Say what you need to say ...........and mean it.

Growing up with a emotionally dysfunctional mother, I had to learn not to take her games personally.  One of the games she played, was that she would only praise me in the absence of me.  In my presence she resented every trophy I had.  As a logical kid, I was not hurt by that.  The numbers told me of my greatness and not her lips.  My GPA, my net worth my accolades told me that I was really something.  Her words, though nice, were not necessary for me to know my worth.  Actually, the whole of the African- American community was like that.  Within it's walls, you were shunned as an Uncle Tom, but you could be praised in front of white folk.  Not until recently did I understand funerals.  People get up and give speeches about people whom they really did not like and if living, would say nothing about them.  I saw tears fall for the dead that did not fall when they were living.  I wondered why those words were said in the first place.  I realized that those words are just said to all to make the living feel better.  They are selfish words that don't mean life.  They are words to help them get through the night.  They are not for the dead because the dead cannot hear, the dead can't respond and the dead can't refuse them.  I know of one person whom I don't like.  When they die, I won't attend a funeral, I won't send no flowers and I won't give a eulogy.  I had nothing to say in life and then I will not have anything to say in death.  Let all your words be spoken where they can be heard and appreciated.  My mother's words were to make her look better in the company of superior peers.  She needed something to grab onto.  She needed something  because she was uneducated, sickly and broke.  She had nothing else in her basket, so she borrowed a bit from mine.  Funny how you grow up to figure things out like that.

Be blessed.