. I don’t know how many he didn’t ‘mention. My dad lived a full life, I tellya. Even as he was dying he’d say, I had a great life. I had a lot of fun. I did the things I wanted to do. Coming back to the point of this paragraph. I thought, maybe my dad would beat cancer. My uncle would come look at my dad, just speak and then sit with me. My uncle one day said, “You’re dad is going to die. I’m sorry. Just make him comfortable. Don’t argue with him. Don’t nobody want to die.”

I wanted my dad to be comfortable. They wouldn’t give him the meds he needed. My dad was courageous and he suffered for everyday of his life. Pain I can’t imagine and I hope to never experience. At one point, he could barely stand to be touched, but he was afraid morphine which would relieve the pain would kill him. Eventually, the pain was too great and he was forced on hospice… We could argue semantics, I’d say cancer killed him. He’d say it was morphine. He’d say morphine was a serial killer of the elderly. He’d have stories about people getting hip injuries and being treated with morphine and dying.

What I’m saying is, all my life I have been surrounded by amazing men. I have male cousins who amaze me because they don’t reflect the images of Blaq men I’ve seen. They are successful. They have families. Even my baddest (not in the good bad way) has three babies that are thriving.

My cousin on the passing of his father, with a wife and kids, asked if I was going to spend the night. I had to remind him we were in our thirties and he had a whole wife to hold him. But it was his vulnerability, and honest that struck me.

My cousin the other day, told a BlaQ man he’d just met that he didn’t need to get married. The man was a business associate looking at rings. My cousin told the man he noticed his wondering eye and he didn’t even give him the energy that he wanted to settle down. The man admitted that all his friends, were getting married. He’d spent the last few years going to weddings. Thirties, career going, established financial foundation and he was bored… Marriage seemed like it could be fun, shake some stuff up.

Nah, that’s not how you determine if you want to get married my cousin advised him. My cousin is very emotionally intelligent. He’d asked the man questions to ascertain his suitability. I also want to note, my cousin and his crew, which also includes a few of my uncles are activist… Their work is more one on one. They mentor young men, not in any official capacity, but they raise their own boys and any friends, and any strays they need to get together. They get into it with boys and their parents… They get into places where other people just pity a child.

They get into it by doing stuff like, offering to take another child or two to practice. By making sure the other kid is showing up to school and behaving. By challenging kids to walk in their full power. By shaming fathers into doing their job and showing up. By talking BlaQ men out of doing self-destructive stuff. By creating jobs or finding jobs for folks to keep them from being left to their own devices or vices.

So when I come to write, I’m writing about men who send me rainbows. Men who call and have whole conversations about everything but sex. Men who are whole human beings trying to make the world a better place by being their best selves. My cousin barely sleeps now, because he won’t stop staying up late and he has children who get up at five when he’s usually just his REM sleep.

I remember when I moved back home, the cousin I grew up with and who stayed in trouble passed me in traffic with all his youth in the car. How he seemed to be proud to be their to protect them. How when I blowed to get his attention, and said he had the whole crew how he beamed proud of them, and told me how well his son was doing and that his daughter made the honor roll. He wasn’t proud he was there, he was going to be there. He was proud they were thriving. He was filled with love and now that two of his children are adults, when he travels, he makes sure they can go with him and his wife… And he’s been married more than twenty years…

One of my cousins worked as much as he could in the south. He worked ten hours on weekends, and spread the twenty over the evenings while in high school, while maintaining a high GPA. Then when he graduated from high school, he eloped with his first love. That was more than twenty-five years ago. They are still married. For a second they had a Youtube channel, for family only… Because life had gotten crazy, college, work, children and they bought a house. So because they didn’t see us a lot they would post videos to us, send us links and talk to us on posts when they could.

This cousin, upset our elders. Some of my family… Born in the late thirties early forties were not amused. I forgot to mention him and his wife, both eighteen, moved out of their parents’ house and into their own place without discussing it with anyone. Before anyone knew anything, they were married and raising a home together. Anyway, my cousin deeply spiritual AND religious, asked the pastor of their shared family church for a moment…Where he had been a young deacon and mentor to his peers.

Then he stood on business. He told them that his wife was his first love. He knew he wanted to be with her for the rest of his life and if they would forgive his passion, he decided to be a man at eighteen and lead a house and provide. Chiiiiiild there wasn’t a dry eye in the house… His wife was a mess. I think baby one came after that their speech. It was a long speech in that way BlaQ folks orate in church… It was cosigned by elder men, who stood as he spoke in agreement.

When I write, I want the world to see more men who are doing ordinary things with these expansive, evolving emotional landscapes.

The other day my uncle sent me a rainbow. I told my mom and she responded in a way that seemed dismissive. I was holding my phone looking at it and having all the feels… I also am very present. I try to be in the energy, navigating whether to feel it or stay on dry land. So, I followed my mom, and told her how important it was that her brother sent me a rainbow and how much it meant… And how my heart was full. Then she responded, “Pop is a nice man. A sweet man.”

I usually edit… which for me helps me censor. Today, I decided to be open and let all the love I feel for the men who have taught me they are humans. Not to be slapped because they are bigger, more muscle and society says physical abuse is okay against them. Society says these men don’t exist. Streamlining characters doesn’t show the complexities of being BlaQ males. Needing to be strong, fearless and a leader while being feared, erased and told they expendable.

When my uncle called, I decided to be present. I decided to listen. Then I was moved to tell you he exists and so do other wonderful men. Many who are deeply spiritual and involved in their communities.

Forgive errors. I had to leave them so I didn’t hide.