Dear Mama,


I turned off all the lights and sat on my wooden queen size bed, with the red covers flowing to the sides looking like a sea of blood. As I stared at the only window in my room, whose curtains were open to let the moonlight in. I thought of you, picturing the way your mahogany face used to dance under the West African nighttime light and hearing the sound of your laughter as you sang us into the night. I smiled and cried feeling robbed of you in my life. Feeling hurt, abandoned and as though you chose death over me. Wondering time and time again if I was not worth living for, or if each time when you looked into my eyes you could see AIDS eating away at you. I wondered why you died not tell me your secrets.

Wondering and pondering what could have been and dreaming of what ought to be. All those dreams we had, blank chapters in our book of stories we had not yet told, but we promised to tell. The graduations we were going to attend, both your and mine. The world would be our canvas and upon it we would tell our story, we would tell it loud and tell it proudly. For you and I were one and when you left you took a part of me. Then, I too started to feel tired and I want to sleep, not caring if I woke up again.

As I turned on the radio, I fell upon Tim McGraw's song "live like you were dying". As I listen to the lyrics I realized something, tomorrow isn't guaranteed to me. I don't want to reach tomorrow and have a lifetime of regret, or have a deadly illness in order to start living my life. I want to go skydiving and give forgiveness while I still can. I want to have a life I will be proud to call my own. I realized in that moment that all the pain and suffering in this life is not mine to hold on to. I don't want to be a stick in the mud, watching the suns beautiful orange and red rays above me rise each day and set each night staying stuck in the same spot. I don't want to reach the end of my life only having lived the length of it, I want to live its width as well.

So I decided to go outside and breath a breath of fresh air, watch the golden sun rise and live. If tomorrow isn't guaranteed to me then I want to live each day as though I was dying. Stop worrying about living tomorrow and live for today. If I stay stuck in the darkness then I'm not truly existing.

Mama, I'm tired of holding on to the pain and suffering. I'm taking it off and I'm going to live this life, and live it well. I won't live it sideways, or crooked, I won't live it awkwardly or live it plain. I'll live it out loud and live it full. I'll live it courageously and I'll live it as if I was dancing and singing in the rain. I'll live this life all the ways I can, but most importantly, I'll live it true. I'll dream all those dreams and make them come true. I'll write in the blank chapters of our book and I'll make the world my canvas. For you and I are one, and my story is yours as well, through me you live, so I too must live.