Today's thought...Flint Michigan and it's water crisis.

Okay, this is going to come off as incredibly passionate. And I need you to understand now, that I am from Flint. Almost my entire family is in Flint (With the exception of a few). I'm no longer in Flint, however, they still are. It's scary. It's a scary situation. So, my mom sent me an article from Yahoo. Someone interviewed a group of people who live in Flint and it was a basic fight or flight question.

I was all about this article, until one person brought the one thing into it that really bothers me. This particular person said, and I quote: “I honestly feel like they don’t want us [the black community] here,” and goes on to say “First they took our schools, then they started taking our grocery stores, closed them down. Now it’s the water? I feel like they’re trying to kill us or they don’t want us in Flint any longer.” Really? Your schools? My daddy, was one of fourteen white kids in his school in Flint. That's right. One of fourteen. He was bullied, picked on, relentlessly. He was put into choke holds, he was left unconscious in stairwells, he was a minority. In the early nineteen seventies.

Please understand, and ask anyone and everyone that knows me, I am the LEAST racist person on this planet. I have black friends, I have Asian friends, hell I have a friend who grew up around Muslims her entire life! I will admit though, I am prejudice. I am prejudice against ignorance. I am prejudice against prejudism. Oh yeah. It is completely possible. Here's my reason. The people who ALWAYS bring race into something, are the ones that are racist. Think about it. Malcolm X. Al Sharpton. TD Jakes. All brilliant. All very powerful. All spouting nothing but hate. Spearheading campaigns of prejudice and hate. And because they're powerful, people follow them. And it's sad. It's sad that people all over this incredible country, blindly follow people that are so influential, simply because that's what the crowd is doing.

Don't for one second take me wrong on any of this. My great great grandfather on my mom's side is a black Spaniard, and my great great grandmother on my dad's side is Arcadian, from Canada. An undocumented slave. I could care less what the color of your skin is. One of the most (And I mean absolutely the MOST) influential people in my life, is an incredible woman of God, who happens to have a much darker skin tone than myself. And let me tell you, if you've ever read my blog, you know, I have NEVER seen the tone of her skin. She has NEVER seen mine. The moment we first met, the NANOSECOND our eyes met, do you know what we saw?

A sister in God. She looked at me and I felt like my entire soul was laid open for her to see, and there was nothing but Godly love there. No matter what I'd done before, the people I'd hurt, the sins I'd committed, there was pure and utter love. She's told me several times before, it was the same to her, when I looked at her she felt like her entire soul was laid out for me to see. But do you know what I saw? An angel in human form. I didn't see a single sin. I didn't see a single person she felt she'd hurt. I didn't see a single bad thing she did. I saw an angel. A woman that loved God so much, that when she smiled at me, it showed so strongly in her eyes, that I was instantly drawn to her.

I couldn't care less that her skin was dark and mine was olive. I couldn't care less that her hair was more textured than mine. I couldn't care less that we were raised differently, or that she was older than I was. I cared greatly that when I looked at her there was love. I cared greatly that there was instant love there, and she didn't know me from Adam. I cared greatly that when she smiled at me, it was genuine. I cared greatly that when she looked at me, she didn't see that my skin was olive, that my hair was less textured or that I was raised differently. I cared incredibly, that she saw me.

People, the racial division has got to stop! To believe in your heart that an entire city, is out to get you as a race, when your race makes up MORE THAN HALF of your home town, then you are living in a world that I don't want any part of. We have GOT to stop listening to those around us that prompt that racial division! Just like the whole Oscars fiasco going on now. Black actors are claiming that it's less than diverse. Okay. So tell me, and I'm not saying this to ruffle feathers but I want you to honestly look at it and tell me; who was the first white person, Asian, Mexican, Native American, Middle Eastern, to get an award at the BET Awards show? Or the NAACP awards? Why is it okay for a person to celebrate who they are, but when another person does, it's wrong? The double standard is incredibly prevalent and unfortunately, until someone stands up and says something and makes a difference, it's going to continue to be that way.

I hear a lot of times, WWJD. What would Jesus do? What would he do? What would Martin Luther King Jr. do? You don't think he's rolling over in his grave right now, knowing that everything that he fought for, which was equality, has been in vain because of all of those out there that took that to mean that equality meant everyone owed them something? When did equality become entitlement? When did life become a matter of getting out of it what you could, instead of contributing to this life everything that you had? When did we lose sight of what really mattered in life, and started to focus on what we could get out of everyone? What ever happened to hard work?

The article referenced is here: http://news.yahoo.com/taking-a-stand-in-flint--or-fleeing--residents-weigh-the-future-195822404.html?nf=1

Today's Thought...Saying Good-Bye

The roller coaster continued after my last entry. I had no idea at the time, that it hadn't even begun. My mother in law was approved for the trial chemotherapy, and the started administering the meds immediately after. For a few weeks, we watched, prayed, hoped. I would see her and she would tell me every time, "I want you to know, that no matter what happens, it's going to be alright."

It was beginning to be apparent that the chemo wasn't helping at all. She wasn't getting better. If anything, she was getting worse. They took her in for a few more tests, running more MRI's, doing more scans. The tumor had decreased in size by sixty-six percent. But she wasn't getting any better. No one could seem to understand why, her Oncologist included. They found a shadowy place in behind the tumor. It turned up in the MRI. They wanted to wait two weeks and see what came of it.

Two weeks later, they run another scan. This was a Friday. Monday they call my father-in-law in and tell him that the shadowy place, is another brain tumor. One that is growing just as rapidly as the other, but not Lymphoma. So the original chemo trial she was on, did what it was supposed to do and essentially decreased the tumor almost completely, however, different types of cancer, different needs for treatment. The Oncologist told dad that he wanted to put her on a different type of chemotherapy, not wanting to do straight out radiation, because she was already in rough shape and her body wouldn't be able to handle it.

Tuesday they gave her a dose of the chemo. Thursday night she slipped into a coma and Friday night she was gone. Not even four months, from diagnosis til we lost her. Barely a moment to process a single thing that was happening, much less deal with it. It's still overwhelming now, and we lost her on All Hallows Eve. There was just no time. Every time we hurdled another obstacle, the next one was threatening to slow us down.

It sucks. It sucks badly. My husband is feeling the loss. My daughter. Myself. We're dealing as best as we know how, but it gets hard sometimes. And extremely frustrating. But such is life. Anyway, this is why I've been so quiet lately. Just trying to deal with things, and as it goes, small things get pushed to the wayside. But, I'll try to do better. Until later...