A co-worker asked me this morning what I thought was going to happen on “judgment day.” I thought for a few seconds, as I did not want to get into a religious conversation with a Jehovah’s Witness. So I said “I think the line is going to be really long! It will be worse than Disney land rides.”  You also can’t get an express pass to go around everyone. Even if there were an express line, that line will be so long as I’m sure there are millions of “good” people that will qualify for that express pass.

From what I have gathered so far, “God” will be judging us right? He is the only person that can do that right? Yes I know we all judge people. But up there… In Heaven he is the judge and jury right? So there will be one line, one long winding line. I hate lines. I try to avoid them at all costs. Imagine spending days in a line if not years! But let’s just say days for now. Emotions are going to get high, and someone is going to get mad. Chances are it is me and I’ll be mad about all the idiots that are in line. By the time I get to the front of the line he could judge me just on my time in the line, which would be enough to send me elsewhere!

What if we get up there and God had multiple “helpers” like him to help with the processing. You know darn well we all are going to be wondering if we got in the wrong line. Maybe we should be in that line, that guy smiles more often. Then you’ve got to wonder about who your standing behind. What if they are all bad and you get to the head of the line and a bunch of people are all bad and you don’t want to be bunched in with them. You know guilt by association. After all, you just spent years with these people in line to get there.

Can’t I just stay here in my Lazy Boy chair and enjoy the show.

For a major part of my life I have worked in a predominantly African American community and have been quite involved in those communities. I also felt very vested in the economic development of those areas. Never did I ever consider myself as being racist.

For those of you that don’t know, I am Caucasian. Though I consider myself a “person” rather than a “color.” I also look at people as people too. Some people are just more “tan” than others and that’s ok with me.  I don’t feel that I treat anyone differently and I surely wasn’t raised that way.

With “racism” being more in the forefront over the last few years I had written a piece about a friend of mine who is African American. Floyd, and I had lunch together for years and years almost every day. If we didn’t have lunch, at some point in our day we touched base via phone. Floyd had a small business in Gary and with both of us being marketing geniuses we discussed business, marketing and Northwest Indiana every day.

Because of the racism issue, I wanted to write a piece about our relationship and I guess show how much of a good person I was. I titled the piece “My Black Friend.” I didn’t think anything of it at the time. When I wrote it we hadn’t spoken in a while but I still considered him my friend. No one really commented about it after I wrote it. But life went on and more and more the issue of race kept coming up in the news. During that time Floyd seemed to disappear off the face of the earth. He didn’t call, I left a few messages with his wife and on his answering machine but no response. Well one day I guess my light bulb finally went off and I realized that I shouldn’t have titled the piece the way that I did. Because Floyd had always been “My Friend” without any other labels.

I’m sorry if I offended you Floyd it wasn’t intentional. Also, your standing reservation still stands if your hungry!

I was about ten years old when it happened. My best friend had invited me to come with him to his family’s trip to the Michigan Dunes. Chris and I were close and we played “army” and blew up army men and tanks with his dad’s gun powder he had in the garage. We always played in the sand pile on the side of the house. We would dig tunnels for our soldiers and act out our fantasies. This new adventure promised to be exciting and I would see things I had never seen.

My mother would not let me go for some reason. I was bummed out all weekend long. I was mad at my mother. I think the call came on Sunday afternoon. Chris had taken another friend or a cousin with him instead of me. Chris had done what came natural to him and I and that was to dig. We would have dug tunnels in the large sand dunes and we would be the soldiers and get in the tunnels like our little plastic soldiers. We were only ten, we didn’t know about construction. We were just young boys wanting to explore and acting out.

Chris never came home, the tunnels that he and the other boy built collapsed on them and I’m sure suffocated them in minutes. I would have been right there with Chris and probably making the tunnels deeper and bigger. I think about all the things in my life that I would have missed, or the fact that my own children, or grandchildren wouldn’t be here today.

If my mom had just said yes to make her son happy, life would be so different for so many people. That one little decision that many people have to make about what their children do everyday, can have rippling effects in years to come. Today, on the Birthday of my Mother I say “Thank you Mom for making those tough decisions.”

