Little Black Book

As a kid, I grew up always hearing, “anything you want, you can make it happen.” My grandfather was one of those people who walked around with extreme confidence and he pushed that idea into what seemed like everyone he came into contact with. Known far and wide as Grandpop or just Pop Pop. He was an entrepreneur in our city for more than 30 years and won awards for his community involvement and activism. For being a self made man he was extremely humble and constantly expressing how grateful he was for everything in his life. There was just an aura about him. Like he never had a worry in the world. An embodiment of Bob Marley’s Three Little Birds. You could hear him randomly whistling throughout any given day.

Somehow it never got annoying to hear. Maybe just because it’s a great song or maybe because it always reminded me of him. Throughout my life it had this uncanny ability to always pop into my head when I needed to hear it most. “Because every little thing is going to be alright.” The presence that was my grandfather and the idea itself shaped me so much in my adolescence that I wanted to be just like him. At the tender age of ten I decided I was going to move just like him, I began trying to mimic his imperturbable demeanor.

From then on, I decided this was the kind of person I was going to be, I was going to take on what I perceived was a carefree nonchalant perspective on life. I thought never letting anything be able to rattle me was the key. The decision really panned out well for me in my youth. I didn’t care about being one of the cool kids so that drew people to me. It made school easier because I just always believed my grades would come out the way they were supposed to. Everything was going to happen the way it was supposed to no matter what effort I put in. I did well in sports and it got me into college and all the way to my bachelor’s degree in business entrepreneurship. I was twenty-five, had graduated and been working for a marketing firm for one year when my mother called while I was at work and tearfully gave me the news of my grandfather's passing. He was mugged in our hometown. Robbed and shot in the chest in front of his own office. My heart sank to the bottom of my shoes. I did my best not to collapse and make my way to the bathroom. She explained that witnesses saw the robbers shoot him while trying to wrestle his watch away from him and took off in his car. I’d never felt so much anger. I struggled to contain myself from taking it out on the company’s bathroom.

I flew back home a week later. Assisting my mother with the funeral arrangements and predominantly serving as a buffer between her and the scores of citizens stopping by the house or his office who had genuine sincere moments with my grandfather and some who just met him on a one off and he impacted their life, wishing to offer their condolences.

It was often too difficult for my mother to be alone in her dad’s office so she largely left it up to me to handle the arrangements for the office space. I admit, initially the feeling of being in there without him was surreal, the weight of the moment I heard the news dropping down on me like the weight of the new world I’m now forced to navigate without him.

The entire first day I spent it pacing back and forth through his office, replaying the moment in my head. Touching everything I could put my hands on, things I’ve seen hundreds of times as a kid. It was by far the most spiritually connected I’ve ever felt. These were some of the closest things to my grandfather. While holding some pictures, I could feel myself getting lost in them. I hadn’t been back home in seven years; it took me a couple days just to push through the nostalgia. While clearing out a filing cabinet I came across a box about shoebox size with a little black notebook and some old newspaper clippings. It was mostly articles written about him doing things for the city when he was younger and an obituary from when my father died fifteen years ago. The black notebook read “believe and receive” at the top of the inside panel and at the bottom the words “Be Grateful.” At the top of the next page read “anything you want, you can have it.” Beneath that was a list of things my grandfather set out to accomplish starting off with owning his own record store.

I took this notebook to my mother to ask whether she had ever noticed my grandfather walking around with this. She was pleasantly surprised when I brought it to her. She went on to tell me how he would carry this notebook around with him all the time when my dad was younger. Grandpop would often tell her in the early courting days between her and my dad “how could you know where you’re going if you don’t have a plan, anything you want you can have, you just have to be grateful for what you do have.” As I continued to look through the black notebook, I could see at the bottom of every page of goals he’d circle the word “manifest.” I realized how wrong and misguided I had been my whole life. I thought my grandfather walked around with this blind faith that nothing bad was ever going to happen to him and that in turn provided him a level of confidence people just weren’t tapped into. My mom didn’t know it but she really opened my eyes that day. Grandpop had instilled such an undeserved level of confidence in me to where I was arrogant and didn’t even realize. I wasn’t really carefree... I was careless. I never wanted anything or strived for anything. I thought if I didn’t care there was no way anything could get me down. I had no real sense of direction way before my grandfather passed away. I was just following in his footsteps, wandering aimlessly with no real plan for myself. From that moment forward I decided to truly follow in his entrepreneurial footsteps.

After the funeral I couldn’t stay in my hometown for too long before I got ancy to get back to my job in the bay area. Within a month I quit to pursue my own ventures. I was confident with my experience and new found knowledge of the secret to my grandfather’s success and confidence there was no feat too tall. Of course I had to bring along the notebook I needed to write my goals down the same way he did. At the bottom of each page I would circle the word “manifest.”

Every morning from the day I quit to start my own ecommerce business, I would walk around my apartment recounting everything I was grateful for in my life. I would envision every goal I had written down and I would say thank you for coming into my life. I did this every day for four months. I was living off of savings and investments. I believed I was going to come into some start-up money that wouldn’t have to come out of my own pocket but I was already depleting my funds rapidly by prematurely quitting my job.

One day as I’m carrying out my morning ritual, my phone rings and it’s my mother calling. Eerily enough, a funny feeling came over me as I saw her name pop up on the screen. I answered the phone and she asked me if I was certain I looked through everything in my grandfather's office. I assured her I was certain that I would put my eyes on everything there. She goes on to ask me if I checked the trick drawer under his desk.

I gasped out loud.

I thought it necessary.

I told her I had no clue about the trick drawer, she said I figured because there’s an envelope here with a note for you. I asked her to open it and read it to me. It was a note from my grandfather to me that he intended to give me after my graduation where he reveals how proud he was of the person I was on my way to becoming. That as long as I kept my head on straight and was clear about what I wanted to do I would go further than I could imagine. It meant the world to me my grandfather left something to me, I wondered why he never told me about it. My mother continued on, saying there was a key included with the note. The note finished out by saying to take this key to my bank to take you to the first step toward the rest of your life.

I begged my mother to hurry to the bank to figure out what that was a key to and to promptly inform me. Though my grandfather was eager to drop any gems he could with whoever wanted to listen he was extremely private with his business. This left my mind racing on what could be in store for me. Two days later my mom finally gets back to me. I could hardly let her get the words out, I was beside myself. Once she finally settles me down she explains how the key was to a safety deposit box at my grandfather's bank and inside the box amongst other things was another envelope with my name on it and twenty thousand dollars inside. I dropped my phone and ran around my apartment yelling in excitement. When I finally got back to the phone, all I could say to my mom was “Grandpop gave me the keys the entire time.”