Reason Season Lifetime

Might not mean much to some, but for the first time in my life I got a chance to fly first-class. The purpose of this particular flight, was to commemorate the life of my surrogate Dad, Adolph White, and it was a wonderful opportunity to reflect on the times he and I had spent together. My father transitioned in 1978, and my being 29 at the time I had not even considered the fact that I might need someone to fill the gap that I didn't even know would exist. Adolph was that person, the mentor who reignited my love for family, who instilled in me the importance of loyalty to friends, and who demonstrated how to support what one believed in through voluntary actions on the behalf of others. As I flew in complete comfort from Los Angeles to Chicago, I experienced an awakening that pointed out that the lifelong interaction, between Adolph and myself, was in and of itself a first class experience.

Adolph and I first met in October of 1986, at Hyde Park Hospital, where I was undergoing treatment for alcohol and drug addiction. Adolph would visit this hospital every Saturday morning to offer support and encouragement to the patients there. I took these visits personally. Having done drugs for 19 years and in a semi stupor at the time, I was quite apprehensive as to why this large, Italian man was coming to visit me. What was his angle. As time elapsed I found that Adolph had been helped through a similar life threatening situation, and that he was dedicated to giving back what had so freely been given to him. I also came to realize that Adolph was African American like myself, and as time went by I came to realize that racial make-up should not be a hindrance to accepting the genuine love that others are willing to share. A couple of weeks after our meeting for the first time, Adolph introduced me to a guy named Les and his wife Priscilla,  thus initiating a relationship that continues to this day, with two people who would later become my closest friends.

Beginning in 1986, Adolph, Les, and myself began meeting for breakfast every Saturday morning. The three of us met at least 49 Saturdays a year for 25 years, until I moved to California in 2011, with he and Les continuing that tradition for another year. At these meetings we discussed every issue from the smallest cause for concern to situations of monumental proportion. During these discourses, Les and I saw eye to eye probably 90% of the time. Adolph however, disputed the majority of our analytical dissertations because he of course forgot more than we'd ever know. We were nonetheless able to resolve the majority of the world's problems in a single sitting and, in addendum, by bantering with whom I consider two of the most intelligent men on the planet, I'm prepared to comfortably converse with anyone from the financially strapped man standing on the corner to the well to do matriarch residing in Buckingham Palace.

I'm going to miss Adolph's opinions, even though he deemed them to be facts. You see if you disagreed with what he thought, you were wrong and that was that. I'm going to miss the directives,  that he stressed were only suggestions, because for a long time his telling me what to do was the only way things were going to get done. Most of all I'm going to miss his love. Although he insisted that our relationship was not one of friendship, but of survivorship because we shared similar life-saving experiences, I know that only love could produce and maintain the lifelong camraderie that ensued. Had it not been for the love of one man for others he didn't even know, what we have now would  probably never have materialized.

I want to employ this time to thank Adolph's wife Beverly, his children Rennie, Rory, Julie, Jill, and Chris, and his grandson Scooter for allowing either Les or myself to come to your home every Saturday and spend time away with Adolph, usually at the restaurant that was ironically located around the corner from his sister Clarice's home. I want you to know that I sincerely appreciate your allowing Les and myself the numerous opportunities to spend quality time with someone who genuinely had only our best interest at heart. I honor each of you wholeheartedly, for giving us the unconditional love and respect that is not easy to come by in this sometimes harrowing experience we call life. Most of all I am forever grateful that collectively, we were all able to roll with the 'Big Guy' on what we can all appreciate as being a truly FIRST CLASS ride.

LOVE YOU ADOLPH….

I'll Holla…

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Would You Bring Some Of That Joy With You

I asked members of my family what event made them happy this year, and the answers ranged from a free ticket to a Bulls game to the birth of a child. Quite a stretch in terms of similarity but, relatively speaking, only the ones experiencing these events can gauge the degree of happiness they attained. What makes you happy might just make me cry, but I'd still like to know what rocks your boat cause maybe, just maybe, it could rock mine and somebody else's as well.

A great degree of my joy this year stemmed from hosting, for the past three months, the 'Do You Know' radio show broadcast on KUCI 88.9 FM in Irvine, CA. The intent of my show is to bring, to the listeners, bits of knowledge and information, that they might not have heard, from people they might not know. You see there are millions of people who would love to share their experience, strength, and hope with others and have no means, outside of social media such as Facebook, for doing so. The biggest joy that I experience from interviewing the ones who have appeared on my show, is the joy and gratitude that they exude from having had the opportunity to be on the show and to share their thoughts and feelings with others.

We are all the light of the world, and each of us can illuminate another's life just by sharing a small portion of our own. I have no idea how many hearts have been moved by the things that my guests have shared, but I do know that the universe has benefitted from the joyful vibrations that were emitted from their simple act of doing so.

I implore all of us to bring joy to others by sharing and caring. Don't ever feel that you have nothing to say because, in reference to what made my family happy, there are people everywhere who already have babies, who would love to get away to see a Bulls game for free, and who are happy just knowing that somebody else did. On the other hand there are people that look forward to having a child and are inspired and made hopeful by hearing that somebody else has experienced it. We can always bring joy by listening and learning. We should make conscious attempts to listen to what another has to say because we never know how much joy that person might derive from talking to somebody who really seems to care. On top of that we have no idea how much both of us can learn as a result of actually caring, even if it's just a smidgen, about what's being said.

Whether we shine our light by consciously sharing our lives with somebody else or by allowing another to share their life with us, darkness cannot prevail. Remember, we can't find joy cause it ain't lost. But when our light shines it's like morning ya'll, and from what I've been told…JOY does cometh in the morning.

I'll Holla…




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