My Talk With Death...

Hey guys....

I just got off the phone with my Mother earlier this morning...

She told me that, "I haven't been 100% honest about what the doctor told me when I visited him last week...I need you to come by and do more things that I physically can't do right now..."

She never went into details about that cryptic statement.

More to the point, I never asked.

Why, Hassan?

Please take a look at this picture.

I took this picture on April 3rd, 2013.

Looks like a normal "selfie", right?

I was broke and couldn't find my bus card that morning.

My Mother called me at roughly 6am and told me she was having a "small" heart attack.

WTF is a "small" heart attack?

Growing up, my mother was physically indomitable to me.

Only 5'2", she scared me in ways it would take hours and pages to describe.

She was invincible.

On April 3rd 2013, I entered her hospital room and looked at her.

She looked....MORTAL.

Weak.

It was at that point that I finally realized, at age 39, that I could wake up and she would no longer be here.


I was mad at Death.

From 1998-2000, I lost 11 friends and associates to HIV/AIDS related complications.

It seemed like everybody I attached myself to DIED.

When I was 19, I lost the man I called my true "brother", Aaron, to suicide.

I WAS PISSED AF AT DEATH.

On April 3rd, perhaps because of my maturity at age 39, I made peace with the concept of mortality.

ALL OF US WILL DIE.

So when my Mother made that cryptic comment, I didn't press her on it.

I will push to keep her alive as long as possible.

I no longer fear Death, however.

Death is neither Good , nor Evil.

IT JUST IS.

Now look at the picture above, again.

Can you see the pain?

Can you see.....?

It was literally when I WALKED three miles from the hospital back to my apartment.

After walking three miles to get there.