"Denial" is a mental prison, ...

a total wasteland.  I know because I languished there for nearly sixty years.  Sure, I had hints and I had evidence.  I did not have the courage, nor the slightest desire to know my truth.  I am not complaining.  I know it is a part of GOD's plan, His Divine Order.

I always felt like a mere spectator in my own life.  Always shocked.  Always;"No she didn't!…what a common whore!"  Every one always walking away, heads shaking, but no one daring to confront her except for Jerome Walters.

The "Common as bat shit, common as bat shit." reference always lingering in the back of my mind.  Plot after plot revealed to me by what I thought was a careless comment.  Every morning, noon and night of every day, all day, for every day I associated with her , she had to remind of of how "tragically black I was."

Praise GOD Almighty, I accepted my grandfather's apologies for her ignorance. "Don't pay no 'tention to yo'mama …she ignut."  That was it.  Granddaddy never shared how she must have totured his life.  She told me that she tried to kill him when she was sixteen.

She was still very proud seventy years after the fact."Mr. Wifford had to wrestle duh shotgun out my hands."

"Why were you trying to kill granddaddy?"  "Cause he wuz running' 'round on my mama!…spending the tobacco money on sum 'ho."

Granddaddy had too much of that stoic, Victorian chivalry for me.  He didn't curse.  I heard him say shit, very slowly, through gritted teeth,  three times.  He was forgiving.  He loved my mother.  He never gave up on her. ["He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me."]

Did Mathy know she was milking her rapes and brother's tragic death to manipulate her way in life?   If the truth be known, Mathy's emotional maturity never reached beyond that of a toddler.  "Mine mentality".  A two year old toddler sincerely believes everything is theirs! Everything!  They know no boundaries. My daughter used to demand to put her fingers up my nostrils.  She demanded to pull my earlobes while she sucked her thumb.

I understood.  She was two.  But an adult that is just as selfish, but keenly aware and extremely manipulative, will make for a very sad life for an entire family, clan, generation after generation without a reality check.

"It is what it is!"  Enough!  Live in "Denial" if you want to.  Live there without me.

I press on.

Remember;"Apart from Christ we are nothing."

[Excerpt from THE JR WALTERS CHRONICLES   December 31, 2014  All rights reserved.]