My older brothers' first son made my mother cry one day while she was babysitting. I have two great nephews the oldest is 2 and the youngest is 3 months old as cute as they want to be. During this month I have been reminiscing on my father's life with us and thinking that my nephews will never know their granddad. My mother has been on edge just as I have been lately. I told her instead of staying home mourning my dad’s death got to my brother’s house and celebrate the life of his two children. While babysitting she finds an old family photo album of us. As she is flipping through the pages she see’s a picture of my dad and brother at my brother’s High School graduation. Now my nephew’s name is Andrew and my father’s middle name is Andre. My brother did my honored my dad’s memory by naming his first son with a similar name. Andrew has not developed himself yet as a talker he says some words and uses facial and hand gestures to express himself. He tells my mom “Sit” meaning he wants to sit on her lap. She picks him up and places the photo album over in front of them. Andrew says “read” meaning he wants a story read to him, he thinks the photo album is a reading book. The first page Andrew flips to a picture of my parents at the beach together in a warm embrace during a sunset. Andrew points at the picture of my mom and say ‘momma” with a huge smile on his face. My mother replied yes it’s”momma” (my mom doesn’t like to be called grandmother it’s momma or nothing else). Andrew then proceeds to point at my dad’s picture and said “poppa” while having his arms spread apart and shoulders shrugged upwards in a gesture meaning I don’t know. My mom teary eyed say yes that is poppa, but Andrew repeated “poppa” again with the same gesture this time my mom interoperated it as if he was asking a question. Now Andrew uses a similar gesture when his toy is are missing. He would say “ball” and use the gesture to ask you have you seen my ball. That was the exact notion that popped in my mothers head, she uncontrollably busted into tears in front of Andrew. Andrew comes grab my hand and said “momma cry” and pulls me to follow him to where she is. When I arrive I see she was crying and I asked her what is wrong and she opens the album and Andrew looks on and repeated poppa with the same gesture again this time he looked me directly in the eye as if the question was directed at me. My 2 year old nephew asked my mother and me a question we hope that would not come up until he is of enough age to understand life and death. My mom saw a reminder of her pain. I who was very emotionally distraught felt the same way she did. I now realize that this question is a blessing. For a child who bares the name similar to a person who he doesn’t know or ever seen before in his 2 years on this earth and to said child point him out and know who he is, is nothing short of a miracle to me. Andrew may not remember this when get’s older and he may asked where is granddad one day, I know it is inevitable. One thing I do know he does know his granddad not in the physical but in the spiritual. I can truly say that all my prayers for God to reveal himself to me was answer that day Monday April 21, 2008 a l0 years and 2 days since my dad’s death through my nephew as the pure human vessel for his voice! I thank God for hearing me and answering .my prayers.

If am alergic to people with allergies does that mean I am alergic to myself?

I was over a friends house the other day and I was asked a why is their a channel like BET (black entertainment channel) and no WET (white entertainment channel)? I laughed it off and said “if we had a WET channel people might think it has porno on it”. When I saw I was the only one laughing I grew concerned, with a very concerned voice I ask why is their silence in the room and no laughing was that a serious question? My friend said yes he felt as if it was an insult. To make matters worst we were watching the show “black poker stars invitational”. The fact that he felt the whole situation was racist made me think, why this situation would be racist when not one black person was invited to ESPN’s poker invitational. When I saw the look of disgust and anger in my friends face I asked him his train of though on such situations. He goes into a long speech of how Black people are the ones who are discriminating now. “When ever a situation occurs they play the race card”. He then recites a list of unfair, unjust, and bias decisions made because of race. He ended this train of thought with “Black people, gays, and handicap people are way too privileged”. Now I know this dude we have been friends for about 4 years now and he never struck me as a racist or a white supremacist. I know he had a great grandfather who fought in the civil war and he wears his confederate flag proudly whether it’s a hat or T-shirt he always told us it ifs for southern pride. Another friend of ours who happens to be in the room with us asked “why are you so angry man it’s just a channel”. He replied “Oh it’s just a channel to you because you have about three channels”. At this time I see a heated argument is about to take place so I d o what I usually do make a silly joke, No one in the room was going for it. Therefore I made a stand by sayings that if you guys really look at it all the other channels are mainly white. Here is an example remember the show friends? It was about six friends three girls and three guys living in New York doing day to day things I use to watch that show and I always said I never saw not one black person in the show not even a cameo or in the background. When more and more people noticed this the last season before they call it quits they hire a black actress to appear on the show. I also stated that we can flip through all the channels on TV right now and it will be dominated by white shows. My friends DIRECTV line up goes up to 150 channels including premiums. In that little experiment we saw that even with Direct TV channels were minority shows being air range a 3% of his premium package. This made him feel better; I then proceeded to let him know the history of BET. In the beginning man black people were stereotyped on the TV by white actors painted with what was called Blackface makeup. The show who hired black people also gave them degrading roles for them to portrait. As times changed and black people gained more rights BET was developed with the idea to uplift black morale by have more realistic and positive roles. He then asked the big question if Barak Obama becomes president what changes is he going to force on the white people next? HE then states such laws like affirmative action, welfare, and the “N” word.

