Open letter to the black youth who cocked the gun in my son's face yet allowed him to live... (I am following my heart here. Bare with me...)
Son,
It has taken me forever to draft this letter to you. I have thought of it many, many times but have never begun it. Somehow in the chaos of recent events, I simply felt that I could not wait any longer.
On that October day not too long ago, I had just wired my womb-child/first-born/eldest-son, $50. It was the last bit of what I had. I wired it to him because he wanted to attend the funeral of his childhood friend who had been brutally murdered, execution style in an ally on a Sunday afternoon while pleading for his life.
He and my womb-child had grown up together and my son shocked and broken-hearted was desperate to make the pilgrimage to pay his respects at his memorial. The two of them had big plans upon growing up, plans that my womb-child would have to fulfill alone because his friend’s life was cut short at the tender age of 21.
On that same day in October, my womb-child was walking through an apartment complex again in the afternoon in broad daylight. You accosted him, demanded his money, pointed a gun in his face and cocked it. Cocked a gun in his face, in his face, yet allowed him by some miracle to live.
You walked away with his money, the money I had just wired him to attend a memorial of a fellow black youth, one of our family. You walked away with his money and left him with his life, left me with my son, my first-born/womb-man-child.
I don’t know why you did it, but this letter is to humbly thank you for not pulling the trigger that day. This letter is also to let you know that I have thought of you often, prayed for you and your welfare, flung love into the ethers simply on your behalf.
I also want to remind you that on that day you failed to add to the mounting statistics of black on black crime, black male incarceration, unsolved murders, etc. Although taking his money, you chose that day to spare a young black man’s life, a mother’s son, a brother/sister’s sibling, a namesake, a future filled with positive possibility and promise.
Why do I write you? Because I am a mother-woman and you are a son and that is what we as mother-women do because we know that if we lose our wherewithal amidst this madness the planet will literally explode from its core and vomit us all into oblivion.
I envision that moment that day in October as a turning point in your life where you will continue to break through stereotypes, profiling, prejudice, pain and anything else that seeks to bind you, break you and make you forget the brilliant being from the Divine that you truly are. If that moment was not the turning point for you, then I launch this letter into the cyber ethers, pray it lands on you, anoints you, baptizes and blesses you anyway.
Again, son, I thank you, and I bless you.
Pay it forward…
MamaTam