By myself:

In December 2002, I was going through a forced rate conversion (military folks will know what that is, but it bears explaining to the non-mil folks. It’s when the service tells you that you have to change jobs for xxx reason). The Navy sent me from the majestic Pacific Northwest, where I was stationed aboard the Ohio-class ballistic missile submarine USS ALABAMA (SSBN 731 BLUE), to the dirty dirty aka da Sipp.

Stationed at Naval Air Station Meridian Mississippi, deep in the heart of da Sipp if there ever was a place, I learned the rudiments of supply policy and procedures which was in stark contrast to my first job as a submarine missile technician (yeah, you read that right – I used to work on nuclear missiles & shit on a submarine…they got my big used-to-be-homeless ass down there to do that, and it was HARD asf to even be able to do that, dead ass, ain’t that right Ed Guzman, Shawn Silfies, Pat Wentling…they know, they were there! Remember all of the folks who flunked out along the way for failing to learn stuff like the subsystems of a Trident C-4 missile, etc., or who didn’t get their submarine quals done. I survived all of that, earned my coveted submarine dolphins after being onboard ALABAMA from May 11, 2001 to my dolphin pinning on August 20, 2001. Did that and have the receipts.)

I digress. Where was I? Oh yea, da Sipp. So, I’m there in Storekeeper A School with a 100 average, because that’s just what I do. Or, how I did. Whatever. Bear with me, y’all. It’s December 18th, everyone is all happy & shit because we’d just had the command Christmas party and folks were heading off to go home on leave. My initially planned flight wasn’t until the early morning on the 20th, so I was set to chill until then. I was sitting in the mess hall eating evening chow (a good old fashioned three-slice grilled cheese and hot tomato soup), when the Master at Arms (security) personnel called my name through a megaphone. Imagine that, having your supper not-so surreptitiously interrupted by your name being called so flagrantly. No trauma there, folks.

I first thought something had happened to my 1994 Lincoln Town Car, and was finna be pissed, but they eerily and calmly called me outside to talk.  Their calm kinda fucked my head up right from jump. There wasn’t anything excitable about their demeanor, just freaky vibes all around.

The MA1 asked me to come with them to their office, and I knew it was bad. See, what I kinda left out was that my mom had been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer a few months before I left Washington state and wasn’t expected to make it. I had received an American Red Cross message en route to da Sipp that said that she was terminal and had weeks (maybe). Y’all know how that story goes. Only a few close folks were keyed in to what was going on, like my dear mentor, “Sea Daddy,” and watchful sage, Pappa Bear aka Pappy. Man, I tear up just writing his name, ya’ll, because that dude is special to me.

He rescued me and built me up when the Navy was ready to do me dirty (the first time…oh, the Navy is a repeat offender! That’s a whole different story for a different story lol). I also told my homie and Laurel, MS, native, Manuel aka Manny, whose family pretty much adopted me as kin right off the rip and used to send nearly nightly care packages of food and Henny for us to dine on in the barracks (because we’re grown folks, and when in da Sipp you do as they do in da Sipp…already!!). My dear friend, T…fuck, “friend” doesn’t even describe everything this lady has been in my life. She’s special…dope asf kinda Jersey gal with model looks, a sense of fashion, and a severe street edge. She will fuck you up two times real quick! That’s like my sister from another mister, and she’s also happily married, so no tagging in this tale.

Yeah, she’s known me since we were little kids, and lived around the corner from each other. We just learned to be cool like that over the years of shared (community) and personal traumas. When my mom got sick, she was one of the members of my tribe from Linden that stayed close. Shout out to my hometown, Linden, NJ, 07036!!! That zip code for LND is a part of my DNA and I still have connections to my roots there.

The only other person who had a clue was the spicy young Latina New Yorker I was dating at the time, Yoli – ain’t gonna blow her spot up, either, because I think she’s married now, too. Nuff respect.

Anyway, MA1 and a new lady who I hadn’t seen before were sitting at a desk when my Storekeeper LPO (supervisor, for non-mil) walked in with this look on his face. Everyone just seemed kinda frozen and unable to find the right words. Me, I’m a man of many of those, so it always strikes me as odd when adults fumble with them so awkwardly. I’m thinking to myself, like “Yo, hurry up. I got mad shit to do (I was actually expecting to get laid tbh).” When the words came, however, they hit like a slow-motion punch to the sternum that just completely gases you…like, breathless for a moment kinda heavy. “Well, your mom…ummm, your mom is very….,” he pensively began. In my mind, I’m like, “Get to it already. Say it and make it real so I can react and move forward with whatever is next.” He stammered again, so the unfamiliar lady’s voice flatly filled the room after a the awkward moment, “Listen, things like this can be difficult to hear, but we have to act timely. Your mom isn’t expected to make it through the night. Your family sent this message [hands me the hard copy] and we need to get you home as quickly as possible.” Do you have holiday travel plans already? Are you able to afford a plane ticket?” I sat there motionless for a second. I thought to myself, “What did I just hear?”

