Beautiful Darkness by Maurice Mitchell (literature books to read TXT) 📖

Initially he was a little easier to tolerate, but as time went on it just became harder and harder. I did a little homework and discovered the entire story of him and my Grandmother. I was told that he had another family, coincidentally we knew a few of the same people in the street. I’m not sure if the news I got was accurate but it made me look at the situation in a different light. It’s a small world, and a lot of things started to make sense to me after that. A friend of mine also told me that my Grandmother told her how they met. An introduction, which pretty much included him threatening another man to establish his presence in my Grandmothers life. At this point I discovered two things, he obviously had a problem, and he obviously wasn’t a real man. Which was funny to me because he’s biggest argument was that I wasn’t a man and he was trying to teach me to be one. In order to teach somebody how to be a man, you have to be one first. How he could be in the situation he was in and consider himself a man was beyond me. So I was forced to sit back and watch this man treat my Grandmother the way he did and constantly disrespect me in the same token. I don’t blame, judge nor fault my Grandma for that, but I would think anybody could understand how that situation would be difficult for a Grandson to deal with. After the first incident between us my Grandmother came home and I explained what happened. I had company over at the time of the fight, so I had a witness and knew there wouldn’t be a problem in determining who was wrong. My Grandmother heard my side of the story and immediately went to check him for his actions. Once their conversation was finished, she approached me and stated that there needed to be some “house rules.” That broke my heart, but at that point I knew what it was, and the gloves were off. The next few times I would see that guy it was always a problem. He would come over when she wasn’t around and find a way to stir up trouble. He was childish, he’d come over and turn his music up real loud at seven in the morning knowing I was sleep. Bang on things throughout the house, walk around in his draws and eat everything in the fridge. Stare at me whenever I came out the room and mumble little slick things to get me going. Unbelievable, and he managed to do all these things without living there. A few more times we managed to get into heated arguments and almost fights. We never would actually fight though, mostly because every time I would actually go outside he would never follow. He would only go outside once my Grandmother came around or once the cops were called. That was interesting to me, so the next time he called me on the phone, I made a proposition. I figured since the problem between was obviously not going to get any better the best thing we could do was just fight. I offered to fight him without sharing the information with anybody in my family, we could shoot a fair one and no one would ever have to know. Settle our differences like men, sad, and maybe even a little ignorant, but that’s all I knew. While the thought of fighting my Grandmothers old and miserable boyfriend was childish to me, it seemed to be the only solution. There comes a point in every mans life where words and practices of non-violence just don’t work. In those moments a man chooses to do one of two things, he either fights or he runs. I was raised to fight, so that’s what I prepared myself to do. He declined the offer and just continued to call me a f*ck*ng fa**ot and every other curse word his midget mind could think of. That confused me, I couldn’t figure out what he wanted, you obviously don’t want to fight, so why continue to bother me? My thing was your supposed to be a man and love my Grandmother. So why cant you learn to be at least be cordial and understand and respect the fact that she loves her Grandson. How is that so hard? See I could walk up and down the house all day and not say anything to him, though inside I wanted to kill him. Simply because that’s how much love and admiration I had for my Grandmother. That would be too easy, but he couldn’t do it. I learned that together we could never mesh and it was as simple as the lion and hyena theory. See the lion minds his business, he can sit around and chill, while running the jungle and not worry about what the hyena is doing. Ultimately, the Hyena poses no threat to the loin. However, the hyena has to pick at and taunt the lion every chance he gets. Simply because he’s jealous, he cant be the lion or beat the lion and that kills him. So he picks at him until he finally gets a rise out of him, and once the lion gets up and roars, he runs. He runs away laughing knowing his mission was accomplished, he got the lion to react. A hyena is merely a coward who is a master at exploiting chaos, and I was forced to deal with one. Once I realized what I was dealing with and exposed this man for who he really was, he became easier to tolerate. I learned not to take it personal, and the only way to beat him was to laugh at him. So as much as I may have wanted to kill him, and knowing I had all the potential in the world to do it, I laughed and learned to see him for exactly what he was, a joke.

