The Aftermath

                                                     This is what has truly been lost

 The world is still spinning on its axis from the news of Whitney Houston’s shocking death. I didn’t know her personally, so my opinion isn't that precious, but I can attest that her presence is sorely missed.  Each time I scroll through the television channels, I can’t help but to come across a news flash, ticker, or program highlighting Ms. Houston. It’s definitely a heart wrenching moment for many, as she was definitely a true talent beloved by the world. However, loving her voice and her beauty does not give any of us the right or privilege to judge her and the life she lived.

I know a little something about experiencing the loss of a celebrity.  It has been almost 4 years since my father passed away. And I can honestly say that has been the most devastating moment in my life.  I wish I didn’t remember the exact moment as well as I do.  He passed away in the middle of the night before 3 am.  By the time my mom and I made it back to my parents’ home,it was all over the news.  Every channel was broadcasting the news of his death, along with other celebrity’s reactions.  The phone rang off the hook with every publication wanting an official family statement. Throughout my dad’s career, we’d never been harassed by paparazzi, yet on that day there they were camped out across the street from my parents’ home. It was such a surreal experience.  Never before in my life had I become so aware of the phenomenon of celebrity as it pertained to my father. He was always simply Daddy, and it was so awkward to have to publicly grieve, and deal with the petty remarks and opinions of others. I remember watching Larry King debate Ashton Kutcher over whether or not my dad was a good actor and I remember thinking “Who the hell cares?!  He’s now dead! Do you think I care if you thought he could act or not? No, I just care that I lost my father!”  There were rumors that he died of AIDS. It pissed me off because I felt like I had to do crowd control instead of simply grieve the loss of my dad. Then there were the people who would come up to me and tell me things like “You’re not grieving alone. We lost him too.” Depending on the day, I would find comfort in those words, and other days I would want to pull a Roland Martin and smack the ish out of them.  No you didn’t lose him! You didn’t even know him! I, on the other hand, am the only person in this world who lost Bernie Mac . . . her father!   I know that those people meant well, but they had no idea how I really felt. 

I really do get that they were fans and when it comes to celebrities who we invite into our homes through their music, jokes, movies,shows, etc. we begin to feel like we know them. They become to a certain extent, an extension of our families. We talk about them during family get togethers, over the dinner table, at social functions. And we do it as if we’re talking about another family member.So when they show us just how human they are—especially by doing something as human as dying—we’re left feeling the emptiness their death has left us.  However, we need to remember that the person was more than a celebrity. They are, in my father’s wise words, ordinary people with extraordinary jobs.  What you miss is the fact that you’ll never hear them tell a new joke, or sing a new song, or sing your favorite song again.  You miss that there will never be a new movie with your favorite actor.  You don’t miss the person.  How could you? You didn’t even know them.  Which is why you have no business making any kind of judgment about the way they lived their life. 

That is why I feel so for all of Whitney’s loved ones who have been left to tend to their gaping wounds so openly—particularly her daughter, Bobbi Kristina.  I was 30 years old when I lost my dad and it utterly devastated me.  But at least I had grown into adulthood and was able to share in some major milestones with him. This young lady is only 18 and has to deal with the loss of her mom.  On the day she gets married, her mother will not be there.She will not be able to go to her mom for advice during her pregnancy or watch her mother joyfully play with her grandchildren.  When she graduates from college, gets her first job, has a bad day, she can no longer call upon her mom to help her through.  Essentially, each new experience in her life will be a constant and painful reminder of what she is missing.  She’ll of course begin to heal a bit,but the pain will never ever go away. And she has to endure this pain publicly.  Now people want to criticize Whitney for her drug addiction,her friends, Bobby Brown, and anyone else they can just to be able to blame someone.  Blame is a monstrous beast that only increases an already existing problem. It never takes into account that at any given moment, most of us in this world are really doing the very best that we can.  Ms. Houston is no exception. 

I get it though. That’s part of the deal when you become a celebrity. Opening yourself to the public makes them privy to details of your life, which wouldn’t be open for discussion if you were the average citizen.  And since you will make more money than most will ever see in their lives, you’ll get very little sympathy when you complain about your lack of privacy or empathy from the world.  Fame is a most titillating yet harsh suitor.  It is proof that every single thing is both a blessing and a curse.  People love you as long as you do what they want.  However, they’ll rip you to shreds when you have the audacity to show your human-ness.  I said this the other day, and I'll say it again. I really wish we understood that death is not a punishment that is solely dispensed to those who are imperfect or act in what we consider the more heinous of ways.  We are no better than a person simply because they reached the end of their earthly journey before we did.  One dying at what we deem an early age is not indicative of them being a terrible person.  It is simply a symptom of being human.  Whitney Houston is more than her drug addictions. She is more than a golden voice. She is more than a troubled singer. She is a mother, daughter, girlfriend, cousin, best friend, lover, and human being who just completed her human journey. She has left behind a host of fans, but more importantly, loved ones who are forever scarred by the painful loss of her life. Let’s try to remember that when we remember her.

