Long Post, Long Week

*COPYRIGHT PROTECTED@This Nest

An angry child – so frustrated by the constant discomfort that he is in. He is supposed to be a happy child, that’s his true spirit – but that precious spirit is being suffocated by pain. He has relapsed again as well. It has been a trying week – full of me having to remember that, as tired as I am from dealing with this, D’Lo is more weary than I could imagine. Please be with my Baby Boy, Lord. Please heal him. Please.

I have been back and forth with my oldest son’s counselor – trying to make sure he is on track to graduate in June. He is trying to dig himself out of the hole that undiagnosed ADHD helped him get into. It was easy to overlook his disability when we were at the height of trying to cope with the more serious deficits of some of the other precious lives we were entrusted with. Now I live with regret – not that we took care of so many others, but that I overlooked the problems my own son was having.

I have had two exams this week – one in Anatomy and Physiology lecture, and then also an A&P lab practical. The bones – I knew there were many, I just didn’t know that every single hole, divet, line, and crease in a bone has a really long name. I have been studying so hard. Studying in groups, studying alone, studying early and then late into the evening once our kids go down to sleep and This Nest hears silence for the first time in a day. The more I prepared for my exams, the more I felt the rest of my life falling apart. The house is a mess, Dee Dee missed one of her volleyball practices this week, and I haven’t even been able to prepare for my husband’s birthday (which is today).

Then, on top of all of this, well…most of you already know. Some arse-holes decided to just snatch one of our copyrighted family photos off of the internet and attach it to some decade and a half old article written by some ignorant white woman and responded to, in my humble opinion, by more ignorance. This article is so old that it was once featured on the Cybil Shepherd Show…do any of you even remember that show? The response isn’t featured on the show – just the first part, which is a letter from someone who calls herself “Disgusted White Woman.” All these years later the article has resurfaced only, this time around, guess who is featured right above it? That’s right – yours truly. Me, my husband, and my big white pregnant belly. Awesome. Really really awesome.

I respectfully and repeatedly asked the admins of these two particular pages to detach our beloved family photo from this garbage…I was ignored. One of them, who by the way has a very strict notice on his own page about copyright infringement of his own photos and page content, actually put his own name on our photo! Wow. But that’s OK, Facebook did the right thing and removed the photo that we own from the pages of those that stole it. Of course, this is after it has been circulated all over the country and beyond, and after even one of my son’s teachers saw it and asked him about it –  something we are certainly owed an apology for but, as is easily gleaned from one of the responses to my request for its removal from the article, something we will probably never get.

I was going to copy and paste the response and my response it it but, of course, it has been removed by the poster or admin (oh, now you want to remove something??). Ugly can’t handle truth, and self-righteous can’t stand to be wrong – so I am not surprised. She began by stating that “we” (all black people??) will not apologize for any action, right OR wrong that spreads the words of freedom and equality. In the middle somewhere stated that “we” (all white people??) could never know what it’s like to worry about some NAZI something or other killing our sons on the way home from the store. She added in that no comparison should be made between this and the past and present struggles of her people (I just want my photo taken down, Lady, what are you talking about??). She ended by stating that she doesn’t care what a black man lies down with, a REAL black man will work toward a future with one of his own. Oh, and then it all ended with a sudden and rude [Case Closed].

To which I responded:

“So you are saying that a black man who spends his life (half now, we are 42 and will celebrate our 21st anniversary this year) with one woman and is blessed by God with five children who he provides for, is involved with, coaches, and loves more than himself – A black man who has also raised his seven siblings, made sacrifices for them, tried to direct them on a right path, and been a good example for them – A black man who busts his butt for twelve to fifteen hours per day to put food on the table, for up to twelve kids at a time – he is not a REAL black man because the woman who partnered him in all of this is not “his own?” You can believe it or not – I don’t really care – but I also want a world of freedom and equality for all, just as you do. I do know what it’s like to worry about who my son will encounter on the way home from the store, all three of my sons – as well as the other five black men who did not come from my womb but whom I helped raise and whom I love with all my heart. My white skin does not prevent me from mourning the murder of Trayvonn Martin or any of the other countless millions who have had far more than their freedoms stolen since the dawn of time. These are some of the many reasons that I do not want our faces attached to this article. Not to mention the most obvious fact – that the original letter is clearly from a woman who disrespects and loathes black women, whereas I have and still am raising and love several black women very much.  I have the right to be upset about this and that is, in no way, comparing my current frustration to the past and present struggles of your, and my family’s, people. That’s right, my family. We are our own. Your disagreement of that doesn’t change anything. You are certainly entitled to your own opinion, but it is just that – your opinion. Not my fact. [NOW the case it closed].

OK, so this is maybe the longest posts I’ve ever written – but it is about one of the longest weeks I’ve had since we had ten kids stuffed into a small three bedroom home. Many have prayed for us this week – and you are appreciated more than you could ever know. Now I sit here at the community college – feeling like I aced both exams, about to go get the boys from class and head out on a mission to find Daddy a birthday present. D’Lo is doing pretty well this morning, not too much fussing and even a few smiles. God is good – and He is ALWAYS at the wheel. Be blessed…I know we are.