On the death of two sons
When my second son walked into a train due to medication for his mani-depression or bipolar state of mind, I immediately sank into a black hole beyond any space phenomena. My descent into the black hole was executed by my first son, my namesake, Marvin K, who called to tell me in the coldest voice I ever heard and shall never forget, "Darrel is no more. No more. He's gone!" In the deep structure of his voice, I heard jealousy and envy that his brother was no more, the brother he knew we enjoyed a relationship that I could/would never enjoy with him. He knew what my sister Debbie had told me once in chiding me for being absent in their lives, "You just don't know how much your youngest son is like you! He looks like you, walks like you, talks like you, studies like you, laughs like you...." I suspected my first son was indeed jealous and envious of my close relationship with his brother. But I never enjoyed the intimacy his brother and I enjoyed when we did connect. As my sister said, Darrel was like my twin, even I had to admit it. Sometimes it frightened me that we were so much alike, especially intellectually. Darrell was the intellectual, Marvin was the physical man, alas, he tried out for the SF 49rs on defense. And I attended enough of his college games at Northern Arizona and Fresno State to see him snatch the quarterback. Only problem was that off the field, I sensed he wanted to snatch me for fatherly abandonment and neglect. He told me I should not have been fighting to teach black studies at Fresno State College/University, 1969, I should have been taking care of his mother and two sons. No matter that black police sergeant Jack Kelly (RIP) told me years later, "Marvin, when you came to teach at Fresno State, you made things better for everybody, not just students at FSU. Before you came to teach, black police couldn't patrol the white side of town." Is there any possibility that I made it possible for my son to end his collegiate athletic career at FSU with a degree in computer programming? Is it possible I made it possible for my daughter Nefertiti to graduate from FSU with a B.A. in English? Sargent Jack Kelly said I made things better for everybody!
According to my son, I suppose I should not have opposed the war in Vietnam but somehow found a job to take care of my family or joined the US military to be cannon fodder for white supremacy wars in Asia. Well, no matter how well meaning my number one son's concerns, I fled into exile as a draft resister twice and when captured in British Honduras, Central America, now Belizes, I was deported back to the USA and spent five months in Terminal Island Federal Prison. Would my son have been more proud of me if I had gone to Vietnam and sent my G.I. check home to his mother? Well, I heard the incoming president of my alma mater, San Francisco State University, an Asian, when asked what his children thought about his new position, reply, simply, "We don't ask the children!"
As many children of 60s radicals and revolutionaries have said, "You were selfish to abandon and thus abuse and neglect your family for the revolution." And perhaps some of us were able to achieve a balance between family life and revolution but many of us were not in a mental state that permitted such equilibrium. It is an act of insanity to challenge the State, with its awesome military power, police, national guard, army, navy, air force, FBI, CIA, snitches and agents provocateurs. Simultaneously, Franz Fanon taught us the only way for the oppressed man and woman to regain their sanity is through the act of revolution. So, yes, we were crazy niggas who neglected self, family, money, all else for the cause of national liberation.
Therefore, how can our children call us selfish for our acts of total unselfishness? Askia Toure', Black Arts Movement co-founder, said his son called us the Broke Heroes because we were not economic opportunists, although many of us were and you can Google those who financially benefited from the Black Arts Movement and obtained commercial success. But for most of us, it was not about self, family and commercial success. As BAM philosopher Larry Neal said, BAM was the sister of the Black Power Movement that evolved from the Civil Rights (Rites, Sun Ra). Did Martin Luther King, Jr. die rich, did Malcolm X, did Kwame Toure', aka, Stokely Carmichael? Somebody said Kwame Toure' sold out when they saw him in a new pair of shoes.
So I conclude: when my baby boy walked into that train at 39 years old (Dr. Nathan Hare noted he was the same age as Malcolm X and Martin Luther King, Jr., and Dr. Hare noted that suicide and homicide are two sides of the same coin of death by oppression), and my number one son informed me my baby boy was no more, the tone of my oldest son's voice and our relationship since then has indicated to me that on the most painful day of my life, I not only lost one son but two! I do not know how to heal from such lost except that it has forced me to discard my patriarchal persona and accept the reality that my three daughters are three of the most powerful women who walk the planet earth!
But no, no no! This is not the end of this narrative. I love my first son, my namesake.
No matter how much he has absorbed Mother love, I love him still. After all, I recognize he is an arrogant bastard like his dad. He doesn't know I know his foibles including while he was known as Deacon Jack (at his church in Sac. He didn't know I had spies in his church that told me of his every move, good and bad. When he did bad, my spies told me Deacon Jack wasn't right. The preachers, twin brothers of the church, told me it wasn't their church, it belonged to Deacon Jack. They said he laid every brick and stone. It was Deacon Jack's church. He built the Family Center. Deacon Jack was the man.
So please know I love my first son. No matter I lost him along with my baby boy. I cannot explain the pain of lost of two sons simultaneously. It is a pain beyond words. I'm doing my best to transcend the pain of my second son so I can accept the pain of son #1. Gibran told us our children come through us but they are not us. We are the bow, they are the arrow. I love my first son, second son and three daughters. I thank their mothers for blessing me with the most wonderful children any father could desire. Mothers, please forgive me for my abuse, neglect and shortcomings. I eternally praise you as the mothers of my children who have come into the world to be a joy and pleasure for all humankind.
--Marvin X
12/28/19
But no, no no! This is not the end of this narrative. I love my first son, my namesake.
No matter how much he has absorbed Mother love, I love him still. After all, I recognize he is an arrogant bastard like his dad. He doesn't know I know his foibles including while he was known as Deacon Jack (at his church in Sac. He didn't know I had spies in his church that told me of his every move, good and bad. When he did bad, my spies told me Deacon Jack wasn't right. The preachers, twin brothers of the church, told me it wasn't their church, it belonged to Deacon Jack. They said he laid every brick and stone. It was Deacon Jack's church. He built the Family Center. Deacon Jack was the man.
So please know I love my first son. No matter I lost him along with my baby boy. I cannot explain the pain of lost of two sons simultaneously. It is a pain beyond words. I'm doing my best to transcend the pain of my second son so I can accept the pain of son #1. Gibran told us our children come through us but they are not us. We are the bow, they are the arrow. I love my first son, second son and three daughters. I thank their mothers for blessing me with the most wonderful children any father could desire. Mothers, please forgive me for my abuse, neglect and shortcomings. I eternally praise you as the mothers of my children who have come into the world to be a joy and pleasure for all humankind.
--Marvin X
12/28/19
--Marvin X
12/28/19