PING!

I actually wrote this Monday of last week. I actually wrote stuff every day last week, but couldn't bring myself to publish, so I kept this in my own little journal. I am not having a problem writing or telling my truths. I am having a problem wanting to live up to certain things that I have not set the standard to.

Some folk will never understand how we must live out the story even thru the twists and turns. We watch with mouths agape and never think about the pain and struggle some must have in order to make it to the next chapter.

So I give this portion of what I wrote last week. Here goes:


I heard a preacher say that our people, we're designed to struggle.

He went on to say that we're destined to take a spiritual beating in good times so when the bad comes, we would still be able to walk along our chosen path.

I have a mind to agree with that assessment because it seems like a correct one.

The past month to include this past weekend, my spirit has been taking a category five grade level ass whooping.

Funny, when I look down to the left and right of me I still see the path, although I feel like I should have had more choice in the matter, but that's selfishness talking.


I had a quiet Friday and I spoke with a few friends about attending my high school reunion coming up in a few weeks, a barbecue that I think my wife and I were invited to (we were thought of during its conception, but were invited at the last minute) and had plans to hang out with my stepdad who got released from the hospital and was to celebrate a birthday on that following Monday.

Well, after the wife got all influenza'd on me and held down the bed and bathroom all day Saturday, we definitely had plans to hit my Mom's house Sunday for the lifting of spirits of both myself and my step dad when on Sunday, that damn phone rang:

It's my mother. She once again asks for her son. I grab the phone and this time, I'm prepared to listen because NOTHING can be as bad as what I've heard in the past few weeks. Let's bullet point this conversation, shall we?

Definition of a standard bad call to Hassan complete with Saturday specifics, not standard examples

• Sister is in the hospital
• She's not good right now
• Baby didn't move
• Got the baby to move
• Needs to have an amniocentesis done 
• They need to take the baby ASAP 
• Need test results back to see when they can take the baby

Now, I could not swallow my spit as my mother is telling me this. I am calm and comforting to my mom whose voice was cracking and faltering. I had to find something from deep inside of me to keep her from going off on the other end of the phone. I reassured her that everything would be okay, she found her 'phone voice', thanked me and said that she had to go somewhere and pray and hung up the phone. When I put the phone down, my mind panicked.

Again.

Let's go over why:

Amniocentesis (also referred to as amniotic fluid test or AFT), is a medical procedure used in prenatal diagnosis of chromosomal abnormalities and fetal infections, in which a small amount of amniotic fluid, which contains fetal tissues, is extracted from the amnion or amniotic sac surrounding a developing fetus, and the fetal DNA is examined for genetic abnormalities.

Well alrighty then.


Now with my sister actually being a health professional as well as my mother, aunts and other family members I automatically knew what the hell was going on here and in my selfishness I cried out in my mind (because my wife was stunned as well when I told her) that once again I was being victimized by that spiritual ass-whooping. I could not fathom taking any more bad news. It was like I already had enough to process when an answer came from the deep, pained recesses that make up my twisted-ass mind:

It ain't never been about you.

I immediately felt what I thought the pain, sense of urgency and unbridled emotional anxiety my sister and brother in-law felt like. I thought about my mother and how helpless she felt in being in Chicago while her daughter lay there in a hospital bed somewhere in Texas. How my brothers felt when they heard the news. How that unborn child was feeling, trying to fight her out of the womb to breathe oxygen out of the womb unrelenting and unknowing that outside of this beautiful, safe space was yet another chapter her spirit could see and how in some very small instances she could impact us all if only given a chance.

The fact that there could be something or something could go wrong never surfaced its way to cognitive thought. Even though I knew my sister had a complicated pregnancy from the start, all I could think of was having faith.

Faith in everything outside of our human powers that this baby was a-ok and that my sister would be as well. Faith that the birth of a new life not only replaces death, but improves our lives in that person becoming. Faith in how that new life was created was probably inspired by the ones that have recently passed. I mean hey, Michael Jackson, Mary Travers and Nikki Indigo inspired many thru dancing, singing, writing and song...

I cared not what type result the ending one for this situation was. In these moments I truly believe that we were put here to deal with whatever the universe has dealt; good, bad and ugly. I had to go back and remember exactly why I was where I was and why I believe that I'm back in Chicago in this moment.

I am that intercessor.

I motivated Moms to call the airline to reschedule her trip to Texas because my sister was to have an induced childbirth on the 29th of and she was going to be there for that but the baby was coming on the 19th because nothing is planned...


I don't normally put stuff on the blog that has gone beyond its freshness date, but I realize that the blog itself and the facebook feed was dated and warranted a few pings from some of my cousins in the blogosphere. To some, I am only as good as my last status and/or blog post.