So a smirk was all on my face/ Like damn that man’s face was just like my face/ So Pop I forgive/ For all the shit that I live through/ It wasn’t all your fault/ Homie you got caught/ And to the same game I fought/ That Unk Al lost/ My big brothers and so many others I saw/ I’m just glad we got to see each other/ Talk and re-meet each
Moment of Clarity
other – Jay – Z “Moment of Clarity”
These bars in Jay-Z’s rap song always reminded me of my own situation concerning my Pop’s. I could truly relate and I’ve been reading Decoded in my spare time to while my father lay lifeless in a hospital’s bed. Wow! That is all I could think. Look at this man, he looks terrible. I had avoid going to the hospital to visit him up until that point. I just knew it would bother me, so I knew the best way for me to deal with it was keep going on about my daily life as if he’s just a little sick. I just had to decide in my mind that I owe it to this guy to go visit him, so I did. BIG MISTAKE!
I continue to tell myself that it’s his fault that he’s in this condition and wasting away. I continued to tell myself that we all have the choice to do what we want and live how we want. Of course, all of this is true, but there are consequences to every decision or choice we make. Like Neo in the Matrix. Red or green pill, chose one. You know I haven’t been the greatest person when it comes to making choices. Hell, I guess it something I inherit from my father.
Well, let me get back to the lyrics and why I connect and internalize these words while they play over an instrumental that’s somber, but banging. My father choice of poison is heroin just like in the song and just like Jay Z my Uncle Al (it was his Uncle Ray, but I changed the lyrics) lost his life in a drug deal gone bad. It affected my father because my uncle was the baby and he had move from the South to Dayton, so my father should have been protecting him from the perils of the city life. I forgiven my father for all the things he took me through and the same game that claim my uncle life as well as many of my friends and peers I managed to contribute to by broking deals or distributing in some fashion. Usually, I never put that must information in a blog because I don’t want to incriminate myself, but I am being transparent for I can
Decoded
handle my own issue with my father’s condition. Unlike Jay-Z he had a conversation with his father about why he walked out on him and his sisters. I never had that conversation and I can’t say that I want it now either. At one time in my life I did want to have that conversation for closure, but I realize for me it wasn’t going to do any good. No matter what he would have said wouldn’t have been good enough or excusable to me. He just would not have able to convey to me why he wasn’t actively involved in my life. Unlike Jay Z my father never walked out on me, well…lol, he came back when it did. He was there physically, but that was about it, so he was gone mentally, emotionally and even spiritually while I looked or communicated with him. It’s funny, because Jay-Z mention the same thing in the sense that it wasn’t going to do any good for the questions and answer session between him and his father. I don’t buy it because his father did apologize to him. Hell, I really don’t think that would make me a bit of difference for me.
Now, back to the present. Why it was a BIG MISTAKE? Well, as I sat there in the chair at my father bedside and looking at him made this visit far more emotional than I ever expected. I watched him as his head justslumber down to his chest. He was sleeping and just seemed tirer and restless. My father was always a small man, so he couldn’t afford to lose any weight. You could tell that things were taking a toll on him physically. He had played the street game to the fullest and just abuse his body to exhaustion and it sad, but being in the hospital helpless was the only way he was going to get any rest. My visit lasted less than 15 minutes, because I had seen enough and my tear ducks had started to fill up. YEP! It’s time for me to go, I said to myself. One of the things that eats at me like cancer is that he didn’t have to live life-like that. I am going to be more honest, right now I can’t even pray for him and it not out of angry either. I am so far from being angry at him, but I am more hurt as if I am still that little boy. Not for him missing birthdays, never saying he loved me or for throwing the football with me. I can’t say that we never had any good times, but we had some moments that are forever chisel in my brain and print in my heart. I think I am more bother, because of what could have been between a father and son, but instead I only got glimpse of moments in times we share, snap shots. It really doesn’t matter, because I know I love that man regardless of any situations. You know I have cracked jokes about how he was looking, but that is only to masked the pain that I am feeling inside. The best way for me to deal with this and my forever topsy-turvy world is by not visiting that hospital anymore.
[Chorus] Thank God for granting me this monent of clarity/ This moment of honesty/ The world’ll feel my truths…. – Jay Z, Moment of Clarity
