I think that for the sake of fairness it can be said that there is no greater love than that of a loved one.  I also think for the sake of fairness that there is also no greater pain that comes when we lose a loved one.  The myriad of emotions that envelope us are powerful, and often times overwhelming.  So overwhelming that we forget about the world around us and we are immediately enveloped in the world of our own emotions.  Sometimes the emotions we go through are too much for us to bear.  This is the avenue I currently travel.

July 4th 2015.  A day that changed my world and turned it on it’s head.  It was a day I did never wanted to endure, but I had to find my inner strength.  When I got the phone call that my oldest son was killed, the world around me stopped.  All the things that I thought about as a father flooded my mind and came into vision:  The times we shared, the talks we would have.  I saw all of that fade in an instant, and suddenly, I was forcibly jerked back into the land of reality, where I did not want feel what I felt.  Honestly at that time, I did not know how I felt, that’s because I was going through the gamut of emotions.  The days came and went, as did my emotional state in the days leading up to his funeral.

Upon my arrival in VA, I had no idea as to what I was to expect.  I felt ashamed to be there.  I felt (and still feel) like I did not deserve to be there as I was never really that active in my son’s life to begin with.  I felt very small, and embarrassed because I did not belong there.  The people that truly loved and cared for him deserved to be there.  Not me, his sperm donor.  His grandmother and aunties deserved the credit for making him the person that he was, and not me.  I wanted to leave.  To hide, to not even be seen, but his grandmother had wanted me to be there, she had stated that even though I had only been around him for a short time, I was still his father, and I deserved to be here as much as anyone.  That gave me some form of comfort.

His Wake fell on my birthday, already a bad sign.  I honestly did not want to go inside the funeral. I was very nervous and afraid.  Not afraid for those around me, but afraid what I would find and what I found upon entering:  My son’s lifeless body.  It was a very hard ordeal for me, because I had failed him.  I failed at being a father to this young man, and his life was taken for my lack of responsibility!!!  The next day was the day I had literally dreaded.  I had not looked forward to this, but it would be the last time I saw physically saw my son.  I am not gonna lie, I was on auto-pilot the whole time.  Everything that transpired within that service was a blur.  I may have been cognizant or aware for maybe a split second or two.  I had really checked out physically during the service.  We took the ride to the burial ground to pay our last respects and commit his body back to the earth.  That’s when it really hit me:  The reality of that moment was that I was never EVER going to see my son again!!!  Never see his smile.  Never hear his voice.  Never hug him.  Never get to tell him I love him.  I never got to tell him that I loved him before he died, and that still eats at me.  Another hard reality hit me:  I completely utterly failed my son as a father.  I failed him when he needed me the most.  I failed in raising him.  I failed at protecting him when he needed to be protected.  I failed at guiding him when he needed to be guided.  All these failures coupled with the loss had finally taken his toll on me emotionally.  As they lowered my son’s casket into the ground, the finality of the whole situation had hit me like a Mike Tyson uppercut.  My son was gone, and there was nothing that could EVER change that!! I never got the chance to say that I was sorry for hurting and abandoning him  The tears continue to roll as his casket was lowered into the ground, and I kept getting hit with Mike Tyson uppercuts.

It has been three years and I still get misty eyed when his birthday, Fourth of July and July Thirteenth hit.  The Commonwealth’s Attorney stated that the police officer that killed my son was justified in his use of force.  Really?  So you are gonna say that an execution style murder was justified?   There was no real explanation as to why and how this occurred and the other person that was with my son has yet to say anything as it pertains to what happened that night.   The loss of my son had cost me two very good jobs, and has put my marriage in jeopardy numerous times.  More importantly, it cause me to question myself, and my place in this world, as numerous atrocities continue to happen against people of color across  the nation I continually wonder if my heart will ever heal. I am still learning to cope with loss (I have lost a father-in-law, whom I highly respected, and aunt who loved her nephews to life, a good friend in my brother second wife, another young man who was like a son to me, and the one of my favorite grandmothers, so yeah that’s a lot to take in).  Is there a surefire solution in coping/dealing with loss?  There is not, and it varies from person to person, but I do believe it starts with acceptance (a hard pill for any of us to swallow). I wonder if this avenue of acceptance that currently travel will lead me to making peace with myself, and acceptance, or will it lead me to bitterness and continued anger.  Nobody knows that but me and God, but for right now, I am standing at the crossroads………waiting