I lost one and didn't know it

Just a moment ago I was sitting in my office with a strong urge to kick and break the couch sitting next to my door. I wanted to swing at the air and hit it hard. Yeah, just like Cuba Gooding Jr. in Boys In The Hood. I felt like swinging at the air for the same reason Trey did. I lost one. I lost a friend.

The difference though is that I did not know I lost a friend until close to a year after he was gone. I received a facebook friend request from a woman in San Francisco yesterday. She asked me if I attended A.P. Giannini middle school. I was like 'wow, really?'. I went to AP for the first semester of 6th grade before I transferred to my other middle school. So I have no clue who this woman is right. She says she noticed me from my facebook picture. Tells you how much I aged right? I have locks now and I was rocking fades and s-curls in 6th grade.

Anyway she says we had Ms. Jackson's class with Gregory and Megan. I responded that I don't remember Ms. Jackson or Megan, but that I remember Gregory. Gregory and I lived on the same street in Hunter's Point (HP) and we were real cool. The initials HP become significant later. It was me, Gregory, Milk and Norte. Norte went to a different school though. Private I think - grandmother was real religious. So at the school we were bused to, it was me, Gregory and Milk. The four of us were good friends in 6th grade and I have probably seen them no more than 4 times since then. I don't even remember Milk's real name. My memory has its issues though. But I still remember that Gregory and Milk presented me with a nickname on the hoop court one day at school - Loomskoom. Ridiculous in my view but they thought it ridiculous to go by my other nickname of Uncle Lumas. They just couldn't see it, me being shorter than them and all I guess. But they asked until I gave in and let them role with the Loomskoom. But of course no other people on the planet could call me that. Anyway we lost touch soon as I moved four blocks away and went to a closer school.

I often wondered about Gregory, Norte and Milk though. All of them were funny and characters. We kept each other laughing all the time. Seeing them years later was like watching boys grow into men over night. I wasn't there for the transformation so to just see them as young men was amazing for some reason. Everytime I ran into one of them, whether they be locked in the dope game or on a work grind it always felt good to run into them. Cause no matter what they were into, when we saw each other we could see the young innocence and fearless idealism we had as kids about life and the future. We did not see who we had become in terms of occupation or lack thereof, we saw people, human beings, brothas. That's who we saw and that's who we were. And maybe that is why we did not make it a point to stay in touch, maybe we wanted to hold onto our memories more than we wanted to hold onto each other. Or maybe that is just my story. Or maybe the other part of the story is that we were so caught up in who we became or were becoming that we forgot to take who we are with us. Whenever I think about my work and my purpose in life I think about my brothas and sistas Milk, Norty and Gregory, Frank, Marvell, Jermaine, Kizzy, Erica and a whole list of other people I lost touch with that I saw enourmous gifts in. So you can imagine how excited I was to hear that someone contacting me remembered Gregory. If so you may also imagine how heart shattering it is to know that I will never run into Gregory again.

My new facebook friend told me that Gregory passed just last year, found him in Sunnydale projects in San Francisco in an abandon housing unit, shot. I'll never look upon Gregory's face again. Probably never see a picture of him or meet any of his family. Yeah, I don't know what he was into or who he had became. But I have learned that no matter what you learn along the way, what was created in you at birth is not something that deserves such a death. I don't even know if he was married or had children. Not sure if I want to know any of it. Cause for me right now all I know and all I can picture is that my 12 year old friend was gunned down in an abandon project building. Somebody killed my friend who was a special person. Not just to me, but to the world. He was a light in this world at one point.

I work today so that I can assist young people in exposing more of their light rather than letting the world scare them into dimming it. I work so that children and adolescents and young adults may bask in the beauty of their own light and others, rather than hide it as though they should be ashamed of their gifts and talents. I went through college and graduate school and received pieces of paper called a diploma and attached three letters and two periods to the end of my name so that I could stop losing loved ones and friends to the disposal systems of our society, death, incarceration, homelessness and poverty. And not it is not my degrees that keep me warm at night, unless you count the fact that my degree got me my job which give me a check that keeps my heat warm and pays for my home. Then I guess my degrees do keep me warm. But the degrees in the wake of a friends death also serves to keep me perplexed.

