!Empower!

Hello Hello all, (this entry's lengthy, you can read it in parts if you'd like but what just happened i feel has affected the course of my life now, and i'd be honored if you would let me share with you)

It's been awhile since my last entry, but i think it was for a purpose. Much has happened, and it took me all this time and a truly cathartic and powerful moment shared with pop a couple minutes ago to once again make more realizations, and strengthen all i believe.

In the week i've been back, i've struggled to come to terms with ending of all things beautiful back with my Irvine Fam, and the implications of coming home, i.e- not being able to work and having 16$ to my name, not having the ability to get back out and reconnect as freely as i wanted with friends back home, an isolation to myself, and the differences of thinking and seeming infinite generational gap with my parents. But in my heart, still a no brainer to help pop and support the fam.

So today, basically was a boiling point for me in the time I'd been home. I said before that in my eyes i thought i had sacrificed everything I had my heart set on and threw away all my opportunities down south in order to handle this fam situation. I couldn't have been more selfish in that thinking i now know. But anyhow, my routine for the past week has been as follows: Wake up, go downstairs, check on dad, send out my resume to numerous places to no avail, and spend the day waiting for pop's bell to ring and go see what he needs, whether it be moving his pillow, getting him water, helping him sit up, getting his medications, playing his oldies but goodies music, and just making him feel comfortable in anyway possible, hosting guests that came over, and dreaming about the possibilities in life that I am missing out on being cooped in at home all day with no other function than to serve any of dad's needs.

I told myself in being home that I was gonna do anything necessary to help out dad, but in the process of this past week i started getting jaded and becoming despondent. I started thinking about how i still hadn't been recognized by my parents for making this move back home, i started counting the times i did something for dad, and it wasn't good enough for him and that he would get on my case, and i started thinking about how gracious pop was to all our guests and how he would share all this wisdom with everyone, yet it wouldn't apply in his treatment to me. i was pissed that still they hadn't asked me anything about how i felt about the move, my trip to NZ, and just anything about me in general. I felt as though I had been relegated to a well of lost hope and potential, with my only function, to be dad's servant, where no efforts would please him, and i honestly just felt empty, bitter, and alone. I also felt the frustration of having nothing stable in my life, no job, no social life, no money, no understanding between myself and my parents about the support i needed to get my life back on track at home, and most importantly no web of support in Irvine that has shaped and molded me over the past 4 years to really show me who i am.

Yet, i felt so conflicted between just suckin it up and taking the shots cause i knew that no day anymore is guaranteed to him, and the want to just tell my dad that even though he is suffering and is battling that it didn't give him the right to disregard me and in a way exploit me for his use without giving me some recognition.

So just like a balloon constantly filling up with air, yet with no place to vent, today i was ready to pop on my dad, and tell him that he was playing up being a victim, and that what was the use of him spreading the good news of the Lord, if he couldn't even exemplify it to me in his actions. I went to play some basketball tonight with my brother, cousins, and some friends, while we had guests at the house. On the way home i stopped by with errol and pep to get some drinks and then we stopped at their house and errol was gonna give me "Sicko" to watch. In that time my bro was calling me as everyone was at home and started praying, but i had my phone in my car. As i pulled up to the house i saw my cousins and my Tito Tony who had just flew in from the P.I to see pop, and the first thing they told me was, "your dad's mad you missed praying" and i knew now that i would draw dad's wrath. As i walked in, my bro, sis, and mom shot me the "cant believe you had the nerve to miss this, what kind of son are you" looks and my relatives were silent as dad just shot me a look ultimate disgust. He then made some stinging comments to me, then in the midst of me saying sorry, he cut me off and told me he wanted to here nothing more from me.

I headed upstairs, but my bro texted me to help out instead of leaving, so i helped my aunt take her dishes out to their van, and I remember my Tito Jack telling me, "don't worry everyone is under stress and that your dad isn''t mad, i bet you he's proud of you". It stung me because I immediately thought, why is that my uncle can give me that support yet, dad won't even give me a single word to uplift me, or give me that pleasure of feeling like a son who means something to him anymore.

At this point I felt that I was at the lowest point since i had been at home and I was thinking about what kind of high i was during Road Trip Nation and how all the possibilities had me feeling invincible, and here i was now feeling hopeless.

