Name: Fathering the Sickness (AKA Ministering to the Sick)
Duration: P00H02M32S
Description: For Dad.

Fathering the Sickness (AKA Ministering to the Sick)

by Hakim Be

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For Dad.

lyrics

Fathering the Sickness (AKA Ministering to the Sick)

Dad wouldn’t have done anything different in a pandemic.

He was always stockpiling essentials.
Long before his memories were unhoardable,

he was practicing loss.

He was already fasting.
Already praying alone.

Volunteered rainy day smiles,
even when he didn’t have to,
so we’d have enough happy saved up
to light our way through the power outages.

He knew one day
We’d need each other
more than we needed anything else.

Including attention.
Including connection.

He already new the difference between the Depression
and a blessing.

He would have called this both,
and only occasionally remind us
of the sadness that every so often overwhelms
the father of three Black men,

exhausted from seven decades
of successfully protecting them from things
they cannot see

that are trying to kill them.

We were already his social life.
We were what he did for fun.

So much parent assigned homework
we felt home schooled
from jump.

This would have been nothing new.

Up until the last two years of his life,
when he could no longer talk

...only smile…

He would remind us that the sabbath
means different things
to different people.

That the Lord’s Day is equal parts 52 Easters
and a weekly vacation
cause God rest and rose on the same day.

He’d long been concerned about “spiritual distancing,”
so I’m pretty damn sure he wouldn’t have changed

a thing.

In our house,
we grew up standing in line for food,
like his parents grew up standing in line

for bread.

Eight months before any of this,
as we all held hands surrounding his hospice bed,

he made sure he wouldn’t die alone,
so we didn’t have to.

A proper philosopher, but a poor prophet,
Dad’s predictions were always the same.

“Love is the future, not fear.”

Dad would die before canceling church,
just like he’d die to protect his flock…

so perhaps that’s why he decided to disappear.

He might not have seen any of this coming.

But for some reason
he knew he’d need to saddle up
a big ol’ family on a ration of staples
and supplies

that cost so much more
than love.

And somehow he also knew
when enough was enough.

© Hakim Bellamy, April 5, 2020

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released April 5, 2020
Hakim Bellamy

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Hakim Be Albuquerque, New Mexico

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