Gratitude

When I was 8 years old, my mother became convinced that I would be kidnapped. She was positive it was going to happen. She had nightmares about me being snatched. I would catch her staring at me, picturing kidnapping scenarios… One nice fall day, as I walked home from school, a blacked-out van would pull up and a masked man would press a chloroform-soaked cloth to my face and poof! No more Carlita. Or maybe this… As I played in the backyard, a strange man would offer me an ice cream cone to entice me to his blacked-out van and once again, well, if I was naive enough to follow him… chloroform, cloth, no more me. I tried to tell her I would be fine, but to no avail. She would not let me out of her sight. She made a rule that I could only ride my bike in our front or back yard. She would promise me every year after that I could ride my bike in the street. When that year arrived, she would postpone it to the next year. "When you're 9… No, when you're 10…. Well, maybe when you're 11." Mom was mainly terrified due to a couple of dramatic child-snatching television movies that were both "based on true stories"… they had done their job in my mother's case.

The first was a movie called David. I recall it clearly, though I haven't seen it in twenty plus years. A father kidnapped his own son, took him to a hotel, doused him in what I think was kerosene and set him on fire… because of his impending divorce from David's mother. The boy survived, but with burns over 90 percent of his body. A terrible, heartbreaking story indeed. One I could understand my mother becoming affected by, if her situation had been at all similar to the one in the film. Yes, my parents were also separated; however, it was a very amicable separation.  But this movie had impressed my mother to the point where this important piece of information seemed to have escaped my mom's brain through some sort of mental hatch. She became paranoid from that point forward that something terrible was going to happen to me when I was with my dad. Notwithstanding the fact that my father adored me and was wrapped around my finger. Whenever I returned home with bags full of toys and clothes instead of severe burns over my body, I could almost hear her internal sigh of relief.  My father was almost as bad as she was. No, he didn't believe my mom would set me aflame; he was concerned about "other people." Every conversation with my dad ended with the question, "Nobody's bothering you, are they?" My father's definition of "bothering" was someone touching me, asking me to touch them, hurting me, kissing me or anything else untoward for which I knew he would literally rip them apart with his bare hands…

Then, there was the movie I Know My First Name is Steven. A lot of people around my age may remember this film. The main character was a young boy who was kidnapped by a pedophile who convinced him he was his new adoptive father. The guy abused the kid for years until he escaped as a teen.  That was about the time my mom started peering at the backs of milk cartons and imagining my little brown face and long, fat pigtails staring back at her… 

When I had to start walking home from school, as we only had one car for a while, my mother, without fail, would be waiting for me outside before the bell rang. I was utterly and completely embarrassed by this and would sometimes intentionally walk far ahead of her.  And yes, I feel absolutely awful about this now.

My mom's obsession continued until I was a teenager. When I was 15, while shopping at Wal-Mart, my mom and I went our separate ways in the store. I (of course) went straight to Books and Magazines, where I proceeded to get engrossed in the latest installation of whatever teen series I was into at the time, probably Fear Street or a Sweet Sixteen or something similar. I can block out the world when I'm reading and that day was no different. I finished the book in about an hour, put it back and walked down the aisle. As I turned the corner of the aisle, I saw Mom. But not just her… no, she was being physically held up by a uniformed security guard, as tears rolled down her face. Apparently, they had been calling my name over the store's speakers for about a half an hour. Mom, convinced that I had been kidnapped, talked the security guard into helping her search for me inside the store and in the parking lot. By the time I turned that corner, she was tearfully telling him between sobs that there must have been at least two men that had captured me, because if it was just one, I would have fought him and made enough commotion to attract attention… I was floored. Not only had she successfully convinced herself that I was in the hands of at least two or more men, all of them sex offenders who were waiting to snatch my 5'10 self out of a well-lit, fairly busy Wal-Mart, not once did she look in Books. I was 15, embarrassed and not sympathetic to my mom's plight at all at the time. I asked, "Knowing ME, did it not occur to you even ONCE, to look in Books?!" Then I saw her face, which was tear-stained, tired and overjoyed that I was alive and well… so I just gave her a hug and we walked to the car.