As i went back in and to my room, I called Ma and just started biotchin to her, and just complaining and telling her that I wasn't losing any faith at all in God, but i was seriously doubting my family, and in my head i just wanted God to show me something/anything, some sort of answer to keep me going. At that point i was looking at my facebook inbox, and I had seen that Chris(homey that makes beats) had sent me these beats that we were gonna work on, and those things, I wanted so badly cause it was my outlet, but didn't pay it too much mind cause i was busy sniveling and complaining. Then my bro came in and talked to me about just sacrificing and just taking what dad was dishin out cause we all felt it, and that frustration was wearing on all of us. He then told me to just go and talk to him downstairs, and that my dad just needed casual conversation, I told him that I didn't wanna talk to dad knowing he'd just rip on me and take shots at me. But reluctantly I went down.........That's when it happened.

As a young kid growing up, I had always seen my pop as a hard man, one who had a quick temper, never shared his emotions with his family, and his providing for us was his way to express i love you. I saw him as a prideful man who didn't really wanna look at things from outside his own perspective, and at any moment could be particularly harsh and judgmental. I had a sense of resentment in many of the things he did and told myself i would be different.

As i headed downstairs, I knew I was headed to face his wrath. He then told me and my brother to sit down and had me sit right next to him, for sure he wanted me close so he could really really put me in my place.

Then he said, "I just wanna tell you how much I Love you guys more than anything, and there isn't anything i wouldn't do for you, I would die for you"

SKIZZZZAAAAMMM BIZZZZAAAAAAMMM! Start the waterworks folks! It just knocked me back, it was the farthest thing i ever imagined he would say, to say the least. As he spoke i could see his eyes welling up and hear the lumps in his throat crackling his voice

Then he started talking about the whole ordeal and all these trials, and even though he doesn't know how long he has he told us, "I see no death, I only see faith, hope, and strength, I see the Lord"

At this point I kid you not, and say this with all sincerity, like at no other point in my life, I felt God flowing through me, and just this utter and complete sense of thankfulness and gratefulness.
Dad would go on to tell us that he feared no death, and that if God wanted to take him away that he would be in Heaven looking down on us still taking care of our every need. He told us again how much he loved us and how we were the best things to happen in his life. He spoke of specific moments we shared and bonded through in the past(with uncanny detail and accuracy). He talked about watching all my CYO basketball games and cheering me on, and he told me about how I was right that life is not about materiality, and that it's about accountability in your life.
Also, he talked providing the things we "needed" in life, not just the things we "wanted" And for that I am so thankful, that dad taught me the value of things other than luxury and comfort.

Then dad spoke about doing work in your life, that you are passionate about, work that you will sacrifice and have discipline for. At that instant I thought about the beats I had just seen from Chris seconds before I headed downstairs, and I thought about how as the days go on, I long more and more to share my voice and my experiences, and I have less insecurity about making music, and now my aim and focus is beginning to take shape symmetrically with the events in my life and the lessons learned.

I saw and was filled firsthand with God, and felt God speak to me directly, and answer my prayer of minutes ago when I felt i was at one of my lowest points in a long long time. God answered it with hands down the most open, most candid, most emotional, most beautiful conversation I have ever been a part of with DAD.

He also told us among many other things:
His famous line that I can remember for as long as I've lived "Always be a thinking man"
I just want you to carry on the morals and values mom and i have tried to instill in you
family is about sacrifice
do things for people out of the love for them, do it cheerfully.
smile at people everyday -it doesn't cost any money
no need to be judgmental, just pray and ask for the best for someone instead of becoming angry.

The last thing that struck me that dad said, "You know, when I die, I want to be cremated, I want to be able to be with you guys and know that I'll be right beside you if you ever need me." I've always thought that idea of cremation as something weird, but for the first time I realized why people do it. That's when I understood the true undying passion my dad has for us in that he'd go through with that in order to always be by his family's side no matter what for eternity.

I realized tonight that in leaving the fam in so cal, is my calling in order to spread that positivity, support, and love that i learned from them to those who are in need of it, and that in the end our lives will intertwine again to come full circle
I realized tonight that my whole life whether i acknowledged it or not at times, that dad has always and will always be a part of me, and I will vigorously carry him on in all things that i do from this day on, and even more so that faith in whatever religion you maybe is real, it just needs us to be able to take those blindfolded steps with confidence in order to follow the path that leads us to the greatness that lies within. I see now that there is Beauty In Suffering...