My sons and I were supposed to go fishing on a Sunday morning. Going fishing was the time I spent with all my boys. I knew I had to be a better father than my own, and one of the many reasons I never moved far away from my kids because I wanted to be in their lives. I taught them at a very young age how to eat and survive.
I talked to my son Jason the night before he died. His friends and family were trying to get him to stay to go fishing in the morning. He told me he needed to go back to Grand Rapids, Michigan (a little over an hour from his hometown of Benton Harbor) and would be back in the morning.
The morning came and I didn’t hear from him.
My sister called me Sunday morning saying that I needed to call my son’s mom. She didn’t stay far from me, so I started walking down May Street approaching the cross street of Columbus. I saw a lot of commotion by her house but I figured it was a fight or something. As I was walking a guy was approaching me on a bike. With tears in his eyes he said to me, “they killed Jason, J-dogg!” I was froze in that spot by the tree for 7-8 minutes trying to take it all in. It threw me for a loop. I was just talking to him the night before, and boom the next morning he was gone. Murdered.
I know my son was loved. I could tell by his funeral. I’ve never heard anyone say anything bad about him, and family was always first. I had 34 years with my boy. 34. He gave me seven grandkids and now I have a great grandchild. I think about him everyday. EVERYDAY. He always valued my opinion, and respected me.
If there is one thing I don’t have closure with is asking him if he forgave me for the accident that happened to him as a child. He pulled a cord from the socket in the wall, and was electrocuted while I was sleeping. I blamed myself for that. He never held it against his mama or me, and he healed from it. But, I never asked him how that affected his life. That’s one thing I’ll never have the answer to. I guess that goes back to black folks don’t talk about their own trauma.
It was brought to my attention that my younger brother and I have suffered the same loss. We both lost sons to gun violence. I know that none of us are here to say, but you don’t understand until you’ve been through it. I don’t let the grief get me down. I just learned how to deal with it.
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