Typically 6PM

Now’s the time I usually get home from practice. Now’s the time my mom usually asks if I showered before I came home. Now’s the time I usually lie while hoping my application of deodorant is sufficient enough. Now’s the time a wonderful smell hits my nose. Now’s the time my dad usually has dinner on the table. Now’s the time I usually try to sneak my plate into my room. Now’s the time my dad usually forces me to sit at the table with them. Now’s the time I usually avoid telling them about the redheaded guy I like or the test I almost failed. Now’s the time my mom usually tells me about a new artist she heard on the radio. Now’s the time I usually tell her they’ve been around for months. Now’s the time my dad usually tells me to stop teasing my mom. Now’s the time I usually ask if I can go out with Adam and Julie. Now’s the time I usually have to beg I won’t get into trouble again. Now’s the time they usually say ok as long as I’m back before midnight. Now’s the time I usually know I’ll break curfew again. Now’s the time I usually know no matter how late I am they’re be there to love me.

Today’s the day the redheaded guy kisses me after practice. Today’s the day I come home at 7:22. Today’s the day my mom’s car isn’t in the driveway. Today’s the day I don’t smell dinner when I walk through the door. Today’s the day my dad is lying on the kitchen floor. Today’s the day I step in a puddle of blood. Today’s the day my mom isn’t picking up her phone. Today’s the day I wish my dad would sit at the table with me. Today’s the day the operator struggles to understand me through my sobbing. Today is different. Usually it’s not.

For Ummi

I'm still not ahead of schedule, and I foolishly stayed up til 5am last night with work today. Please enjoy this short story from my senior year that I'm oddly proud of.

Gabir rises from the table with two cups as the tea kettle whistles and turns the back left burner off on the stove, his mother sitting silently with her cup before her on the table. Twisting his waist, he grabs her cup and places it next to his before pouring the boiling hot water over the tea bags. “Would you like any honey with you tea, mother?” She shakes her head, her salt and pepper hairs slipping out of its loose braid – he would have to remind younger brother Fadi to touch it up soon – exposing more and more split ends. “I’m sure Iskandar will want honey. That man has a sweet tooth like a spoiled child.” After squeezing the bottle bone dry between the first two cups, Gabir returns to the table as he smiles at his mother, placing her cup down first.

“It’s nice of you and your older brother to visit your dear old ummu,” she finally breaks her silence. “I know how much of a bother it must be.”

“Please, we’ve wanted to come see you for the past five months. We just have busy lives with our wives and all.”

“Yes. I imagine you do.” Her eyelids slide shut as she raises the cup to her mouth, parting her lips to whistle into the simmering tea before letting it lightly scorch her tongue just as it had the skin on her left arm when she was still a newlywed in Lebanon. “I’m happy women were lucky enough to pick you two out as suitable gentlemen to marry. If only I were so lucky as to have that opportunity.”

“You’re not too old to remarry, yourself,” Gabir says. “You’ve been in America for 37 years now. You think you would have gotten used to it by now.”

“Not when you’re married to a man like your father for 32 of them. And I have no need to remarry. Fadi still sticks by his mother’s side. Just the other day, a girl stopped him while he was in the market with me in the produce section. He hooked my arm and said he already had a woman to serve and protect.”

Gabir’s little brother, a slender boy with eyes that perpetually burned with curiosity and a mind fixated on those he held dear, graduated college three years ago with a bachelor’s in engineering and stayed at home with her – having commuted the entirety of his undergraduate career – to help their mother make ends meet, since she was never allowed to hold a job herself, though Gabir and Iskandar often sent her checks for each season that passed since their father’s departure – enough to keep her comfortable in the only American home she had known. Iskandar often speculated to him that Fadi was a momma’s boy, but Gabir defended him as just acting as the baby of the bunch. When will he move on?

Gabir remains lost in his thoughts until his mother mutters something. “What?” he asks.

“I thought you turned the kettle off,” she repeates. He quickly realizes that a whistling sound has filled the whole house. Before he can respond, a loud bang replaces it.

“It sounds like it came from upstairs.” Almost falling out of his chair in a hurry, Gabir rushes out of the kitchen and up the stairs to see Iskandar standing in the doorway to Fadi’s room, smoke crawling along the floor out of the room. “Is he alright? What was he doing in there?”

