Life is Beautiful or so they say
Today I went to my daughter’s house
With my favorite cousin who I will call Dr. D
Hell
That’s what I call her
We grew up together
She and my wife were best friends
She is my other sister
Her beautiful daughter Kim came
She looks just like her father
Dr. D, Greg and my wife and I lived together
When I brought my first house in Elizabeth.
She has wonderful story
A story that gives us all hope
And strength and less maybe of
An understanding of the perfection
Of Gods will
Possibly
But ……………..
Like my wife she had been diagnosed with a terminal heart condition
Was told she had a year to live
Was told
To get her life in order
She actually had a pace maker installed
Went through all of the changes
Although I must say my cousin
Is my cousin
She handled this news better than any one I could imagine
Just Like my wife
Oh well
Let’s get my business in order
And see what life has in store for me
She given just a year to live
She sold her medical practice
Changed her whole life
And then two years later
Her heart is now functional enough
That she was given the medical clearance to resume
Her practice
But now she wants to try some thing different
She wants to see the world from the other side
Wants to travel and maybe do tattoo’s
Or body art and piercing
Any thing but a practice
That retracts and confines her
To a life she loved
But now can pass on
She has always been full of life
But now even more so
Anyway
She regaled us all
With all the stuff I had forgotten
Told stories of my 93 year old cousin
Who was just recently placed in a nursing home
My cousin Virginia
She was a pioneer
She came up hard out of mobile, Alabama
Yes this is part of the family
That I just met
She moved to New York
Then went to Paris in the 1930’s
To become a artist
She toured Africa
And dressed in African garb in the 1950’60’s and beyond
She cut her hair and wore it naturally in the 1940’s
Until now
She was stronger than any man I knew
She was also I just found out fluent in more than a few African dialogue’s
As well as German and French and Spanish
Why can’t I speak any thing?
My uncle Raleigh
Who was my idol?
And died like four years ago
Was actually an interpreter at the Nuremburg Trials?
A black guy doing this
Why hasn’t any thing been written?
Spike lee come on get on it
Anyway
This uncle
He picked up languages really quickly
He wound up
Speaking over five languages fluently
And then going on to become one of the first and most well known
Sheriffs in union county New Jersey
Still acting as a interpreter until he retired about 1980
This uncle
This cousin
These cousins of mine
Are a trip
A hoot
And people who I greatly admire
People who over came adversity
To shine on
Who did more than just endured
They flourished in a time when
Others were confined to the restrictions
Of their race
Or gender
Yup Dr D
I would have surely felt like a part of me
Was missing had she passed on
Is doing better
Much better
She lives
She is flowering again
In the autumn of her years
God is we in autumn we are the same age
It feels like winter to me
Whatever
But
What a story
What a family
I sat with my Cuban Italian son in law
Who cooked a chicken
While I made Latino rice and gandules
And red potatoes
And black forest cake
We sat and laughed and laughed
And caught up
Back to Cousin Virginia
She who stayed with my family every week of my life
She is
On a hunger strike
Now
She is in a nursing home
She says that she is going to will her self to die
Because she cant live without her freedom
She can’t live with any one telling her what to do
She went to India and African and France
When most folks were just trying to flee
The south
For a good job in the north
She refused to be consigned to any one
Else's vision of what she should or not be
Yes she will herself to die
And I will send her some strength
To be what
To do what she wants
That is as it was
For her
And as it should be now
This isn’t a sad story
But one about dignity
And people will
And rights
She is going to will her self to die
And she has my blessing
All she wanted to do was die in her apartment
But that will not be
She actually punched a nurse the other day
And when I heard this
I feel off the chair laughing
This is so like her
And I am glad that she got a shot in
Really glad
But alias
Now they have put her on medication
To control her
To sap that spirit
But they don’t have a clue
To who or what they are messing with
Yup
I think of Opray winfrey in color purple
That spirit of hers
That would not break
Yup these people in my family
Are fierce
What a day
And Dr D will be here for a while
A good while longer
Can you believe?
Now if you don’t believe that there is a God
Then I don’t know what to tell you
For if it were not so
I wouldn’t have told you
let not your heart
Be troubled
Mine isn’t
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