The dilemma of aging...or...when neither cancer nor anti-black maleness can kill you...

 I'm old. 

People who have known me for a long time will tell you that I was old long before I got old. The goal of getting old was always to deny it was happening- go out and do the things you did when you were young as if Father Time played no role. 

But you can only do that for so long, because one day, you open the mail and your Old Age Confirmation Papers are right there, staring you in the face- the letter from the American Association of Retired Persons. That's right; the AARP came a calling. And for a mere $12, I could have access to America Largest Interest Group and the bevy of benefits. I found myself chuckling about it as I filled out the application. I knew this day would come...which got me to thinking...

I did not think this day would come, and the odds of me being here are pretty astronomical. 

I was six when I found out I had Leukemia. I don't remember a ton about the doctor's visit (which isn't true- I remember the look on the doctor's face- I vividly remember the look of terror on the faces of my parents as this doctor guy said a bunch of words I didn't understand). Still, I remember hearing the term Stage-4 a lot.  I only remember this because it sounded like "stagecoach"- a word I'd just learned. I went from the doctor's office directly into preparation for surgery, something I know happened, but no real recollection, and I don't even know if the procedure was for the cancer or the clotting it was causing. I just remember everything felt so immediate. 

My parents were in a group of parents of Leukemia survivors. There were seven other families in the cohort. These kids were my friends as much as six-year-olds can have friends.  My mom, when I was first in remission, used to tell me how all the other kids were doing. But over time, I noticed we were having far less of these conversations, so one day, I just asked why she stopped telling me about the kids. It turns out that when she heard the first parent that their child died, she was "way less interested" in keeping up, and over time, it turned out that more and more of the kids from my survival cohort died. By the time I was 13, I was the sole survivor of the group. 

My parents didn't tell me that, at the time, the survival rate for kids was 60% for five years. Let's remember, I'm old. This was before things like "targeted" therapy, which focuses the chemotherapy (poison) and radiation in the specific area of the cancer cells as opposed to throughout your entire body- all I knew is two times a week for three months, I went to the doctor. I felt like I was burning alive from the inside-out, and that my parents said it was necessary. The head-on collision of cliches, "the foolishness of youth," combined with an equal serving of "ignorance is bliss," made it easy to believe I would be healthy again if I followed the doctor's orders. When you have these two, it seems like anything is possible...until you get Cancer: Part Deux. 

I found out I had Non-Hodgkins Lymphoma at a college health center, a week before Thanksgiving. After taking some blood and running a series of diagnostics on me, the doctor walked in with That Look. I've seen That Look before, and I knew what he was going to tell me before he opened his mouth. The doctor told me I had Stage 1 Non-Hodgkins Lymphoma, and then I'm sure he said a bunch of other stuff, but I pretty much blacked out in front of him. At one point, I asked if everything he's saying they could write down, so I could read what was wrong to my mother (my father passed away three years prior, which will also be discussed later). When I got home and checked the list to calm mom with the bad news, it was way less Draconian than I remembered, and I vividly remember thinking this was going to "be a walk in the park." I'd already looked death in the eyes and won my stare-down. This round seemed like a far less intense battle, one I was mentally and physically equipped to do. Only eight sessions of chemotherapy, with substantially less radiation therapy- and no surgery. I could plan when I wanted to do it as long as I started "quickly," which is way less intense than going to a doctor and being in surgery 4 hours later. Nothing could have been further from the truth. It was the worst physical pain I can remember, and it seemed 1000x worse. I decided to stay at school and get my treatments in the hospital there. Because I was so fucking sure I could handle it, I didn't even drop my classes. I was, however, allowed to take my finals while being proctored by my chemotherapist, which she considered "absolute insanity." Whether or not it could be classified as insane, it was one of the worst experiences of my life.

If I didn't have people I care about and who care about me, something I would **never do again.** 

There aren't many double cancer survivors, and the Black ones are but a fraction of a minuscule group.  Being in such rarified air gave me a sobering view of mortality. But being Black and growing up in my house meant I would be given a multi-year crash course in Black Maleness and the Guarantee of Insecurity. I knew we all were on 'borrowed time.'