“I can’t really answer either one of those questions, I’m afraid,” his brother replies. “I don’t see him. There’s just that.” Gabir follows Iskandar’s gaze to a cylinder shaped tin can that stretches from the floor to the ceiling in the corner across from a bed; the smoke seems to originate from its opening. On the desk to the right side of the tin can is a rectangular box, connected by a coiled wire, that displays a date and place in florescent orange lights: July 22, 1971, Tyre, Lebanon.

“He didn’t…” Gabir drags his brother with him and stuffs him into the machine. “We have to follow him,” he says in response to Iskandar’s perplexed look as he searches feverously inside the cylinder for a button that reads “Go” or “Launch” to no avail before stomping his foot down. Suddenly the floor of the machine glows, beginning from the middle until it reaches the side panels, and a flash of light engulfs the two brothers.

*~

The Shiite temple’s white exterior shines beautifully in front of them with pure elegance that would rival any bride on her wedding day, and fifteen year old Mariam dressed in a radiant white grab with gold laces outlining its hem was no exception as Gabir and Iskandar could see from behind an abandoned fruit stand as she walked between her parents into the temple. As the last of her party enters the temple, the brothers emerge from hiding place.

“Ummu really looks beautiful, even at this young age,” says Iskandar as he brushes sand off himself.

“I know.” Out of the corner of his eye, Gabir catches a man in a brilliant burnt sienna jacket with golden yellow wrists and collar walking with confidence along the side of the building and turns to his brother to say, “I think that’s Ibrahim.”

“Father?” Iskandar hides behind the fruit stand once again, looking in the direction that his brother points before rising up once again. “Where? I don’t see him.”

Before Gabir can clarify, he turns to find their young father is missing from the side street. As quickly as he ran up to Fadi’s room, he runs toward the last intersection he last spotted his father with Iskandar steps behind him, panting from the extra weight he’s put on over the years – a sound that nearly drowned out the moans of a man in an alley being struck repeatedly by a blunt object. Gabir stops at the mouth of an alley to see his younger brother standing menacing over Ibrahim with a dented garbage can tightly grasped in his left hand.

“Fadi! What do you think you doing?” Gabir calls out walking slowly towards him.

Fadi peers over his shoulder. “Oh. It’s you. Come. Help me finish off this fiend.”

“Be reasonable, Fadi,” Iskandar wheezes as he stumbles into the alley. “What do you think will happen if you kill him?”

“I will relieve ummi of all the suffering she’s ever had to endure,” he replies somberly.

“And you’ll erase us. If he dies now, then we can never be. None of us will be there to provide for her. How will she survive?”

“Maybe another suitor is lined up for her to marry,” Gabir joins in. “Maybe he’s even worse than Ibrahim. There’s no way of knowing. Then she’ll be in even more pain.”

“I can’t imagine anyone worse than him,” Fadi turns back to his father. “But if there be a worse man, I pray that there is another like me to travel through time and bring him down.” When he lifts the trashcan over his head, Gabir and Iskandar sprint into action as the can flies towards their father’s head ready to splatter it.

~

Sitting alone on a carpet in front of her home, Mariam’s salt and pepper hair flows with the Lebanese air of a summer breeze.  She closes her eyes, but images of her broken and bloody husband-to-be on that faithful night – it seemed like night to her – fill her mind as three men seem to fade away into a successful escape from the scene of the crime. The anniversary of her fiancé’s death still haunts her to this day as well as the lust for a family to call her own.  To care for. To love.

Fireworks in the Rain

I’d never seen my mom so determined. The past year, she spent most of her time in bed when she wasn’t at work.I’m still wondering how she never gained weight from all the TV dinners I fed her. But this past weekend, something snapped in her. She packed my sister, brother, and I into the Subaru and drove all the way to West Virginia. I slept most of the way there, but I remember waking up when the car stopped. I unbuckled my seatbelt, but she told us to stay put. She walked over to a hillbilly who looked her over for a while, kind of like he was surprised it was really her. It wasn’t until she unfurled a wad of cash from her purse that he finally flashed a gap-toothed smile at her and walked her around back. What was probably only five minutes felt like one because I fell asleep again. This time the slamming of the trunk shook the sandman off me; she wheeled a cart back over to the hillbilly and he waved us off.

That day was a scourger, almost breaking the record highs in both West Virginia and Baltimore. We should have foreseen the thunderstorm that was around the corner. The city appreciated its cooling nature, just not its timing. And none were more upset than my mother. She cursed her luck but also thanked it, because it provided her the perfect cover. It even allowed her to hatch her plan earlier. Around 7:37, when the sun no longer seemed to be hiding behind the storm clouds, she threw on her raincoat and asked my older sister to help her. My brother and I  watched from the window as they got an old pop-up tent from the garage and propped it up in the driveway. While my sister kicked the water out of the puddle underneath the tent, my mom unlocked the trunk and ran over an armful of fireworks. My younger brother gasped when he saw how many there were, but that’s because he couldn’t remember the years prior. This was standard for us. Amazingly, she got them all under the tent without getting any of the wicks wet as she celebrated her first success.