Can I Even Say This?!

                           Better watch it. Someone might call for him to lose his job!

So I just happened to be passing time playing one of my favorite games on my iPad, imDB trivia.  So a question arose which I did not know the answer to and I went to ImDB to check (yes I cheated, don’t judge me. I’m trying to get a perfect score).  As I’m typing in the movie title, I notice a headline, which reads, “GLAAD wants CNN to fire Roland S. Martin over David Beckham tweets”.  Apparently Roland Martin made several tweets following the David Beckham commercial.  If you’re unfamiliar with what Roland said, here it is:

“If a dude at your Super Bowl party is hyped about David Beckham’s H&M underwear ad, smack the ish out of him! #superbowl,” Then he followed with this one:“I bet soccer fan @piersmorgan will be in line at H&M in the morning to get his hands on David Bechman’s  [sic] underwear line! LOL #superbowl.“

So according to the article (which is featured at EW.com), people immediately began accusing him of homophobia.  Roland has responded with several statements, which among them is this one:  “Fam, let me address the issue that some in the LGBT community have raised regarding some of my Super Bowl tweets yesterday. I made several cracks about soccer as I do all the time. I was not referring to sexuality directly or indirectly regarding the David Beckham ad, and I’m sorry folks took it otherwise. It was meant to be a deliberately over the top and sarcastic crack about soccer; I do not advocate violence of any kind against anyone gay, or not. As anyone who follows me on Twitter knows, anytime soccer comes up during football season it’s another chance for me to take a playful shot at soccer, nothing more.”

Now, I don’t really care whether you like Roland Martin or not.  This isn’t even about that. Actually, you don’t even have to like or agree with what he said as this isn’t even about that.  What I’m really perplexed with is why this requires GLAAD to petition to have this man fired.  Have we seriously become so sensitive that we must cry and demand extreme measures all because someone said something we don’t like?  First of all, I didn’t take anything he said as being homophobic.  I took it as a joke.  And I’ll be the first to admit that I’ve made off hand jokes saying someone should be punched or something similar for doing something.  Not that I’m in any way serious—though should I really have to say that?  Next thing you know, the family of the next person who commits suicide will sue the public for the overused #killyoself references. Now the man has clarified that he didn’t mean it as a homophobic remark.  So why does he have to lose his job for a bad joke? Now I’m sure there’s somebody out there who will want to liken this to the infamous Don Imus incident where he referred to the young ladies on the Rutgers University basketball team as  “nappy headed hos”.  And I’ll just go ahead and admit this now that I didn’t think that called for Imus to lose his job (again, don’t’ judge me). I mean this is beyond political correctness.  Political correctness has run amuck and we are just tossing good sense into the trash.

OK, I get it.  Words have power.  Yes they do.  Words have power, how ‘bout you?  Seriously, I do believe that words have power.  But, I believe they only have the power that YOU give to them.  If you feel degraded by something someone says to you, then YOU are the one who degraded yourself.  A person can say whatever they want to you, but it only amounts to the value you assign to it.  You can think I’m dumb all day (you’re free to hold that opinion). However, unless I agree with you, I am not dumb.  It doesn’t matter what you think or what you meant when you stated such.  If I don’t believe you, I won’t give any credence to what you say, and as such I won’t see the evidence of such in my life.  Now I will admit, it can hurt a lot when someone says something degrading to you.  I won’t even try to dispute this.  But, simultaneously, why are we creating situations where there is none?  A simple statement, regardless of the intent of the speaker, can be issued so many different meanings and someone somewhere can claim they were offended by it.

Maybe it’s because my father raised me. And if you’re familiar at all with him you know good and well that political correctness was not his forte.  Maybe it’s because I’m too exhausted to care.  Maybe it’s because I’m actually right and this foolishness must end.  I do believe we are overly sensitive.  Stop giving meaning to things or people you don’t want in your life.  Stop crying foul every time a person says or does something you don’t like or disagree with.  If we keep this up, no one anywhere will ever work or speak.  There’s this phrase I like a lot.  It goes like this: “I disagree.” Try saying that the next time someone says something you disagree with.  Or there’s this other tactic I like too called ignoring.  It works wonders.   Let’s start giving em a try.