My first week of graduate school I lost my cousin Marvell to a shooting as well. When I switched from AP to my other middles school it was so I could be closer to home but also so I could be in the same school with my cousin Marvell. A year older and 20 years cooler he could look after me as I learned about San Francisco. We had just moved to San Francisco a little over a year prior. Marvell was the cousin I was closest to in middle school. Another beautiful spirit and fun person to be around. Lost him the very week I was to begin a journey that I pray leads to protecting and developing our people.

And here I am at the age of 30 with the very job I aspired to have that I thought would put me in a position to do what I set out to do. I found out about Gregory today as I was in the middle of working with a 10th grader on an upcoming speech he has to give in class at a high school in Detroit. The speech is titled "The Real Me." His goal is to give an informative speech on how he is different than the other people in his neighborhood of Highland Park (HP). I shared with him the story I share with you. How I grew up in a place called HP and worked so that I could give back to youth in HP someday. So I feel especially responsible and humbled by the opportunity to work with youth from Highland Park. And I find it so ironic that I get a facebook text message about Gregory's passing as I sit in front of a young man telling me how he is different from those who don't care and who carry guns in HP.

Immediately I kept my cool and focused on the life in front of me that deserved my attention and time. Why or how? Yeah I am cool in demeanor, and yes Gregory was now a distant friend. But the reason was, I was numb. But later, once I settled into the van ride back to the ivory tower, I thought a great deal about Gregory. I talked to a friend about him. And I even called some other friends to talk some more, which I rarely do in times like this. But no one answered right then. That is when it came over me. The frustration and ANGER and SICK AND TIREDNESS of all that my people go through and live with. Not angry at myself and not reflecting on my role. Not yet. I am angry that here I am at the age of 30 and still I lost another one, young. Angry that HP lost another son, and Black America lost another father when we need some so many more.

It is killing our sons and killing our daughters. It is out there. I say it because I do not believe healthy human beings kill human beings. I can no longer believe that. By the time one achieves murder they have long lost touch with what it means to be a living being and what humanity is. By that time they have long been lost and are long past the point where they learned that which should have not been taught. So I am angry at IT.

But when I have lost one, the day has possibly given me two. I spoke to you briefly about the one young man who aspires to tell his class about the real him. Today I was reminded of another.

One of my mentees recently acquired custody of her younger brother because her parents were no longer around to do so. Naturally her 15 year old brother became mine and she asked that I be of support to the two of them. I humbly and graciously accepted the honor and responsibility. This young teenage boy was wise in his assessment of the cruel environment he had been entrenched but unfortunately had conceded to a belief that he would not live long and should not care whether he did or not.

I spoke with him once and knew that if we continued to meet I may push him too fast or too hard OR could give him just the push he needed to develop a healthy perspective on life. He was in a fragile state and transitory state. I knew it, but that never changes how thin the line is between success and failure. The bottom line is that it was more on him than I or anyone else. His sister was phenomenal in how she worked to try to reach him, be there consistently, and deal with the pressure and stress in the best possible means imaginable. She was patient and diligent in consulting advice and surrounding him with various role models he could choose from. She also provided him with other resources in and outside of school. I mean she handled this like she was a social worker. As a junior in college she met with teachers and state officials to advocate for her and her brother. I embellish nothing and it should be noted that what she did could not be adequaltely described here.

But again it comes down to the fact that it is he that decides the outcome and it is his troubled past that threatens his perception with failure and pain. Her brother ran away just before Thanksgiving, approximately three months after he moved in with his sister. He had no one to turn to so it was likely that he was homeless on the streets. Upon finding out I had, not conflicted emotions, but mixed emotions. A mix of empathy for the boy, sorrow for his sister, anger at the system and myself, shame and doubt about my role, pride for the sister, envious of the boy's blissful ignorance that would allow him to walk beyond the margins of our world, and I am sure a slew of other emotions that I ran from exploring.

Today my mentees walked into my office and shared with me a gift of the story of her younger brother returning home. She ran into him on her way to the post office and simply told him that he could return home and that she wants to continue to take care of him. He returned!

This I found out before I found out about Gregory. So what does it mean when the silver lining comes before the dark clouds? Then again Gregory has been gone for some time and I just didn't know it. So perhaps it is that sometimes the darkness comes first to push us to search for a light to turn on or brighten up. And so maybe today God wanted me to see these two lights the same way I saw Gregory's or Marvell's. That's what I hope because I have to. A prisoner of hope...yeah. A bit better than a prisoner of despair.

I miss you Marvell and I miss you Gregory. I know who you are and I know who I am, and this time I will take that with me. Peace be unto you. I love you.