She toyed around with the idea of angling them from under the tent, but she remember the one year we almost set our neighbors house on fire. If they hadn’t enjoyed the show we put on every year, they probably would have called the cops. So, my mom decided to wait. She sent my sister inside to stay dry.

It was an hour before the rain let up, but my sister ran back out as soon as it did without the signal for my mother and pulled the pop-up tent from over the fireworks. With two long lighters, my mother lit the circle of fireworks around her in two sweeping half-circles. When the last two in front of her started to burn, she jumped over them as the first Roman Candles she lit whizzed into the air behind her. The grey clouds turned into a rainbow of color above us as each firework boomed and pow’d. All of our neighborhoods came to their windows when they heard the commotion, still surprised the show was on. I’m almost sure I saw one couple applaud. I looked back to my mom, tears falling down her cheeks as she hugged and thanked my sister. For the first Fourth of July since our dad passed, it was as if nothing had changed. It was the perfect homage.

What's the 411?

Welcome back to our regularly scheduled programming. Sorry for the lack of posts last week. My imaginary sponsors alerted me to last month's ratings and heavily suggested I find a way to improve them. So obviously I'm just going to talk about myself while attempting not to reveal too much. You know like normal people and vloggers filming update videos do.

Depressing bit out of the way first, I've been thinking about my family a lot recently. Well, my dead relatives mostly. My mother suggested I write them letters since I still haven't properly grieved them because emotions are hard and scary and constantly feeling like you can't breathe is oddly exhilarating. I've written letters to my grandparents briefly telling them how they affected me and how I miss them, but mostly venting about my problems hoping they'll visit me in a dream and guide me. I still haven't written to my father, so my chakras have been completely out of wack for a week. I thought rewatching the Last Airbender would help, but it's more of a nice distraction than anything else. I hope to bring myself to the task by tomorrow.

Speaking of writing, I finished the outlines for the second and third episode of my biographical TV show two months ago during an unexpected "maniac" week. Hopefully I'll stop waiting for another episode and just produce content again. I'm long overdue on writing something for my friends to star in, too. It's time I become the content creator I've always dreamed of becoming.

Speaking of webseries written by and about gay people, my favorite one is back. It's called The Outs. It only took them three years to come back. Honestly, the first season is probably the best webseries of all time, and that's not just my opinion. I'm not gonna give you a synopsis; instead here's a link to watch the first season for free. LINK! Unfortunately, Vimeo saw their worth and picked up their second season as a show you have to pay for, but it's worth it. If you don't wanna do that, you can just listen to their totally awesome soundtrack on soundcloud. 

In other news, two potential big changes coming up before the year's midway mark that I obviously can't talk about until they're actually confirmed. But once they are, I feel like I'll be happier and more fulfilled. Perhaps I shouldn't allow them to be the sole source of hope, but whatever, I'll wing it. 

Lastly, thanks to the help of my actual "sponsors" I've been able to cook new things again. Much like writing, cooking for more than two hours and producing something incredible is unbelievably satisfying. If you're my friend on any social media, you saw I made my first pizzas from scratch, and I am absurdly proud of myself. At this rate, my cooking challenge could be the first thing I complete on my 102 Tasks list. 

I suppose that's enough updates for one post. Thanks for reading my rant. Check back in Thursday when I'll be teaching you the importance of always having a drifter bundle on deck and how to survive in the concrete jungle with a rotten tomato.* 

Word. 

*Thursday's post has yet to be determined. Probably something gender related, though. 

Dream Conversation with My Father

My father died January 4, 2013, just days before his birthday on the 10th. Understandably so, this isn't my most chipper week. While I recognize the importance of grieving and taking time to remember loved ones, I don't want to be a total grump. Life has a tendency to go on.

For this week's post, I decided to combine my mourning with my passion and craft something I wish I had: a better relationship with my father. Before he died, we were well on our way to constant communication. I resented him years prior for a reason I can't recall. I resent myself for that. In any case, here's an imaginary conversation that I'll continue to dream of.

[To avoid confusion, middle names have been used, as we share the same name]

Adrian
Boy, come here. Sit with me a while.