I'm Too Busy Going to Really Get Anywhere!

"Doing nothing is better than being busy doing nothing."

~Lao Tzu

I’m sure that on any given day, if I stopped and asked you about your schedule, you’d probably tell me about how busy you are.  I know I could.  I feel like my whole life is now on my iPhone and I heavily rely on it to get me through my day.  But I must admit that I have been beyond exhausted for the past three weeks.  I’m so tired I go to bed tired and wake up tired.  And the time!  Oh my, the time! Where does it go?  I feel like there are not enough hours in the day to get things done.  I know I have the same 24 hours as everyone else, but I swear mine are on the accelerated program.  I have all of these plans and yet somehow I don’t get to most of them. And it’s not like I’m just sitting at home doing nothing.  I’m on the go . . . always.  I’m busy.  At any given moment, I am on the go, either for my daughter or for myself.  Between her ballet, swim, Spanish, my exercise, coaching classes, and let’s not forget our quality time, I am booked every hour of my day.   I tip my hats to the people with more than multiple children.  How in the hell do you people do this more than once?!

Yet with all of my going-ness (yes I just made up a new word) and busy-ness, I never feel accomplished.  I get it.  I do a lot in the day.  But at the end of the day I still have to ask myself, what have I really done? I journal every day and the other day I decided to list some of my short-term goals.  One such goal is to manage my time more effectively.  While I was quite proud of myself for coming up with this insight, as my daughter would say, “all by myself” . . . Excuse me, while I get that spot on my back I missed).  . . OK, I’m back.  As I was saying, while I was indeed proud, it did give me a chance to pause for the cause.  I don’t think I’m alone. And I don’t say this because I feel freakishly abnormal and I just don’t want to be the only one.  I say this because in this society we don’t feel worthy unless we’re just busy.  Yet, this busy-ness only seems to perpetuate the feeling of not being good enough.  So we do more so that we can be/have more, and yet we end up feeling even less than.  There’s something wrong with this cycle here.  Think about it, we literally run the invisible human hamster wheel of life.  We are so busy striving, working, doing, and achieving, to get more, more, more.  We’re the Energizer bunny rabbits—we just keep going and going, yet I have to ask, are we really getting anywhere?

Somehow most of us have bought into this notion that we’re no good if we’re not DOING something.  We forget that we are human beings, not human doings.  And we deem lazy anyone who isn’t going or doing.  For many of us, it’s hard for us to just sit down and relax. I know I have a hard time just sitting and quieting my mind.  When I had my surgery a few weeks ago, I felt completely useless because I couldn’t DO things for myself as I normally do.  And maybe I’m overcompensating for the time I was benched due to my surgery because I feel like I haven’t taken a moment to just sit my arse down since my doctor gave me the all clear.  And the result is that I’m tired. I’m beyond tired.  And I think I’m paying for it right now.   I’m now coming down with something (cold or flu I’m not sure which), which I know is going to require me to saddown (which means I should have already been sitting down).

I get it. I really do.  We all want to matter.  We want to know that we’re doing something of value.  We want things.  Nice things.  We want to provide and sitting on the couch or lying down doesn’t make you feel like you’re close to any of that.  But if we’re honest, are we really getting anywhere in life?  We have bigger homes that we’ve filled with lots of stuff, which requires us to work harder and longer hours, yet we don’t have a lot of things that are truly valuable.  We have more technology that has allowed us to do so many things, yet we’re not connecting with one another.  In any given day, if you say you’ve talked to a friend or family member, did you really talk with them? Or did you text them, or Facebook them?  I for one think one of the greatest tragedies of life is that we’ve bought into this notion that we need all of this stuff in order to be happy, and that there is no other way to get this stuff without doing and becoming busy.  Then we get to the end of our lives only to realize that none of those things really made us happy and they really don’t mean as much as we once thought. 

I recently visited a friend and she was telling me about all the things that have been going on in her life for the past few months.  I can’t even remember everything she said but I know I was exhausted just listening to her tell me about all of it.  But towards the middle of it, she actually stopped and said, “I mean we’re always going.  But it’s not like I’m doing a lot. It just feels like it.” I think that’s how we’ve become accustomed to living.  We do a lot of driving, but we’re not really taking the time to enjoy the view (no, not Babs and the girls).  It’s a struggle to take that quiet time and recharge, but I know it’s necessary for my well being.  And when all is said and done, I want to know that for all the going I have done, I will be able to say that I have enjoyed the scenery. 

What say you?  Are you constantly on the go and not feeling like you’re getting anywhere? And where are you going? Do you even know the way to San Jose? (I love Dionne Warwick by the way!)