You’re not alone

I’ve started to write this – or something similar – several times and couldn’t. My mother passed away at the beginning of June and for the first time in my life I felt what true depression feels like.

Thankfully, I have an incredible group of family members and friends behind me that have helped to not allow what felt like my whole world crumbling, the grief to completely envelop me. I also am very blessed with having the best woman on the planet to not just stand by my side but be there to pick me up and even force me to continue on when I don’t feel like I can.

Still, there are days where I find myself just staring at my computer screen – or into space – thinking about my mom and thinking about the feeling of it being unfair and the grief starts to surround me again.

Last week, I had a particularly tough day. The combination of stress with trying to get all of my work done, the stress of the medical facility my dad is at trying to discharge him early, the stress of trying to buy a house, the continued struggle with my oxygen – from my own fight with COVID – at times and the grief all weighed on me like a huge elephant. I eventually broke on my way to a school board meeting listening to a particular song.

Ever since I was young music has been an escape for me and – to my mom’s annoyance – it was always hip-hop that helped me through various emotions. I call it “mood music.” When I was on this ride Joyner Lucas’ song “The Devil’s Work” came on. It’s a song I had already heard and is a song where Lucas questions how God – or whatever being you believe – could possibly take away the good people in the world and leave so much evil.

I’m not a very religious person, and never really have been, but that’s something I’ve questioned more than once and especially so over the last month. At the very end of the song he recites his final lines, which hit me in the head as if you had socked me with a baseball bat.

“I don’t know what I’m thinking, I’m just frustrated. I don’t mean to question you, I’m just confused. I don’t know what else to do, I’ve been patient and it sucks waiting. (You) took my mans from me, that forever hurts. But puttin’ blame on you, that’d never work. I know this ain’t your fault, it’s the devil’s work.”

He might as well have ripped those words out of my own brain, replacing “my mans” with “my mom,” of course. Just the realization – even if it’s an obvious one – of me not being the only one that feels like this felt like a weight had lifted off me. Then, I did something that is completely out of my character.

I read on Instagram about an Enterprise High School senior whose mother had recently passed and I felt as if I had to reach out to her. So, I did. I simply told her that she wasn’t alone in the way she’s feeling and that if nothing else she had another ear she could lean on.

It may not have meant that much to her and it may have been just one of dozens of similar messages she received but it was something I felt compelled to do. So, that’s also why I’m writing this now. We aren’t alone in feeling like this. Even if you don’t have the family support system that I have or a group of friends you can lean on, there is always someone somewhere feeling what you’re feeling and going through what you’re going through. Reach out, don’t let the grief overcome you, and who knows, maybe even just a song can bring you that sense of relief.