Greg
Ok. Do I have to sit here and watch your Raiders lose, though?

Adrian
Boy, you must not have been watching this season. My team's doing great!

Greg
7-8 is great?

Adrian
...it's better than what they've been doing. This team is still killing me.

Greg
Dad, too soon!

Adrian
Hey, I decide what's what, ok.

Greg
[sighs] I guess. They making it to the playoffs?

Adrian
Are the Ravens?

Greg
Touché.

[they laugh]

Greg
You know, I almost made it to the playoffs in my fantasy league?

Adrian
How are you doing in Baltimore, anyway?

Greg
Don't you already know that?

Adrian
I have a life of my own, Boy. I don't have time to study you.

Greg
Baltimore's good. I like it. Think it's a good home for me. Been there a while, probably be there a while longer. [shrugs]

Adrian
Just good, huh? Staying safe down there?

Greg
Yeah, I'm safe. Things are starting to quiet down after the riots. I mean, you know, there's still unrest, but the city's healing. And you know I know how to stay out of trouble.

Adrian
Ok. ...and are you staying "safe"? You're not keeping any grandkids from me now, are you?

Greg
Dad, how many times do I have to come out to you?

Adrian
Just checking. Thought you might have been bi or something. You know I still love you either way, right?

Greg
Yeah, I know, Dad.

Adrian
You're clean though, yeah?

Greg
Dad!

Adrian
What, not getting enough action down there? You're supposed to be killin' 'em. Clark Family tradition.

Greg
Yeah, tell that to Uncle Keith.

Adrian
Keith's special. Don't worry about him. Just make sure you provide me a heir to the throne so I can spoil them and watch them drive you crazy like you did me.

Greg
...what if I don't want to have kids? I mean, I wouldn't mind them. But you know, no biological way and all. I mean... Alexis already has two boys!

Adrian
[laughs] Don't worry about it, Boy. Take your time.

Greg
Ok. ...you know I occasionally do drag, right?

Adrian
You look like your mother when you do.

Greg
Ah, so you have been watching me?

Adrian
Only the entertaining parts. Your grandmother had a fit the first time you do it, boy.

Greg
She saw that! Damn, didn't even think of that. ...oh well, just gotta keep living my life, right?

[they laugh]

Adrian
Charles.

Greg
Yes?

Adrian
Don't be like your uncle.

Greg
I know, Dad. I won't become a hermit.

Adrain
And take care of your sister and mother.

Greg
Sisters.

Adrian
Yeah, your other sister, too.

Greg
You leaving already?

Adrian
You have to get going, don't you?

Greg
Yeah, I guess. I'd rather spend some more time with you, though.

Adrian
I know, son.

Greg
Dad, what's heaven like? Or... the afterlife in general?

Adrian
If I tell you that, they'll take away my dream privileges.

Greg
Oh. Makes sense, I guess. Gotta keep the mystery alive.

Adrian
Don't kill yourself.

Greg
I haven't had those thoughts in a while. Not seriously, at least.

Adrian
And don't burn down the family house just cause you don't want to deal with it.

Greg
I plead the fifth to those thoughts.

Adrian
You're still a nut, you know that?

Greg
Learned it from you.

Adrian
Yeah, yeah. I love you, son.

Greg
Love you, too, Dad. I miss you.

[Adrian walks out of the room]

[Greg wakes up]



Word

Death Approaches

I dreamed I died this morning.

I don't recall how; I simply found myself sitting in the back of a church

looking upon my mourning friends and family.

It didn't seem as if many people had shown up, but it mattered not. Popularity doesn't count when you're no longer among the living.

Suddenly the urge to see myself in the casket possessed me.
I crept down the aisle
ignoring everyone om the sides of me.
I needed to know how stiff, how much darker
I appeared as a soulless lump of clay.
However when I reached the casket,
sheets lining the innards were all I found.
I looked up to spot no picture of myself surrounded
by a reef of beautifully arranged flowers.

The only thing to conform it was my funeral
was the congregation that tripled in size
when I turned around, filled with familiar (but mostly blurry) faces.
[It's hard to take in that many images even within a dream.]

I searched for my family, none of which sat in the front pews.
They were instead replaced with classmates I hardly talked to
in yellow graduation gowns.
But behind them sat my mother, my sister, and various other
close relatives from that side of the family.
My mother and sister were able to see me, and we spoke,
though the details of the conversation escapes me
for that is when I woke.

