I can vividly recall that the Bay Area was experiencing a heat spell around the middle of July 2006, he month that my son was diagnosed with cancer. Maybe it was a sign of the news that was to be delivered to our family. I remember the heavy atmosphere when I arrived home from the office that day. By that time the news of Sir's diagnosis had begun to travel throughout our immediate family, and of course, everyone was in utter shock. After all, as Tower of Power would sing: "You're Still A Young Man..." He's just a baby in my eyes -- because he's my baby! Darn it!.
I sat in the backyard with my mother as the evening closed in on us. I finally got up the nerve to call my younger brother, Arnold, to tell him about the diagnosis. I hesitated, after all how does one even begin to deliver such information to another loved one. I was only 19 years old when Sir was delivered up into this world -- just a baby my own self. But from the moment he appeared on the scene, all of my siblings welcomed him into this world with nothing but pure love. Before Sir even had the opportunity to see 12 months of this here life, his father and I separated because, as his father explained at that time, he just wasn't ready for the responsibilities of marriage.
But, blessedly, I come from a family who had locked arms during, what I like to call, our very intimate experience with the poverty. So, as I think back on the family support that I received from the moment I returned to my parent's home, it just wasn't that unusual for my siblings to step-up and be my everything from that day forward. Sir's Uncle Arnold was only 14 years old at the time of his birth, and his Uncle Terry had just turned 13 years of age a few days before Sir's was born into this world.
Anyway, I'm stalling about the conversation that I had with Arnold that night because it was rather haunting. When I finally got the words out of my mouth, I could hear a lot of fumbling, and all of a sudden, the cell phone went silent. I was weeping by the time I managed to redial Arnold's number. When he finally answered his voice was barely audible. I consoled him and assured him that Sir would be all right. I had to believe that because I had no other choice -- Sir is my all -- my everything.
It remember that it took forever for that day to draw to a close. How do you face the night on a day like that? Well, you just do! Somehow, you do it!
As I said before, we were smack dead in the middle of a heat spell, and at some point Sir and I found ourselves in complete darkness. He was in his bedroom and I in mine. I know my son well enough to know that he would come to me in his own time. The television was on in my bedroom but as my mother would say, "The TV was watchin' me!"
Sir finally found his moment of need and came into my room. There we sat in complete darkness. Oh, if we only knew that the darkness of that night would only get darker on the days to come. He cried quietly as he relived the moments that the doctors gave him the results of the testing that he had undergone. He shared with me how the initial physician didn't even know how to give him the news, and he had to call another physician into the room because he was so shocked himself.
The most impressionable aspect of that moment shared between me and my son was when Sir told me: "Mom, all that I kept thinking to myself is that you promised me that everything would be all right!" He was speaking of a day a few weeks prior to his diagnosis when he was beginning to worry about the symptoms he was experiencing, and the advice nurse expressed great concern for the symptoms that he had described to her. When I spoke to Sir that day he was starting to cry and I assured him that he needed to have faith that everything was going to be okay. As he continued to cry, I maintained my posture and further assured Sir that if he wasn't able to have faith that I would believe and have faith on his behalf.
When I was a young lady struggling to make it, my best friend's uncle told me that he had been praying for me. Well, I'm not one to down any one's prayers pitched on my behalf. :} Anyway, Lisa's Uncle LC enlightened me that day many, many years ago that "some people live off of the prayers that others offer up on their behalf."
That night, even though it was dark, from the glow of the light thrown off by the television, I could see my son's eyes fixed on me as the tears continued to fall. I grabbed my baby, held him tight, and told him that "I still promise, that it's gonna be all right"
pEace and bLesSings to my family
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