Trying A Little Tenderness

So for some reason spirit has been encouraging me to reach out to my son's father and offer him some encouraging words. Like so many relationships between two people who have created life together my relationship with my son's father has been unpleasant at best. He has been the proverbial absentee father only having seen our 8 year old son 6 times in his life. The last time being more than 3 years ago. I'm sure I don't have to mention that the support payments have been few and far between. I mean that goes along with the territory right.


With that said I have had all the feelings of rage, abandonment, sorrow and pain that go along with raising a child alone. But recently it has occured to me to take a step back and stop looking at the symptoms for a moment and begin to look at the illness. The illness that is a black man's burden. The disease that was released into his system when the first slaves were loaded onto that ship and set out for that treacherous journey. The disease that was accelerated once the slave holders got wind of Willie Lynch's genius plan to enslave the minds of these sable colored creatures and let the bodies follow.


In fairness to him I have to remember this disease that he inherited and judge him accorindgly. I am in no way excusing him from taking responsibility for his actions. I am simply saying that I will no longer participate in the kind of rhetoric that further perpetuates the sickness. I am certain that over the course of the time that we have known one another I have called this man a bitch far more times than I have called him by his own name. And perhaps if all of this name calling had yeilded a different result then I would feel justified in having done so. But the fact is that my degrading him verbally only reinforced his feeling of being afraid. Of being not good enough or man enough.


If I am to do my life's work in a manner that is pleasing to my Creator then I have to be careful with all of His creations. My baby daddy being one of them. I don't know if this change in my attitude and approach to him will make one bit of differnce in his life or his actions. Perhaps this revelation is less about him and more about me and the energy that I release into the universe. What I know is that I have been called upon to try a different approach with this man who somehow with all of his faults and shortcomings managed to bless me with the greatest gift I have ever received. My son is my protector, my companion, my conscious. I am able to look at him and see the very best of myself. What a beautiful sight to behold. And had it not been for this man. This man with whom my relationship has been unpleasant at best. I would not know the love and the joy that this child has brought to my life.


Regardless of how I feel about this man the fact remains that we created life together. This means that our child and our child's children and his children's children will forever carry on our blood. Our DNA is forever linked. From this day forth I will speak to him and of him with kindness or not at all. Out of respect for our ancestors. Out of respect for our future generations.