I've been a semi-firm believer that death strikes in threes.
As I've written before, my maternal grandfather passed back in May.
What I failed to express to you all, and even myself,
is that my paternal grandmother passed in July.
Perhaps I had become partially unmoved
by death after my grandfather's death
or perhaps it was because she had been showing signs
of reaching her end since his funeral.
Either way, it should be known that I miss her.
As with my grandfather, I didn't spend nearly enough time with her.
And as with him, I am disappointed in myself.

All who's left now is my maternal grandmother,
and though she has with case been depressed
since her husband's death, I doubt she will be
the one to complete this trio of death.
For a time I feared it would be my mother,
gone before she completed her new set of goals in life.
But in the back of my mind, I believed
it would actually be me to die next.

Rather it be by vehicular accident or stray bullet
or natural disaster or a lack of physical health,
I never pictured myself living for long.
As a child, I looked at adults and couldn't picture myself older.
This was more so in the physical sense:
my skin winkling and sagging,
my hair balding or graying,
my stomach getting fatter.

But in my teenage years,
it became more of a maturity issue.
I couldn't see myself ever becoming a proper adult.
Sure I saw myself as a novelist,
but I saw no means of actually aspiring to greatness,
no day job that I would be happy with or fit in.

It's weird. Most people hold on
to the ignorant belief that they're invincible
for as long as possible, and here I was
already imagining my own death.
Now I have a wake to go along with it.

I think this fear is what has crippled my will to write.
It halted the honesty I held with myself.
But I think this dream may have shaken me back to life.
For my progression into adulthood's sake, I hope it has.

So, my fellow young adults,
don't let the fear of death (or failure)
ever hold you back, because you can either
be the guy who did nothing until his dying breath
or the fellow who fought his way through life to death..
Word.

Farewell, Grandpa

It was May 22nd, a Tuesday.

I happened to be moving into my lodging for my summer job

when my older sister called me.

My mother called me the day before

informing me that my grandfather suffered a stroke 

and had been rushed to the hospital.

I expect the worse and received it as my sister sobbed through the hard news.

I stood in the kitchen of my new apartment practically unmoved,

both physically and figuratively.

Once we finished our short conversation,

I retrieved a shot glass from my belongings,

poured myself a shot of the Southern Comfort I happened to have on hand,

and toasted to the memory of my grandfather - the southern gentleman that he was.

I returned to Newark, NJ the Saturday following,

much earlier than I attended on arriving,

but something compelled me - perhaps the need to support my family.

I'd be lying if I said I didn't regret it;

my grandmother, mother, and sister were perpetually stressed making preparations for the wake, funeral, and arriving extended family members.

I don't like my extended family.

I barely know my extended family.

I don't care enough to get to know these older relatives that I see once a decade

recalling that the last time they saw me I was "this high."

However there are a few members of my extended that I enjoy seeing,

but it's most likely because I see them at least three times in a decade

and have grown to cherish them.

But all of this is best left for a different post.

My grandfather's wake turned out to be fairly emotional.

My mother cried as she expressed her love for her father, 

using their trip to and from my graduation as a comparison 

to the drives they embarked on when she was younger;

my sister allowed her face to once again become wet 

while explaining he was a father figure 

in the absence of her own father during her childhood;

even my niece turned away from the microphone

before she could share her seven years of knowing the man.

Tears rolled down my check through the sweat 

pouring down my forehead each time,

but it occurred out of sympathy not empathy. 

This lack of personal emotion 

stems from the little interaction I shared with my grandfather.

The most time I spent one on one with him 

was the day we spent installing my mother's new floorboards, 

and it was hardly a bounding experience. 

It was more of a "let's get work done" moment 

that led to a shared since of accomplishment.

Being a handyman was one of his many traits acknowledged during the wake

along with his fathering-nature, firm religious beliefs, 

support of others, and business management skills.

But his most referred to quality was his silence.

Perhaps this is why we never grew close.

I myself am a fairly quiet man unless spoken to first;

even then, I'm quick to fall silent again and go about my way.

But if the organist at my church can consider him a father figure,

why can't I feel some emotion over his death?

These past few days I've randomly reminded myself, "He's dead."

That phrase kept repeating itself, growing in regularity once I saw him in the casket.

I kept looking to my grandmother as she sat directly in front of her dead husband

seemingly unmoved but more likely attempting to hold strong for the rest of her family.

She'd been with the man for 55 and a half years.

There were photos of their time together 

spanning from their wedding day to my graduation.

Thinking of them apart made me cry most of all.

I think the fact that he died so soon after my graduation is what freaks me out the most.