My dad was a wonderful man, but his brutal honesty about his long term mortality was something he was not shy about discussing it. He was from a family who had men who had all died early- my great grandfather was 28 when he died, and my grandfather was 33, so my dad always acted like he was working on borrowed time. There was/is an issue of hereditary heart disease in my family, which meant that he thoroughly planned on dying early. But that also meant that he was quick to tell me any nugget of wisdom whenever it hit him, regardless of what I happened to be doing.  I can recall countless evenings where Pops would come into my bedroom, where I'd be dead asleep to wake me up to tell me something he wanted me to know but didn't want to forget. Over time, I started to figure out that all the messages started making the same argument- about friends and friendship. He believed I was a "shitty judge of character for friends." He'd say, "you let people you call friends treat you in ways I can't imagine," and "to hold people to the standards you keep for yourself." He told me two things will happen:  I'd lose a lot of 'friends,' but I'd find my 'extended family', which is what your real friends are like. I didn't understand it: he would refer to one of my friends by name, we'll call him Don (all names have been changed to protect the innocent and the guilty). My Pops felt that I was a way better friend to Don than he ever was to me. He thought it important enough that it was the last conversation I ever had with my dad: when he knew death was not just imminent but also rapidly approaching. But the last words about it were ominous- "I hope your desire to be friends with a guy that doesn't give a fuck about you doesn't end up costing you more than you want to pay- you've paid with pride and dignity, I hope you don't have to pay with something more, like your life. You have quality friends like Web. He'd be a worthy friend. 

My dad dying was surreal. Maybe not everybody, but I felt my parents were actual superheroes. From what they went through to get out of Hope, AR, to what they achieved while they were trying to raise my and my siblings, in a place where they had no support system, was actually heroic. But the thing about superheroes is they don't die- so despite knowing my dad's medical family history, I fully expected him to be the one to beat it, and to be there when I turned 50. I realized, even at the time, the absolute folly of such a wish. But isn't that the point of a wish? I feel myself digressing...

My dad spent some of the last words of his life telling me my best friend was a shitty person that may end up getting me killed. I didn't think that was possible- Don was my boy, and he had been since I got to El Cerrito- we hung out all the time, talked on the phone, went places together, and I always assumed we were boys, and that's why we hung out...and it wasn't until **his death** that I went back and looked at our "friendship." I guess before I do that, I should preface that this was a long time ago when apparently I had no self-esteem and wanted so badly to fit in with someone that-well, I'll explain that.

My "friend" Don died when I was 21 years old and on break from college. I honestly couldn't hash out the specific date or even what vacation I was on. All I can say is, the day Don died, I can confidently say that I should have been with them. 

I was back home from school and wanted to spend a weekend partying with my boy. A lot of times, when you know you should have physically been with someone who died, there's always a great chance of survivors' guilt- you lived, and they died, and it's hard to live with. I didn't have any of that, mostly because I was supposed to go with Don. In fact, the trip was **my idea**, and I was going to drive. I called Don all day and never got an answer; sometimes, his mom would answer. I would, upon reflection, bet a year of my life he was there the entire time. Finally, about 4 pm, I get a call back from Don's *mother* telling me that he had already left for Reno with S. I was dejected. I go home, continue with my evening and night, and get a call at like 2 am. I answer, and it's Don and Seth, and they're letting me know they're having a great time **without me** and that they're **glad I wasn't there** and a TON of just evil shit. If the purpose of the call was to make me cry, it worked. I hung up the phone feeling as low as I'd felt in any memorable time. All of a sudden, I could hear my dad on his deathbed, saying this would happen. It made me look at our "friendship," which, upon reflection, included these fucking friendship gems.

He spent months trying to get me to ask out a girl they had already told to laugh in my face (the girl told me when I heard about it and told her I would spread a rumor-that I happened to know was factually correct- that I'm, to this day, ashamed I would go so low). He borrowed a video game, then my game system (Atari 5200), and **never gave it back**. I found out years later he **gave** it to another of his friends, so he could play it. It also meant his mom would stop asking where he got it, and my mom would stop calling his mom asking about it. In another instance, he knew I had a crush on a girl he was friends with. When I told him he wanted to talk on the phone. But he decided to call ** her** first and told her to be quiet. He then called me and asked me how I felt. 15-year-old me professed my love- while she listened for more time than I care to admit- to which she responds by saying it's her and that "I have no fucking chance" with her.

When I  finished writing down all the instances of Don doing something shitty, I had FIVE PAGES of things. I decided that if Don ever spoke to me again, it would be the last time because I was going to speak freely, as I had never had the courage...

On the drive home from Reno, Don, and Seth drive into a 20mph curve at over 45 miles an hour. The car flips. Don dies.  When Ma told me that he died, and how it happened, all she could say was she was "glad I didn't go" and wanted to know if I needed clothes for the funeral, to which I told her I wasn't going. When she asked why I just told her, "he was a shitty friend, and if I go, I'll just say hate-filled shit." Ma's only comment was, "it's about damn time." 

