7+years

I am not the greatest at writing and I have to try really hard. So just give my feelings/memories a chance. As a reader you will not ever regret it. However……… it’s been over 7 years since you been gone and when that day creeps up on me like it always does, seems not as bad at all.

The pain of constantly praying to the most high that it wasn’t true on that day just to realize the deja vu of it all. Or even showing the emotions like Lord what will I do. Being so afraid of the what if’s or thinking positively but still having and feeling of that pit deep in my stomach that feels so familiar. Sometimes, I just had to take off of work, every year on that date so I would not have to relive it. But still crying it out so it could make some sense or even put it into an arts and crafts for the heck of it.

The feelings that I have suppressed that are released at different times in my life to help me understand that sometimes the stuff is really real. The small things I have taken for granted throughout my life like not taking pictures with you or even saying I love you. Because I always assumed that you always knew something that I rarely showed you.

At times, I felt like I was just building it up so I could tear myself down because I just couldn’t understand the reason. While in my brain things supposed to happen at a logical instance rather than a life style coincidence. A consequence of your lifestyle that you ensured that I wouldn’t repeat by helping me not to judge rather than have empathy for those that the world thought was weak. The pain from a mother that was gone a decade before and this pain from my brother that I couldn’t shake at all. I always wondered why I just figure this time that it was just his time.

Throughout my years Kirk was a true gangsta that could withstand time at the age of 8 he was shot 9 times in one night. As a child when my mom directed us to take care of him while she worked.

My mother always instilled in all of her children that the greatest community regardless of the individuals could change the world. I didn’t think of it in that moment when I was putting on the tv for my brother while I went off to school or that the person who actually left him for dead at 42 after being shot wouldn’t call 911 after so he could get help.

That sense of community that regardless of everything that you had to stand by a certain code where my own cousin would help her love at all means necessary. The family that understood that was my brother after all couldn’t understand why I didn’t act like I didn’t know her at all. Sometimes it’s best to turn the other cheek but if you don’t believe in that what would that really mean.

The faces of helplessness from family and friends where the news makes the narrative that has no end. With the countless days on the run and wondering with prayers that one day he will feel like he had none. From all of the marches that tried to increase awareness about gun violence and the pictures the news tried to paint makes me have a wonderful feeling. But the countless acts of human disregard where a childhood acquaintance had a supposed video of it all. What had happened from what did happen changed like the wind blows from months on end who really knows.

All I knew that I lost my mom and I didn’t want to plan my brother’s funeral but with the process of elimination that’s all I knew. His wife wanted what my mom had and I didn’t know what to do. I’m a people pleaser/ superwoman who forgets about herself for the common good. But before his untimely death I used to laugh and joke with my brother. I didn’t care about what society labeled him I just taught about the times he took care of me and vice versa.

And for his birthday I give him gifts because it was his birthday and since his death I give him gift like arts and crafts for 7+ years, so I can show him the gratefulness and appreciation. He prevented me from being a statistic through this actions and words with the constant guidance of a strong mother who directed an amazing path to a great journey.

I define myself from my ancestors especially all of the ones who came before who showed me a way different from selling drugs. But what’s so crazy you could sell drugs and lose your life like by brother did because incarcerated but in my state if you are a murderer you get half of the max does that make sense. But that’s what 7+ years had me at being in different fields and reciting memories of the past such as when I told on my brother for making crack and my mom put him out or when my mom found his gun and took it to the police several memories helped me appreciate these 7+ years. I have not ever been good at writing English.