It has been a long time. This title comes from the rap song that Pete Rock and CL Smooth had and it was played over a smooth melody that just takes you back to a place of memories that’s embedded in your mind and some memories locked away in your Pandora’s box. I can’t say I haven’t been inspired, because I am inspired every day and
I Rather Reminisce Over You
every moment of my life. With the passing of my father…words can’t even began to describe how I feel. Honestly, I won’t even try. Maybe one day in the distance future I will blog about the chain of events that took place leading up to his homegoing. I always say that I won’t blog about issues that I haven’t resolve within myself. At this point in my life I will probably never be able to resolve the pain and emptiness that I feel inside not having my daddy. You truly wouldn’t understand unless you have experience a death of a parent. In addition, sometimes it is hard for me to write unless I am inspired because if I do blog and not inspired then it would be artificial.
I just want to add this disclaimer, this blog “I Rather Reminisce Over You” was a draft and was set to be posted like last year, but do to the chain of events that has occurred in my life I am changing it. I once heard somebody say that some of the worst times were the best times. I agree with that to an extend because growing up in the projects we always had each other. If we didn’t have anything else we have a lot of cohesiveness that kept us together through thick in thin. Yeah, growing up in the PJ’s (low income housing) was rough, but we had each other and I probably experience somethings other kids didn’t get the opportunity to live through.
I truly don’t know where to begin, because it is six months later and my emotions are still all over the place. Even as I blog about my father my eyes start to water. Since, his homegoing this has been on the regular. Of course, not as much as it initially was, but it is still common and the same theme. That theme is, “I can’t believe you’re not here
with me.” I can’t call it. Sometimes I feel like that same little boy in the PJ’s that yearn for a father. I just never thought my father’s death would have this type of effect on me. I think about some of my blogs I wrote about him, and they were all true without a doubt, but what I realize is that I thirst for his acceptance more than I thought or even realized. I realize now that I truly did care what he thought. Bare with me people, because I am trying to get through this blog.
It’s sad that it takes a death for you to appreciate somebody. Maybe I am harvesting guilt, because I took his life for granted. I don’t know. I just didn’t see it coming and I miss him like hell. It was never that I hated him, but I just wanted him to kick the drug habit. Early in January 2010 he went to a rehab and I was so proud of him, because this was the first time in my life that I saw him make an attempt. Now looking back at it I am sure that he probably made self-imposed attempts that were unsuccessful. Trying to kick a heroin addiction is going to take major help beyond yourself and plenty of praying. I realize it ain’t easy being a black man in America, which I am not trying to make excuses for him. What I am saying that I empathize with him more now than ever. I was bless and fortunate that I didn’t make those mistakes, but I did make plenty of them and the same ones that he made. Only difference is that I didn’t get caught up. I always thought I was different from him, because I didn’t use drugs. In reality, I was selling drugs from weed to crack and even brokerage heroin deals. The same poison that help to take his life. Maybe I owe atonement, who knows? I understand how it hurt to watch your dreams defer and how you so desperately want to provide the finer things in life for your children and wife. I understand how it can rotten the core of your existence to not be able to make ends meet. Regardless, it does something to your manhood that only a true man could understand. By all means, that don’t mean to give up, but you have to find strength in the Lord and grab a hold of His hand. It was just one of those things that he struggle with and I understand that we all have some type of struggles that we deal with even if it is not a drug addiction. I just didn’t show enough empathy, because I was only thinking of myself and how I felt like my father had messed up my life.
See, God gave me the father that he wanted me to have. I am eternally grateful for Arthur L. Patrick Sr. being in my life regardless if it was by my standards or perception of what a father was supposed to be. I can remember him driving me to my college orientation and sitting out in the car for hours waiting on me to finish up with the tour and placement test. I can remember me asking him to ride with me to Jeffersonville and then I got up there and only brought a pair of socks. I can recall when I was young how I felt he was larger than life and my hero. Yeah, he used drugs, but he never told me no when I wanted to follow him or go with him to hang out. I remember when I first got jumped and he ran to the fight with a knife and was swing it trying to protect me.
Sorry, I am going to end this blog right here and just post it. It is just too painful for me right now.
“Well Man, sometimes in order for someone to live someone has to die.” – Tiffany G
Good Will 