Tuesday, March 31, 2009

Lost Words

Today my baby cousin would’ve been 27 years old if some guys who looked just like him hadn’t killed him. (see pic, Justin is in the middle) Two years later it’s a miracle I can even write that sentence. I really don’t believe it, even though I write it and type it and think about it over and over again it still doesn’t seem real or make any kind of sense. Justin is dead. A prince, slaughtered. People whose lives will never ever resemble anything normal again. Ever. Who makes these decisions. That is my question. Who gets to decide who lives or dies and why or why not. These are the conversations you have with yourself while you are smiling with other people over lunch. Always brutally aware that you are dead inside in a way they aren’t. Unless they knew Justin or had a Justin equivalent in their lives; at least then you can not talk about it and still feel understood.My uncle, Justin’s father, one of the strongest most compassionate man I’ve even known, is shattered. My aunt, Joyce, Justin’s mommy, will never fully absorb it, I think, I hope, because that kind of thing will kill you. And it’s hard being dead inside and trying to live. I tell myself Justin is free. He’s a spirit watching and protecting and urging all of us forward and onward. The dead part inside of me screams bullshit. He was just 25. He was loved tremendously, thousands of times over by beautiful people. He was our hope. He was our example of what happens when you are a pure loving being. And he was shot in the chest while helping a friend (typical Justin) and his life spilled out of him and he died without us being able to see him, speak to him again. What could he have been thinking, those last moments. Questions that will haunt forever. Humans collide into others and change people’s worlds forever. Justin when you were born I pretended you were mine. I sat in the backseat and sang to you in your car seat. You had no idea what I was doing, this skinny little 13 year old girl, all cooky and in your face, looking into your bright fantastic eyes. And I knew you loved it because you smiled, and you were my baby cousin and if I knew something bad would ever happen to you, I would’ve run off with you and plotted against destiny. Any, all of us would have. Now we sit and try to live without really knowing how to. Life, derailed. We were supposed to see you graduate with that engineering degree. See the girl who was lucky enough to fall in love with you. We were supposed to smile coo and sing to your babies in the back seat. The numb feeling is almost as bad as the pain. Being numb is a free ride you have to pay back late at night, or when the phone rings and we know it’s not you, or when some latent memory rips the peeling off your heart that makes it impossible to breathe. I know you’re okay Justin, you’re taking care of us all from the best possible place. Pilar needs you, your mom, dad, sister, brother, nephew and nieces, grandmama, your uncles. Your older, proud, sad cousin. Something was snatched from and out of us that August day. Your mom said, we will all see you again, and our job is to try to love every day until we get there. We will be together again. But not yet. Not yet. This is all I have right now. It’s such a beautiful day to be sad. Such a sad day for it to be so beautiful.


3/31/2009

11 comments:

FreeBeing said...

There is nothing anyone can say to ease your pain.

What I will hope & pray for is that people - ours, everyone's - will someday understand what else it is they are taking when they take a life. It's not just life, not just one life, and it's not taken from just one person.

Peace
--Free

Unknown said...

My prayers are with you , free is absolutely correct and could not have said it better. *hugs*

From Gullah to Ghetto and now Ivory Tower said...

This post, heartfelt and beautifully raw, reminds me of Ossie Davis' eulogy of Malcolm X. RIP Justin and may peace surround you Supa Sista.

supa said...

thank you. sincerely!!

J. A. Barnes said...

I think you are right--I may never fully absorb it. Like I told you on the phone, I still think I can contact him sometimes. Love you so much for your heart and your talent.

J. Slater said...

Jamal, I just read your latest blog post and can't stop the tears. I wish I could ease the pain felt by all. I too, think of him often (haven't been able to go to a Dave & Buster's since). Please allow the spirit of him to live within that dead part inside of you. BTW, I am friends with Joyce and haven't seen you since your were small. I will continue to send my love and prayers.

blackberry said...

I'm sorry, Supa. RIP Justin.

beatmaker said...

my condolences. real talk.

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Anonymous said...

I'M RUINING IT BECAUSE YOU ARE DEGENERATE GARBAGE.
Hawaii was a very small concession and you weren't going to allow it, were you?
Fuck the Gods to hell.

"The music is reversable...but time is not. TURN BACK...TURN BACK...TURN BACK...TURN BACK!!!"

Christians have mistakenly believed the perception of the Biblical definintion of The Beast as a person. I suggest The Beast instead refers to a place:::The San Francisco Bay Area. In fact the Gods offer a geographic clue suggesting this, like so many others they offer around the globe, to help people understandL:::
Mt.Diablo, "The Devil" is the "eye" of The Beast, the EastBay shoreline as the upper jaw/incisors while the peninsula is the grinding lower jaw. Witness the disturbing upturned smile in the gullet.
The fact than man has shaped much of the shoreline in the 20th century is a testiment to the God's refusal to accept any culpability.
Gold Rush, counter-culture, alternate lifestyle acceptance, etc. The Beast was used to promote social decay throughout the 20th century and beyond. Difficult to perceive in the current age, one can understand their impacts from a historical perspective.

The Italian peninsula is very pronounced as it juts out into the Medietereanean.
Considering the shape it is quite obvious they were the primary targets of the post-IceAge/Straight of Gibralter/Noah's Flood disaster.
Considering the shape of the boot and how Sicily "caught" the surge, the resulting tsunami inundated the entire southern portion of the peninsula, killing everything and perhaps covering even the highest land masses.
In the 20th century the Italians were convinced entering clone hosting was ascention into heaven, and their success was a recruiting tool, just as the Holocaust was for the Jews.
ing even the highest land masses.
Think about this next time you are deceived by the God's positioning of Italian wealth.


And justice for all.

Angie Renie said...

You are a wondeful writer.Ggod bless you and your family