IT HURTS!

When Mom passed away back in 2014 at the age of 96, outlasting Dad by many years, it marked the end of my childhood officially. That part of my life was over as someone's child and a new phase began, the sadness of all those I know as contemporaries leaving this Earth.

Now as I travel through life, acceptance is all I have left. Over the past few years many cousins, aunts and uncles and friends have all gone to their rewards, and so I wait my turn.

Being a father of a child with multiple disabilities, I have had to pleasure to meet many of her peers, people with disabilities of varying degrees, who have touched me in many ways. One of these amazing people was a fellow named David, or ‘D' as I referred to him recently in this blog. He was the man who lit up the room with his humbleness and sweet demeanor for the most part. He has been to my house for parties and holidays and has always made me laugh by his innocence and simplicity. He was indeed like a cigar-chomping uncle who could swear like a sailor and say outrageous things for everyone to hear and blush about, but that was only one reason to love him.

I told about the stuffed animal he took one Christmas day to my house to have dinner and there was the time he came for a 4th of July party, sitting in his chair he told me how he took the subway with a house manager to Manhattan to have cocktails, an event that never happened, that night I'm sure he was in his pajamas in his group home in West Hampton and ready for bed long before the cocktail hour in Manhattan.

Just this past Saturday he lay in his hospital bed, oblivious to the world since he had lost consciousness and was hooked up to life support, dying, as he fought laboriously to breathe and perhaps create a miracle and live.

The day after y

esterday morning about 9:00 A.M., I received a call from a Medicaid Service Coordinator that he had passed, another beautiful friend I had for so many years.

When you weight all the poor man has lived through, abuse and abandonment by his family, trapped in a body that tried to defeat him every day of his life for so many years, he was always ready to convince you that he was ready for today and tomorrow, you just needed to know that he would take you on the journey if you were brave enough.

I often wonder what purpose lives like David's and my daughter Ellen's serve, what does it all mean, then I interact with my fellow human, realizing he is indeed my equal, that his struggles are mine, and I know this he taught me: Though we go our separate ways, are stories are all different, not better or worse, but different. That I have things I can teach him, it is because he has things to teach me, we are learning together, we are human.

You can ask God why these things called disabilities happen, or why a good person suffered and why he/she was allowed to suffer, and you would be asking the wrong questions, you should be asking yourself those questions, and what you did to try to ease a person's life. God does not react to our wailing and tears, our breast pounding and begging, instead, He will judge us all on how we responded to the work He has given us, for we are His hands and feet, His eyes and ears.

Rest in Peace my friend.