The thing is… my mother loved me. Both of my parents loved me very much. I was always well aware of this as fact, didn't always understand the depth of it, nor did I appreciate it until I got older. And I am just now beginning to fully appreciate the wholeness I have always felt from being loved so much. And understood as well… my parents always GOT me even though I was and am very different from them. I am well aware that I had a pretty awesome childhood, full of love and fun. I know that not all children were as lucky as I. And it's been kind of hard for me sometimes to fully comprehend how badly adults can be broken because of family dysfunction. I get it a lot better now than I used to. Thank you to both of my parents who continued to work together to love me, protect me and care for me even when they weren't in love each other anymore. I'm stronger because of you and my heart is wider because of you.

Jesse

Sadness always provokes me into writing. My friend Jesse took his own life a few days ago. I hadn't talked to him in a couple of weeks. The only reason I found out was because as I was checking my Facebook account last night, I saw some photos he had been tagged in and the photo album was entitled "Rest in Peace." I emailed his girlfriend and she confirmed to me that they believed it to be suicide, which is what I had assumed. I guess this is the new way to find out these things. I am actually grateful for it because I might not have found out otherwise. Jesse and I didn't have any mutual friends, really, so no one would have known to contact me. What's funny about our friendship is that it was very self-contained. We had a lot of intellectual and philosophical conversations. Honestly, I don't know much about Jesse's day-to-day life. I don't know how he was in his dealings with other people or in his relationships with them, other than what he told me. That is probably why we felt comfortable being so honest with each other about certain things.

I met Jesse about 4 years ago. Although we lived in the same city, we actually met through MySpace when he was doing some networking to draw traffic to some web sites he had created. I remember he had this picture of Mumm-Ra as his profile picture, which I found hilarious. We became fast friends. We were about the same age and had a lot in common. He asked a few of his online friends to go through his sites and review them, make suggestions, etc. When I gave him my detailed opinions and suggestions, we started talking even more. I was impressed because he had so many great ideas and was so intelligent. He liked that I spoke my mind and was honest about what I thought would work and what wouldn't. He didn't have much formal education after high school and was self-taught in programming html, web design and many other things. I loved talking to him because I was always learning things. He would research corporations and tell me things I didn't know. He would share with me music I never heard before – he was really into reggae and sent me a lot of it. He had this thirst for knowledge I admired. We talked more on the phone and online than in person. But our conversations were almost always deep. We discussed everything from music to relationships to books to our future business plans to religion.

Jesse's past was intense and troubled. He used to always tell me that he wanted me to ghostwrite his autobiography or at least help him write it or edit it. From what I gathered, neither his mother nor his father had been in his life very much. He related to me that as a child, he was abused and at one point, he was kidnapped to another state where, after living there some time, he was witness to the murder of one of his captors by the other. So much more happened to him that I won't even go into… he just had a difficult upbringing to say the least.

Then he disappeared on me. I called him a few times and tried to email him, but didn't get any responses. I've had moments in my life where I've been MIA to some people, so I didn't assume anything horrible had happened. I just figured he had some things going on and we'd eventually reconnect. A couple of years passed and I would continue to attempt to contact him every now and then, with no results. About a year ago, he sent me an email out of the blue and I couldn't believe it. He filled in all the gaps for me and much had happened. He had learned of a child he had fathered with an ex-girlfriend. He had moved to Texas and was going to get married to a woman he had fallen in love with. And in the midst of all this, he told me he had gone through what basically translated into a mental breakdown. He told me all the details. He had been diagnosed as schizophrenic, but he said that's what he thought they labeled a lot of people. He didn't really feel that he was. I was just really happy that he seemed better and was in what I thought was a good place. As we talked over the next few months, we had a lot of conversations about love and life. Sometimes, I was a little upset by things he would say because they were coming from a place I couldn't understand. A couple of months ago, he told me he just didn't feel any passion in his life, that nothing really excited him. I would talk to him, but really didn't know what to say. I told him to try new things in his life, to create his own excitement, to go forward with some of the plans he had for his businesses. Looking back, I don't think anything anyone could have said really mattered to him. I have learned that when people are determined to do something, there's not much you can do to stop them.

