At the Gate (Part 1)

It's Sunday morning. My mother is in the kitchen cooking breakfast. I leave in a couple hours, and I know it's bothering her. In the background "I know I've been changed" plays on the radio in the corner. Whenever she begins to get sad she turns to the one place where she finds peace -- God.

It is just shy of six months since Latoya died and the pain still floats through the house. Only the peace of the creator keeps the grief in check. Dad is in the back, in their bedroom. He is in his usual place on the side of their bed watching TV. He has to work tonight so he is engaged in his usual pre-work-week ritual -- rest.

Darrell Jr., is in the living room eating from the plate his grandmother just placed in front of him, sausage, eggs, and grits. Breakfast in the south ... breakfast at home. With all of the changes that he has been forced to accept in these few short months it amazes me how he is able to keep the precocious nature that only an eight-year-old boy could have. "Uncle, is it still snowing in New Jersey?" He asks with a sly smile, I'm pretty sure he knows the answer. He just wants to talk to me. "No Darrell, it's summer," I say as I look up from my laptop. I want to talk with him too. These moments are so few and slip through your fingers no matter how tightly you grasp, so much vapor. It's almost as if life is just a dream. A dream.

I hug everybody and tell them I will give them a call when I get home later tonight. And like that I am sitting at the airport waiting for my flight. I replay today's goodbye in my mind, the same way I have every time I head back out on my journey since I was 18 years old.

Pop is cool. He is more proud than he is sad. He's probably thinking, "my boy has made something of himself. And when life knocks him down, he picks himself up and makes something else of himself" ... Or something like that. Mama is thinking something totally different.

She'd rather I was still 11 years old and sleeping in my old bedroom, in the bed across from Lovell. That means he would be 10 and Toya would be 7 years old. I throw my head back to push the water back into my head. "God I would love that too,"  I mouth under my breathe. But we can't go back, we have to move forward.

Darrell buries his head into my side "Bye uncle." When I finally get him to look up I see a shiny glass sheet over his eyes -- tears. And behind them I see the real sadness he is carrying with him. In less than half a calendar year he has been forced to say goodbye to his mother. Then he was made to leave the one place he has thought of as home for the first eight years of his life. And now, someone else who he has come to depend on is leaving him.

It's not the first time I've left. In fact, me visiting and then leaving is probably the most consistent part of our relationship. The circumstances are different know though. I've had a lump in my throat since that moment. Now as the airlines gate attendant calls for me to board the plane I close my eyes and mentally push all the emotion racing through me deep, deep into the corner of my mind.

 I will come back to these thoughts later. Probably when I am sitting alone, meditating on the course of things. That's when Mara comes to visit ...  To be continued ...