Immediately, my mind went to this place I developed where I suspend whatever is happening at the moment, rationalize all of the thing/event’s elements for what they are (in this case, the imminent death of my closest relative), plan the initial courses of action, defer whatever I could reasonably waive away as nonsensical at the moment, and offer an acceptable outward projection of emotion…what we commonly refer to as compartmentalizing. Yeah, I do that too well.

It bears noting at this point that by the time my mom fell terminally ill in 2002, I had already outlived my father, paternal grandparents, maternal grandparents, my adolescent best friend, and a host of others. I learned how to process death and loss differently as the aggregate affect of those deep experiences of loss and trauma. I did that with no therapy, no professional, interpersonal, or familial support. Say what??? A proud descendant of African masculinity and divinity seek professional help for what ails me? Pffff who does that *eye roll*. Definitely not a high-functioning alpha male like me.

Anyway…

Mind you – this is Xmas time, right. Everything is supposed to be merry, but it ain’t. Not in da Sipp this evening. So, we sat there and planned my departure. The quickest way to get me from Meridian to Linden was for me to catch a 0635, I mean 6:35 a.m. flight the next morning. It was also the ONLY way to get me there with any haste. So, I started off on my journey to get a new plane ticket and gathered up whatever money I had in my account and available credit at the time. I was only an E-4 (back then, we were brrrroke) with a big ass car to take care of. I was 29 years old, single, and without any kids. It was just me. That “lone wolf” thing had always made it easier for me to be able to pick up and go like that. It became an instinctive response since having to throw a few things in my backpack and head to Penn Station back in the day after getting kicked out. There I was again, alone.

Where was I? Oh yes.

I remember going to the fleet-returnee (meaning: those of us who were there after having served elsewhere in the fleet before beginning re-training; they kept us pretty segregated from the folks that got there from boot camp…) barracks kinda numb, knowing what was ahead and seeing Yoli and Manny in the lounge.

They both sat with me as I collected the various pieces of myself from what had started out as an extremely pleasant day. Yoli just kinda rubbed my head while I sobbed and spoke softly in Spanish to me. That shit helped, yo…I was broken.

Like I said before, my mom was the only one out there from my family actively checking for me back in the day. She was my rider! That gentle lady from Kinston, NC, picked me up from jail after an extended stay in Essex County jail circa 1999 with a hot coffee, Taylor ham & cheese with ketchup, and a new pack of cigarettes (back in the 90s when I used to smoke Newports). My ace was about to leave me, surely headed for an eternal rest from what pained her so.

Later that evening, Manny picked me up to start my overnight trek to the airport in Jackson, MS. It was best to leave my car on the base while I was on emergency leave in NJ handling my mother’s affairs. I wasn’t trying to come back from leave and have a hefty parking fee or get my shit broken into at the airport.

Manny, a true Southern gentleman and my brother from another, broke open a little Hen-rock to soothe me and we just sat there at the local bus station sippin’ in da Sipp on a balmy December night. Two brothers forged in service but bonded through tragedy.

That’s a cool dude right there, let me tell you. Manny is an absolutely unshakeable friend. He stayed with me until my bus came to carry me to the next leg, then ventured on his way down to Laurel, I suppose.

I arrived at the airport in Jackson very late, probably close to 3 a.m. It was desolate but brightly lit and, therefore, kinda safe. The bathrooms were unbelievably clean at that time of morning, with the fresh airy smell of recently replaced urinal cakes and disinfectant-laden countertops. Sitting in that near-empty airport, under those lights, I learned valuable lessons about loneliness and abandonment, and how they shaped me to that point.

Remember that movie with Tom Hanks living in the airport called Terminal? Yeah, like that, but I was only there for a couple of cranky hours.

I naively thought that those challenges would teach me how to avoid feeling things so deeply and internalizing all of the what-ifs, but instead, in taught me how to make people feel all of the special things I do are easy, that I’m always expected to be strong or okay, and that I didn’t need to be checked up on.

That night, in that lonely public space, my phone never rang. Once again, no one remembered that I needed checking up on, too. It seemed to me that my family just got used to me being out there in the world all by myself and thought I would always find a way to survive and be “ok,” whatever that looks like.