I would have assumed, before that weekend, that Don would be someone who would have been at any 50th birthday I'd want to have. Don may have been a nice guy to a lot of people, but he was a shitty person to me, so much so that he made me change how I evaluate friends. For a long time, people were my friend until proven otherwise- and my goal was to have a ton of friends. I wanted to know if I had a surprise party, there would be A TON of people there, all of my friends and family. After looking at how I let Don walk on me, I decided that you didn't get my friendship; you had to earn it as if it had actual value (because it *does* have value-its worth a lot if I don't say so myself). He's also the reason I can cut a friend in a second and not look back. If I'd taken when I was 15, I would have removed most of the bullshit drama I dealt with in high school- all caused by hanging out with someone who didn't like or respect me, which in retrospect, was just him mirroring back my disdain for myself. When I learned a relationship with me was worth something, I walked away from everyone who treated me as if that wasn't true. And it took Don being a total shithead AND dying for me to be able to move away from toxic bullshit. And do what my dad asked...which got me to thinking why Web and I ended up drifting apart, based on how important he was in getting me through El Cerrito...

When I arrived at El Cerrito High School, for most of my life, I lived a vastly different school experience. I went to schools with minuscule class sizes, and so the degree of academic freedom I was used to could be classified as absolute. And despite being the only Black kid in any of my classes, nobody ever (that I remember or could recognize) treated me differently, academically or otherwise, for being a Black kid.

It was only upon entering El Cerrito where it really started to play a role. But initially, it was odd for me just to be around the sheer number of Black people I was around. Going to EC meant I now would meet more Black people than I had ever imagined. There was one overarching theme about the experience- I was told, by ALMOST ALL of the Black kids one of these statements:

“You talk white” or “You talk like a white boy.”

“Why you tryin’ to act white? You ashamed of being Black?”

“Man, you an Oreo.”

I had never HEARD any of these accusations, didn’t know Blacks could ever even be accused of acting “white,” much less by other Black people. I didn’t even know the Oreo reference and assumed the kid had seen my lunch snack choice. He laughed and told me it meant “Black on the outside, white on the inside.” Another statement I didn’t understand. If this was how this public school shit was gonna work out, I was probably going to be arrested or killed soon, because this was some bullshit. So I’m the short, smart Black guy that’s harassed in classes for fucking up a curve here and there, I’m literally the shortest person at the school, I’m "the new kid," and now I’m being demeaned by kids who are raping the English language like Jodie Foster was in The Accused.  I have nobody to talk to…this is going to be a shit-tastic experience…

And felt this way until I walked into a 10th-grade honors English class. It was the first place I felt a zone of protection, where nobody wanted to give me heat for being a smart kid. It was in this class where I met Willis Abraham. It was a relatively uneventful meeting except that he was in the Honors class. One of the things I noticed is that the school did something called “Tracking,” where they try to rank students academically and then, based on that ranking, try to get students of like academic skill sets in the same class. This allows for kids that need extra help to get it and kids that need to go faster to do that as well- but it does make these determinations, and it’s tough to get into another track.  By the time kids got to high school, most were locked into tracks, and in the honors track, there were just not very many Black kids. Willis was one of those kids. But he was, for lack of a better term, a different cat. He just operated to the beat of a different drummer and was unabashedly indifferent if you were with him or against him, as long as he was doing what he felt was right. This starts by being a smart guy.

For my first significant block of time at EC, I really didn’t speak out- in class or outside of class. I was afraid if I opened my mouth, people would find out one of two things, both in diametrical opposition: 1) I was as smart as they thought I was and would never want to talk to me, or 2) I was NOT as smart as they thought I was and they wouldn’t want to ever speak to me.  I worked it into effective catch-22, which meant I NEVER spoke up, even when I felt I had something positive to contribute. I noticed that in these honors classes, as with my classes at the private school, it seemed that students were free to express themselves and free to be incorrect and learn from their mistakes. 

After the negative impression I got from the **all the** kids at the school, it made me kind of gun-shy about being willing to speak up in class, and dare I say- in general. It wasn't as if I felt they were smarter than I was. I didn’t feel any of them even could play at the same academic level as I could. It took another Black kid being willing to speak up, ask questions, be right and especially be wrong and not care as long as he got what he needed, gave me the confidence to begin to speak up myself. All any of you need to know is, without this impetus, I'd have never gotten into Debate. It was only in his death (he died at 42) that I have gotten to reflect back fondly on the times we spent together. But I never really thought about what that time means to me now, and how it was crucial in shaping the person I ended up becoming.

The mind is a funny thing- this all started from getting an AARP membership in the mail, and the $12 investment I made to be in the largest interest group in the United States. There's really only one requirement, which is an open recognition to being old. 

And, based on what I had to go through to get "old," I will surely raise a glass, but not forget to pour out a little- for the people not fortunate enough to share with me.