I'm ending with an email Jesse sent to me about a month ago, which in turn would be about a month before he killed himself. I want to share it in its entirety because Jesse had what I felt was such a unique point of view, one I didn't always agree with and that occasionally scared me, but sometimes I found it hard to argue with his logic because he analyzed things so thoroughly. He always told me he wanted to share his story... he wanted to write a book through blogs and publish a chapter each month. This is all I have really of his thoughts and ideas. We had been talking back and forth about what we each thought love was and he had taken months to reply to an email I sent him. When he finally replied, he sent me this with the subject line of "Love… a long time coming" on Wednesday, December 4^th, 2009:

"It took a few months, but I am finally responding... I know, right? I now know love to exist on different levels, yet I have been void of it for the majority of my life. The times in my life when people did show me that they loved me, it always came across to me as more like sympathy. That is because of the level on which that love was projected. It was always someone trying to help me out simply because they knew of what I had been through. Of course, that was more of my experience with love as a child. As an adult and on that personal level, love just never manifested itself in me. I had a few girlfriends here and there and told them I loved them basically as part of the game that people play when it comes to sex and relationships. With casual sex being the more taboo, it just comes natural to most people to seek a relationship... so sex is usually what sucked me into the relationship and then saying "I love you" was just the next obvious thing. For the most part though, I have been more carnal when it comes to sex and have crossed borders that some would not even consider. I've had sex with women who were related to each other, cousins, mothers and daughters, with married women. I just never had reasons to take things like that into serious consideration. Then, oddly enough, I did fall in love. I know it was real... well, because I had no choice but to know. I mean to be without it, then to experience it the way I did... It honestly sent me over the edge. To a whole new level of love. The type that would cause me to have a messianic complex. If what Jesus did was love, then what I felt was equal to that. It's crazy to most people, but here is the logic:

The world is controlled by people who could really care less about us or our lives. They continuously toy with people in order to carry out their own inhibitions behind closed doors. They have the masses under a deep spell. It is true that most people will go through school, get a job, have a family of some sort, then die....in between they deal with the "typical" problems and just hope to make the next day. It does not occur to most people to break free from that. I have traveled a long way. For me to be among the first generation of high school graduates in my family, but not go to college, ended up putting me in an odd position in life. When I finally had come to my senses as far as what is going on in the world around me, my choices were limited as to what I could do. By that time I was not short on ideas, just short on education. So I got started doing what I could and what interested me by teaching myself, which is around the time that I met you.

When love came into my world it became obvious to me that my longing for success was going to clash with love. Sort of how rich business men try to mix a family in with all the hours they have to work and so on... so, it occured in my mind that in order to have love in my life the way I wanted it in my life, I was going to have to sacrifice it so that I could bring down the system that was keeping me from it. In a sense, it's like I could not do for myself, unless I was willing to forsake my own so that all could have. In that frame of mind, it gives you a sense that your reward will be in the end. That you will somehow have love on a higher level once all is said and done... The feeling was more spiritual... and then the visions that came with it made it more profound.

Then, all the things that I still cannot explain that I was "led" to do. In a sense, it was like I was receiving a test by the devil himself. Instead of pursuing love, I was being shown that it was the thing that would keep me trapped. That the more carnal side of my brain was the one that I should continue to live by. There was also the lure of money that came with it, but the thing about money was that I saw it as being the biggest part of the illusion, which it is actually. I guess by political standards it would be a socialist point of view, but aside from the label it has more to do with leveling the playing field and not allowing certain groups of people to have "power" over others. It was shown to me that "famous people," politicians, preachers, business execs and the major players are involved in some real undercover stuff… a lot of it sexual. It was odd.

Before it all began, I was offered a job... to write for three hours a day... I don't know for whom, but it was on my computer screen. That is a story better told in person... anyway... in the end I lost out I suppose, because since then I have been depedent upon a lot of other people in order to survive and things seem to be going only down. I mean, I've got some things going on, but it's like in reality those things are so far from me and are not likely to happen... like the system is going to end sucking me back in before I get something going. Then, also the people I have been dealing with are still "plugged in"... which makes it difficult for them to have real concern for anything other than what is in their own circle... but I understand so...

Well to sum it up, I guess you say that I was so void of love, that when it happened I went too far... I still love this girl, too...There is no way I could ever replace what I feel with someone, but now I really have no passion for anyone or anything... so I guess that old expression about loving yourself before you love someone else is not so true... I feel that I lost all sense of self behind that and it has left me bitter. More than anything it keeps my mind focused on all the odd things that happened... Like now nothing is real... I don't even think the things I see with my own eyes are what really exist. It was that wild."

Jesse, I don't have many words left. I will miss you. I will miss the openness of our conversations, the unique perspective you had on so many things. I am open to ideas of an afterlife and I really hope you have found the higher level of consciousness and love that you wanted to get to and felt you were held back from. Farewell, my friend. Maybe, in some form or fashion, we will meet again one day.

One of Jesse's favorite songs... which became one of mine...