Unthinkable tragedy on Christmas 2009

Everything was normal on Christmas Eve of 2009. After a rather difficult year, it was coming to a close and I was ever so grateful to God for that! But the Lord had one more test for me, one that I had NEVER ever experienced before and would not soon forget.

Christmas Eve night, I took something to my big sister and big brother's house and greeted my nieces and nephews who I love dearly. After exchanging funny pleasantries with my oldest nephew, who was always my ride or die and never ever had the sense God gave a billy goat, I went home for the night.

Christmas morning and afternoon was spent with family. A day of laughter, gift exchanges, love, fellowship, and fun ended rather uneventfully, until...

On my way home, driving on the eastbound Schuylkill Expressway, just past 30th Street, approaching South Street and University City, I received a phone call that would forever change the course of my life as I had known it to be up until that point. A close friend of mine was on the other end, crying, asking me if I had heard.

I hadn't.

As she told me and as I tried, in between sobs, to convince myself and her that she wasn't telling me the truth. She was. My nephew had been shot and killed, my oldest, my ride or die, my day one!

I raced over to the house to find crime scene tape ominously draped over banisters and the front door.

Done.

Crying. Sobbing. Yelling. Pounding on my '02 Accord.

Done.

Our family would go through a very rough time from that point forward. Our faith in God brought us through that time! The females of the family were the strongest. My nieces and their mother embodied strength. My nephews and I didn't take it as well. What we all had was each other and the Lord!

Five years later, I thought that I would be OK, that I could man up and handle it. The more I sat today and thought about the times that my nephew and I had, I was not OK and I was a man down and out for the count. I knew that if anybody had my back, it was Jordan. He'd always ask, "Unk, you cool?" "Yea Jordan, I'm cool. Calm down." "Oh ard then, because see I'll come up to Kelly and rock them ni---z" "Jordan, calm down. I'm cool. Ain't nobody giving me no problems."

Much as happened and changed these past five years. The kids have grown up. A devil, jealous of my relationship with my family, slithered in and did a number.

I love my family. God knows I do. And as a buddy of mine said on facebook as I reflected on that day five years ago...

"...but seeing that family's strength since that day has been absolutely amazing..."