'Take It On The Chin' Pt. 1

Last week, Sept. 20 was my father's birthday.  My father, Fredrick D. Claxton ll, passed suddenly at age 58 in Bronx V.A. Hospital Jan. 21, 2011.  It has been a rough year, as it began with a car accident in the first week of 2011.  Thankfully I was okay, and I was not hurt: however, the car was totaled.  

Two weeks later my father passed away, and we were expecting him home and healthy according to doctors. My father and I were extremely close.  Often I look for the words to explain our relationship and how close we were to each other, yet words never satisfy the description: and probably never will.

I am going to do some confessing-

As the year progressed I had been falling away from my moral duties, I had been falling out of touch with the people I love most, I had been falling out of reach in regard to my priorities, and finally I had been falling far away from GOD.  My underlying arrogance allowed me to take my foot off the gas so to speak, it allowed me to believe that I had changed so much from the person I used to be that I was entitled to relax or just be.  My arrogance allowed me to believe that I was good in my skin, and I had little more to do, or to change because I was a different person now, and better than before (entitlement).  Telling myself that I was good to my wife because I stayed home and stood close to her at all times like she wanted me to; telling myself that I was the good father because I was on top of my children everyday and making sure they were doing what they were supposed to be doing; telling myself that I had a relationship with GOD because I spoke to GOD when I needed GOD and believed in the idea of GOD. Still, happiness was hard to come by. It was weighing on me heavily. My younger brother, Ian, called me from across the United Sates, and Ian says to me,

"Bump [short for Bumper, my family nickname], your in a lot of pain, I can feel it, and I can hear it.  I am goint to get you over here because I need you too."

To be continued...