Here's a timeline of events:

Saturday, May 19 - I graduate and we eat together as a family

Sunday, May 20 - My grandparents and mother ride back up to NJ

Monday, May 21 - He suffers a stroke

Tuesday, May 22 - He dies

It's almost like he wanted to make one last appearance before he died,

as if he wanted me to know he was proud of me

though he didn't say it explicitly while he was down in Baltimore.

I should add that my grandfather was the first man in my family to hug me regularly.

It started when I went away to college;

the first time I returned home, he gave me one of the awkwardest hug of my life.

It was the first time I remember him hugging me - let alone as an adult.

I didn't know how to take it, but I learned to take it as his unspoken love for me.

My sister and cousins can speak about their experiences with my grandfather,

but me being the youngest of my generation in the family,

I never got to partake in grandpa's stern but silent discipline

or being dragged to church every Sunday as a child.

I felt jibbed in a way; I still do.

So what can I do now?

I squandered the possible times I could have spent knowing my grandfather.

I had to learn from the funeral's program that he was born in Alabama, having always thought it was Georgia or Mississippi.

I knew from pictures that he was involved in the service, but the program informed  me that is was  the Air Force he served with for three and a half years before being honorably discharged, but for what I have no clue.

Though  I knew they had been together for 55 and a half years, it was during the funeral that I figured out my grandfather was 19 at the time of the marriage. But now I'll never know how they met or how he knew my grandmother was the one for him.

Now he lies in a tomb of sorts on the sixth row awaiting my grandmother to join him.

I should take this as a sign to spend as much time 

with the two grandmothers I still have on this Earth.

My father's mother is dangerously close to her end as it is.

But in all honesty, it's hard for a distant grandson to suddenly change his ways.

As much as I know I should, it's a struggle to even force myself to be in the same space as them - let alone hold an actual conversation.

But at the very least I can try.

My grandfather would have wanted me to.

If I ever want to be half the man he was, 

I have to at least start with that.

Word.

The Essayist: Before We Die

[This personal essay imitates the style of Darin Strauss' Half a Life.]

            I shed no tears the day my mother’s great aunt died.

           

            A day or two after the Christmas of 2011, my grandfather had fallen ill. I don’t remember with what. I only remember thinking he’d be fine. He was only in his upper 60s – lower 70s; he’d been in the military – guessing from the pictures I’ve seen – and he exercised practically every day. A couple of days later, my great great aunt was rushed to the hospital. She was about 106 or so. My mother and I were visiting my sister, her husband and three kids in North Carolina when we got the news. The combination of these two emergencies troubled my mother greatly; we returned to New Jersey on New Year’s Eve.

            I was thrilled to go back early. Not because I wanted to visit my grandfather or a woman I had never carried a conversation with in my life while they lay in the hospital. Because it meant I would be able to travel to NYC and partake in New Year’s Eve debauchery with my friends.

            I’ve always seemed to prefer the company of strangers over my family. Not that there’s anything wrong with them; by all standards, they’re upstanding people. I guess part of it is my age. I was born at a weird time. My sister on my mom’s side is thirteen years older than me; my sister on my dad’s side is seven years older than me and lived with her mom in Georgia. The closest relative I have is my cousin who’s three years older but lived in Kalamazoo – yes, Kalamazoo, the one in Michigan – before moving to Miami. There was never anyone to ease me into the family.

            My family has become somewhat quiet, somewhat of a secretive, since my birth as well. From what my sisters have hinted at, there was some sort of drama concerning uncles or something to that effect, but I’ve never been one to pry. I was taught to “stay outta grown folk business.” I just carried that into adulthood like most of the other lessons taught to me.

            During the first week of my second semester, I received a call from my mother. “Aunt Pearl died.” Uh ok.” A week later I received another. “Yeah, it was a nice service. I have a few of the programs saved if you want me to send you one.” No, that’s alright.

            For the past four years, my family members have asked why I never call them. I tell them I don’t like talking on the phone, which is true. But the real reason is that I have nothing to talk about. Sure, I share a good laugh with my mother or sisters when I see them in person, but there’s only so much observational humor you can conduct miles away from each other. In a way, I’m shutting them out of my business, not divulging any information willing, like they did to me as a kid.

Perhaps one day I’ll regret this decision. Secretly, I hope I can find a way to relate to my family so that we can learn from each other. I wonder what their life must have been like, what odd similarities we share. Then I allow myself to become distracted by those immediately around me, leaving my close relationship with relatives as a forgotten dream.