So, I just did what I always do. I found a safe spot to rest my head and napped a bit uncomfortably (when I could ). I slept lightly with one eye open and my trusty blade in my hand under my coat. Sleeping under the lights of the night sky in Newark did something to me, man. Fucked me up in some subtle and profound ways.

Yeah yeah yeah, all that but that ain’t all, so don’t cry now!

There’s still a little more.

It was a shitty flight with terrible service. The ride was bumpy all the way through. I arrived at JFK International Airport amid the mid-morning rush.

JFK is over an hour from my mom’s old place and my childhood home on Carnegie Street in Linden. My dear friend T arranged for a friend to pick me up from the airport and drop me off at the crib.

When I got there, I was like, “Alright, so, when are we headed to the hospital?” The looks I got from my Aunt DD, my mother’s middle sister, and my eldest brother, Marcus, were cold. When he asked me to sit down, I already knew what was coming next. That premonition thing.

See, readers, backup a bit. My flight from Jackson took off on time at 6:35 a.m. CST. My mom passed away within the hour, unfortunately.

By the time I was airborne, she was already up there in the clouds with me on her journey to rejoin the universe. The woman who did everything she could to give us everything we had took her place among the ancestors, but left me without my champion and chief supporter…the only one who came checking for me.

My family came together and made her final arrangements. I sat through what many of you have had to do…picking a casket for a loved one. Making cremation arrangements and viewing arrangements while other family members were already plotting on dividing portions of the estate.

Luckily, I had friends like T to help me hold on to sanity. I cried on her shoulder after eulogizing my mom…I literally collapsed into a sweaty sobbing snotty mess, and she just fanned my head and wiped my tears. That meant the world to me, and still makes me misty.

Hold on, folks, I have a lump in my throat and something in my eyes.

This story sounds so soulful, wouldn’t you agree? Ok, pay close attention to what I’m about to tell you.

Instead of falling into despair, which under the circumstances would’ve been appropriate, I went the opposite direction. I became hyperactive professionally.

After convalescing for 10 days in Linden, I returned to Meridian.

I was given the ultimatum that, since I missed a week of class, I had only one opportunity to remain with my current classmates and graduate on time. My chain of command informed me that if I could pass the current week’s test, I could continue unabated.

Man, I damn near aced that muthafucka!!!! Got a 91 without studying. True story.

Don’t ever put a test between me and greatness. I’ll win that battle every time…unapologetically and talk shit afterwards. Those 9 points always bothered me, and if I had it to do over, well, you know. That sentiment would later lead to me scoring 80 of 80 available points on two consecutive (E-6 & E-7) Navy-wide Advancement Exams, by the way. That’s how committed I am when I set out to do things. Why bother otherwise?

I went through all of that without a proper support system. I didn’t heal properly from the years of trauma, loss, addiction and alcoholism, and abandonment.

The sum of it caused disruptions in the ways I process affection and perceive boundaries. I eventually ended up in an abusive marriage that ended in a bitter divorce while salvaging what was left of my military career.

I went through that by myself.

There are junior Sailors and civilians who saw me come to work on the base in Millington, Tennessee, in fair and foul weather in my modified 2014 Ford F-150 (featuring a custom hydraulic lift seat and equipped with custom hand controls that I had to learn to use at the Memphis VA Medical Center’s Spinal Cord Injury (SCI) Outpatient Clinic) in full uniform and a bright green wheelchair for almost a year and a half. Many of them were also at my Senior Chief Petty Officer pinning and retirement ceremonies.

In sharp contrast, and a remarkable display of how she really felt, my ex-wife wasn’t at either my frocking or retirement ceremonies, yet we were still married then. In full disclosure, she actually moved out of the family home less than a year after I returned home from the Gulf physically broken with a spinal cord injury, but mentally and spiritually fortified enough to survive it all.

Some, like Melvin Haley, Shane Hylton, Larry Holman, Thomas Blankenship (this dude is a whole vibe!!! The things we went through just to get to retirement alive, bro! Known you since boot camp, was the only black guy in your wedding, and you brought your beautiful wife, Kailee, and kids to my retirement ceremony. I love you guys. Squanna!), and Danny Borum remain constants in my life. For that reason, I am never afraid to openly express that I have the deepest respect and love for them the way brothers respect and love each other. Their support enables healing. Thank you all. Solid.

Even while at the keys on this keyboard, I am writing…by myself.

Peace and blessings, one and all. Take care of yourselves, and please, take care of the babies for they are the ones who will save us. Pay yourself. Pay me no mind.