All in all I learned a lot from dealing with that situation and many of those lessons would go on to help me in my adult life thus far. I learned patience, and learned that with responsibility comes expectations. When you know your better then something you have to prove it, if you don’t pass a test that God puts in front of you he’ll continue to present that test to you until you do. All that time, I made that situation about my Grandma’s boyfriend and it had nothing to do with him, it was bigger then him, much bigger. God was merely using him to help mold me into that man he wants and needs me to be. See my lessons had to be hard, because I never responded to easy. God had to shake me to get my attention, simply because there’s no other way to get it. I learned that I can’t always allow people, nor my temper to be the deciding factor when I’m being tested. So long as I allowed that to happen, I could be considered week, and nowhere near ready to conquer the world as I’d planned. I simply was not ready and had so much more to learn. I wanted to be great, I wanted to make changes, and to whom much is given, much is required. Which means if I ask for it, I have to be prepared for what it comes with. Through my Grandmother I learned the true definition of unconditional love. You accept people for who the are, good or bad, and you love them regardless. If you love someone for their good, you have to love them for their bad as well. I never grasped that concept, and spent my life only loving people when they did right. My Grandmother taught me how to love again, the right way. I’d capture that lesson again while getting into a fight with my younger sister. She did something which I felt was disrespectful, and I lashed out the same way I always did when faced with disrespect. I let my rage get the best of me and saw how it affected her, I saw how it filled her eyes with fear. In trying to hold a grudge with her over the matter I realized I couldn’t, I loved her too much. Before she came to me with tears in her eyes and told me how much she loved me, I was willing to hold a grudge with someone I loved more then I loved myself. How cold do you have to be to do that? Another lesson learned. It took that moment for me to see how cold I’d become and how much I’d let things that happened in the past affect my life. The people and the things that I learned to hate, affected the things and the people that I learned to love. I had to let those things die, the same way I let the grudge with my sister die. I spent my life always waiting for someone to blow it and stab me when I closed my eyes. They showed me that love is real and it doesn’t fade when it’s genuine. It was then I realized that it was the same love I’d received from my family all along. The same love that pulled me through tough situations and pulled me out of the impossible. It was same love that gave me hope when I was in despair, and strength when I was weak. It was the same love that healed me after being abused and calmed me after the storms. It was the same love that kept me alive, and it’s the same love that drives me today. That love has brought me to believe and understand that everything happens for a reason and My Grandmothers boyfriend isn’t the only person who was put in my life to teach me a lesson. Everybody was. All the people I’ve met, and all the people that have hurt me were all there to teach me and help me become the man I am today. I spent my whole life being different and paying for being different, but now I stand as a man today and embrace the fact that I am different. I look at what my brothers and I have experienced and I realize that I could have been shot, I could have been in prison and I could easily be dead. Yet through it all I'm not, and I know its because God has a bigger plan for me. I know he wants more out of me and I know he’s not finished with me yet. I know he has a plan, and I may not know what that plan is, but I know I'm part of it. I know it will answer all of the questions I’ve carried with me on my journey. That journey was a rough one, filled with dark times and real life nightmares. That journey was real, but I made it, I’m here, and the crazy part is that journey is just beginning. I’m now at a place where I'm comfortable, I'm content, and I'm searching. Searching for the same thing I set out to find when I took that trip to Virginia. I’m wiser, I’m older, and now I realize that there is a challenge in front of me and I’m prepared. How this journey will end, we are yet to see, but I know it will be exciting. Whenever that opportunity presents itself Ill be ready, ready to take the world by the ears and tell my story one tear at a time. I’ve always known I was destined to be more then average and now my destiny awaits. The blood, the sweat, the tears, the rhymes, and all the dark times all prepared me for this moment.