I have lived in the United States for about 25 years both my brother and I were in America since infancy we are so Americanized it is not funny. I didn’t learn Creole until the age of 8 I still have an accent when I speak my mother’s native language. She just doesn’t want to let go she tries to control everything and she is such a liar. This lady is the person who taught me and my brother about God. She has even had many spiritual encounters of the third kind. God warned her of my father’s death, the night before she went on vacation in Haiti the year of my father’s death she dreamt of 2 coffins in their bedroom. She then went to a Christian retreat and prayed for thirty days and thirty nights. The last night of the retreat when she went to sleep she dreamt one of the coffins was gone the other remained. My dad knew about the dream and ignored my moms request for him to pray with her. At this point my dad who was a Mormon and freemason did not really follow my mom’s spiritual practices. God gave him a chance to live but he chose to ignore it. My mom has been the spiritual anchor for my family. Lately she has been a little off well really after my dad’s death. She blamed God for a very long time. To show you how much God Jesus visited her in a dream once. She went to bed one night crying since 6 am to 10pm she finally went to sleep and she dreamt of her in a field of grass calling out to God and say two hands appear and a voice saying Annette be strong I am with you. That day before the dream she cried until tears could not come out of her eyes anymore. I thank God so much because I could have lost both Parents at the age of 17 he spared me from such hardship. When we lived in Brooklyn the wrong crowd was all around us gambling, drugs, and gangbanging. April of 1995 I was jumped by 12 people who I believe were high school kids I was in junior high they wanted money. I didn’t work nor did my parents believe in an allowance. They stole my watch my day made me get it back. He told me go out in the streets and get your property back I am not raising any punks. Mom cradled me my big brother went out in the streets busting heads with me. That began the legacy of the Daniel boys we tasted violence in a major way and had the neighborhood fearing us. Imagine two guys taking down a gang of 12 systematically and getting a 5$ Casio watch back. We were respected and looked upon as the leaders of the neighborhood in other words we almost became leaders of a gang. Then a big change happened we moved to Florida because my day did not want to work in a check to check job anymore while he had a degree in engineering in his country. He built his and my moms dream house in Haiti bought the cars of their dreams and established an import and export business in Haiti along with a small provisions market for the people. They moved us to Florida in order for us to be closer to Haiti and finish school away from Brooklyn’s street life. In my opinion I believe it is God’s hand at work because I see what became of my old neighborhood in BK and how the people became savages. My Dad survived and organized crime robbery in Manhattan NY were he was placed in the trunk of a car and left their one nigh working the grave shift in his second job as a parking attendant. To see that he died in his own country when he finally achieved his goal hurts me deeply. But he had a chance to save himself God called him he didn’t listen. Since then my spiritual mom has been a shell of her former self bad decisions has made her bitter. The biggest thing is that she invested in land in Atlanta and the people that were doing the whole deal stole her money and we cannot find them. She always says that if my dad was here this wouldn’t happen. She is right my dad spoiled her to the max. Every Sunday he cooked for her, dray baths for her after work, clipped her toe nails. All the bills and hard labor was his responsibility all he every asked for in return was respect in his house and support. The love was always there because we admired his hard work. I miss him so dam much! I love my mother so much ad want her to be happy but everything I do she always compares it to what my dad did and how I don’t measure up to it. I have to learn to be me not my father now because I tried and failed to be that comfort for my mom. This is one reason why I believe I have a fear of commitment. I don’t want to leave a grieving widow behind. Because I know I have my father’s mentality to take care of my family to a point where I spoil them. TO be continued…..!