…And no divorce court has the right to deprive me and you.
“Believe half of what you see and nuttin what you’re told.”
For some people it’s maybe a scent that bring them back home.
For me, it’s sounds. The cantor of a voice and the diction of the words. There’s a life that I know that my children have never known. I did that. I wanted it that way.
There’s a life that I lived that my children have never lived. I worked for that. I wanted it that way.
There’s a life that my children did know. I made good choices and was able to give them that. I made good choices because I thought that would protect my children from ever having to know the life that I once knew.
What I never knew and didn’t know. My choices that I had to make to provide this life for my children weren’t going to protect them from a danger worse than any ghetto or projects or gangs or rough neighborhoods. Even these neighborhoods had codes and rules that were known. Their family values stronger yet. Sure there were bad things that happened and there was a constant struggle for survival on many different levels. Mostly not by choice for the children.
And sure there were kids who were lucky if they had one fit parent.
I thought that life would be better in the middle…
Don’t drink, don’t do drugs, stay in school, don’t stay with single guys. The rules were simple the path was treacherous. The prize I thought was worth it.
I thought by making these right choices that nobody would or could take my family away or what I had earned and built…I thought if I just made money the right way and lived a life in a good neighborhood my children could be safe and live a happy life and make a life for themselves that wasn’t filled with the threat of not knowing where their next meal would come from or whether a stray bullet might pierce them or someone they loved in the night. I thought making good choices would protect my children from losing a family member to a senseless crime. I thought that my children wouldn’t have to know that kind of loss.
I thought that by making right choices that the law would be on my side. I thought that if I just taught my children right…
When I finally had a chance to have a family of my own…four beautiful children and a great big home. Everything I thought had all been worth it…
Most the people I knew in neighborhoods from when I was young don’t have an address that you would want to look up…And here I was living in a country club!
Most the people that lived where I had been were for all I knew buried or unrecognizable. And others you wouldn’t want to hold a reunion and take a walk down memory lane…And yet here I was with family and friends and my own businesses with success and respect in the cities and communities!
I thought that I had found a better life…I wasn’t greedy, I wasn’t rich by a millionaires standards, but certainly by any standards of how I grew up…
I worked hard from the time I was young and always made sure that I remained independent so that no one could force me to be what they wanted…
I thought that by giving back to society by following their rules and working hard that nobody could force me to live according to their ideas…as long as I followed the rules
As long as I followed the rules…I thought that I could just say no…
Stand and fight or be killed I thought were days long gone by…
But there was another danger out there…one that runs all the neighborhoods…a kingpin of sorts…or you could say almost like another type of gang…where some wear robes and others suits and fancy clothes.
I thought long and hard to find the differences and to convince myself that it’s just not so…but they drive fancy cars…not much different than drug dealers, and they live off of intimidating and threatening others.
They hurt your children and steal from you…
They force you into indentured servitude…
So upon reflection I have to ask myself was it all worth it…would I have thought it so important to make the right choices to live a different life if I had only known…
Was there really a different life to live…what is it that I have accomplished?
Everything that I worked so hard for…taken, liquidated, or destroyed…my own children turned and made into strangers…
I remember when I was young thinking how sad it was…adults in a drunken stooper or a constant drugged state…how sad I thought that they threw it all away or shot it all into their arms, up their nose, or down their throat!
And here I am now…am I any better. I may not be a drunk or a drug addict but you couldn’t tell by our portfolios. In fact, mine is probably looking worse since drunks, drug addicts, and child abusers still have children who claim to love them.
I’ve been told in the past that I should mentor the youth…but what is there to tell them…
…work hard to make your life better…
and you could fall in love, build a beautiful house in a nice neighborhood, have children follow all the laws and then have all you worked for taken by the court, your children taken, kicked out of your house, and be an indentured servant to a former partner forever by court order or sell drugs and drive a mercedes or a cadillac in the ghetto …YOU TELL ME WHICH ONE LOOKS BETTER