Because of you, I have all that I have and it doesn’t go unnoticed by me. Let this be a lesson to all the mothers out there, every decision you make with your kids that will have lasting affects even fifty years later.

After 32 years of marriage you can easily notice a few things about us. When you get married they say the “two shall become one”. It’s true, but it takes years to get there. I’m convinced that we now share one brain. I’m not sure where the other brain went, I keep looking for it behind one of the bookshelves or under the pile of dog toys that have accumulated, but no success.

Usually, we discover that we seem to take turns using the brain. One of us maybe in a brain fog with their thinking process and the other person is spot on. After many years there is a comfort level with each other. Since we share that same brain we tend to think alike. In fact, sometimes we don’t even have to say anything aloud. It’s like the “Vulcan Mind Meld.” We just look at each other and we know. Maybe we were abducted by aliens and they probed us or something like that so we can communicate telepathically.

I’m lucky in that she seems to let me use the brain more often. But then she calls me quite often with many questions throughout the day and I have to use the brain to help her.  I really think that when I walk through the door at night it automatically wants to jump out of my skull and go to her. So I’m left with being in the “fog.” That’s why she probably yells at me for forgetting so many things, like take the garbage out, or why don’t you remember to “close the door” or “lock it”! It goes on and on like that.

But then there are the differences between us. She will put everyone she knows before herself. She may be in pain or sick, but she will go out of her way to make sure they, or I, or the kids have what they need before she would even consider taking care of herself. If she needed to go the doctor but funds were tight she wouldn’t go. She would lend whatever we had to one of the kids for their needs first. I’m not quite as giving as she is. Of course I’d help if someone really needed it, but I wouldn’t notice them like she would. My stomach steers me quite a bit. If there is food, I’m going for it and I’m going to beat everyone to the punch.

She really is my guiding light. She shows me the way. She shows me how a good person would take care of their fellow man. When she gets to the pearly gates she’s going right in. When I arrive I’ll be off to the side yelling through the bars, “Hey Marisia can you get me in?” Most of our time over these 32 years I have watched her open her heart and give to so many people. She  showed me what love is. She showed me that it was more than us. On this valentines day I can say that I already gave her my heart a long time ago. I already share my brain, and I’m worried if I give it to her more often, what would happen. So I had to figure out what she needed more. Luckily, it’s been my time to use the brain so I could figure this one out. So I promise to give her more of my time, she needs it more than I do. Its what people do for each other when they are in love. Happy Valentines Day Honey!

Every few weeks my job requires me to stay for the weekend and be manager on duty. Usually Celena was always the bartender on duty and would ask if we were married that weekend. I called her my weekend wife. She had been working there years before I arrived. We have spent about 12 years together and in that time Celena has been a great employee, friend and a good weekend wife for me. Sometimes I needed to be told what to do and she wasn’t afraid to tell me. I admired her for that and also appreciated her too. She took a lot of initiative on her own and she was well liked by all the customers and fellow employees.

For the last year or so she had been battling health issues and I don’t think I have ever seen someone so positive about their ability to recover from this. She went to Mayo Clinic in Minnesota every few months and in between was in local hospitals attending to her treatments. She would never talk about it or give it a name. I think she wanted to believe it wasn’t there. Maybe she thought that if she didn’t acknowledge it it would disappear as silently as it had developed.  Despite the pain, despite the side effects from the treatments she wouldn’t complain. To us at work, I think she wanted to act as things were normal and life would continue that way.

Deep down I wanted to talk to her about it, I wanted to know how I could help, I wanted to hold her and take her pain away. She wouldn’t have it, she wanted it her way. We had no choice but to respect her wishes.  This wasn’t about us, it was her life, her sickness, she didn’t want us to be wrapped up in it. She didn’t want to hear the negativity of us complaining about her not talking about it.

My weekend wife left us yesterday and I didn’t get to say goodbye. She wanted it that way. She wanted us to remember her as the strong one, the confident one. She didn’t want us to see what the disease did to her, she wouldn’t let it rob our memories of her. She protected us even in her battle. She showed us how to fight and how much she cared. She was a good wife.