Tuesday, February 21, 2017

Back in November my mother published a book called, "The Strawberry Room", which was a memoir of sorts which discussed her divorce from my father as well as the spiritual awakening she experienced afterwards. She had been writing it on and off for for 17 years, and she finally finished in 2016. Shortly after it was published, she told my father about it, and needless to say, he was less than pleased. He didn't like that my mother felt the need to go public about a subject he considered to be very private, and he also was worried how their mutual friends would look at him now as a result of these series of revelations.

I must admit that when I read my mother's book, it forced me to revisit moments and situations that I either a) never thought about from a women's perspective or b) did a bang-up job of blocking out completely. Reading the book made me uncomfortable, it made me sad, it made me angry and that was from the vantage point of a child having a front row seat to the demise of his parents' relationship. I can only imagine how my dad must feel knowing that his version of these events was extremely different than what was published. I love both my parents, but I have no problems admitting I love my dad just a bit more, and I felt for him once he realized this book had been written.

But I also have to admit my mother's book and my father's subsequent bad reaction had me extremely gun shy about doing any additional blogging on this here site. Since 2006 I have discussed some deeply personal details about my life, my family, my friends and others and I really don't know how it affected those close to me. I've shown my parents selected entries, my brother has read it, and my close friends have definitely seen it, but I've never taken the time to ask them how they truly feel about some of the more personal things I've written about. So I just stopped writing for a little over four months, and I fully expected to shut this blog shit down completely.

But tonight I watched an episode of the hit show "This Is Us"--a show which makes me cry every time I watch it I might add--and I decided that I was ready to resume my writings. The episode involved a son fulfilling the wishes of his dying father, and they spent a strong 48 hours together before the father died. Now my thoughts aren't quite as morbid as that episode, but I did think about my sons (who are 19 and 5 respectively) reading this blog after I'm gone, and I'd want this blog to fill in all the details that our conversations and experiences could not. Yes this blog only represents certain periods of my life, but I still think they could glean plenty of useful information from it.

Again, I don't plan on exiting this Earth any time soon, but my plan isn't up to me, it is up to the "Hugh Hefner on High". In the interim, I promise to keep writing as I've been doing on and off for 11 years. That's ok right?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Jrb78l5NYM

4 comments:

TiffanyInHouston said...

I don't comment much..but I'm still here and I am still reading. Glad you didn't shut the blog down. :)

rashad said...

Thank you Tiffany, I appreciate that very much.

maxwellsmusze said...

i'm still here too in case you were wondering about the other set of footprints...

Jazzbrew said...

More than OK. I'm just now catching up but glad to see your words again. They were missed.

Side note - This is Us has me crying damn near every episode... especially the one with William passing. If you are a male with a son - no way that one didn't hit you square in the solar plexus.