{"id":235,"date":"2014-06-07T01:57:10","date_gmt":"2014-06-07T01:57:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sweetdannij.wordpress.com\/?p=235"},"modified":"2014-06-07T01:57:10","modified_gmt":"2014-06-07T01:57:10","slug":"lord-take-care-of-your-baby","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.sweetdannij.com\/?p=235","title":{"rendered":"Lord, Take Care of Your Baby"},"content":{"rendered":"

Well, Keith has officially got me off task.\u00a0 Now, I’m supposed to be thinking about something.\u00a0 I start to drift…again..and just as I begin to push the Google Chrome icon on my monitor I remember a couple of days ago, at this very moment, when I received a notification on my cell phone.\u00a0 Every muscle in my heart hoped it is from this new guy that I met a half-year ago who just NOW has reached out, but I believe in keeping hope alive.\u00a0 Instead it was my AJC news update notification:\u00a0 “AJC Breaking News:\u00a0 Celebrated Poet, novelist and civil-rights activist, Maya Angelou, has died at age 86.<\/em>”\u00a0 I know I had a reaction.\u00a0 I mean, I know something happened, but I can’t remember what.\u00a0 My heart stopped beating for what seemed like a lifetime.\u00a0 I remember when I first felt phenomenal.\u00a0 I would love to say that it was at a recital of some sort, but this isn’t that kind of story.\u00a0 The first time I felt phenomenal was while watching Poetic Justice<\/em> with Janet Jackson, Tupac Shakur and Regina King.\u00a0 What an AllStar cast that was.\u00a0 I remember replaying the VHS over and over again so I could stand in the mirror with my box braids and listen to the quote as I admire who and what I am–Phenomenal.\u00a0 I researched the poem and found\u00a0I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings<\/em>.\u00a0<\/em> I was instantly smitten with this woman.\u00a0 She became my grandmother.\u00a0 I had two, but she became my honorary grandma.\u00a0 Wow.\u00a0 Grandma Maya is gone.\u00a0 It seems as though all of my generation-changers are leaving quick and in a hurry.\u00a0 I know it has been over two years since the loss of Whitney–my AUNT Whitney–but, I still cry whenever I think of her.\u00a0 I wish I could have reached out to her and hugged her and told her how much of a difference she makes in MY life.\u00a0 I could care less about what the tabloids say she is.\u00a0 I know her soul is more than a tabloid post.\u00a0 I want to hold so many famed people–except Miley Cyrus–she needs a mother’s whoopin’!<\/p>\n

I look at the clock on my monitor that reads 11:45.\u00a0 Generally, I like to wait for Ms. Howell to return to the office before I step foot out.\u00a0 I like to ensure that everything is done and she has everything right where she wants them to be.\u00a0 So, I grab the mail from this morning and begin finishing sorting everything out.\u00a0 Nothing exciting or new except for a few envelopes from various surrounding Court systems.\u00a0 I stand up and begin to walk out of my office, past Salina, to put the mail in the brown, plastic memo and mail holder on Ms. Howell’s closed, wooden door. Salina has been awfully quiet today.<\/p>\n

“Hey Luvy, you okay?”<\/em>\u00a0 I ask as I take one step out of the office, drop the mail in and step back inside.<\/p>\n

“I’m good, I may need to take a few weeks off to get some things straightened in my life.\u00a0 Things are just going on from every side and I simply must take a me moment and work on it.”<\/em>\u00a0 Salina says with watery eyes.<\/p>\n

I can really tell that she is going through a difficult time.\u00a0 She always comes to me when the time is right.\u00a0 If she isn’t speaking up, now, something is dreadfully wrong.<\/p>\n

“You know I can’t live without you.” <\/em>I say as I open my arms for her to stand up and come hug me.\u00a0 As she walks up, the tears begin to fall.\u00a0 I hug her and tell her that it is going to be okay.\u00a0 Whatever it is.\u00a0 In my gift, I can sense this feeling of departure.\u00a0 Who comes BACK to the past once they have cleared issues in their life?\u00a0 I hug her as if it is the last hug I will ever get.\u00a0 Now, I’m crying with her.<\/p>\n

“Is there anything I can do?\u00a0 I mean, can I make you laugh?\u00a0 I will hug you until I hug the hurt away, I promise.\u00a0 What babygirl, can I do?\u00a0\u00a0 <\/em>I softly ask as I hug her while rocking back and forth.\u00a0 The hardwood floor making its squeak, squeak with each rock.<\/p>\n

She steps away, looks at me mustering up a smile and say, “You have done all you can.\u00a0 You have done so much and I will never forget you.\u00a0 I want to come back, but I will need time and I need to get some things straight in my life.\u00a0 I can’t focus on home and work.\u00a0 But, for now, one more hug, okay?<\/em>”\u00a0 She hugs me tighter than she’s ever hugged me before.\u00a0 I once again, realize that, although we spend thirty-three percent or more of our day together, this job, this environment, this time is not our life.\u00a0 The majority of us are living and enduring hardships here just in the mere hopes that we may have a better life when we leave these four walls.\u00a0 We try the cliche “Leave your work at work and your home at home,” but who can ACTUALLY do that?\u00a0 When I go to work, all my family has the direct number to my desk.\u00a0 And even if they can’t reach me there, they are texting and\/or calling me on my cell phone.\u00a0 There is no escape from your outside world.\u00a0 Jobs have become so “dog-eat-dog” and “crabs in a bucket” that employees are self-conscious about what they will have to face tomorrow at work.\u00a0 It seems to never be a day’s rest or peace.\u00a0 And business owners-true successful business owners–put in more hours than any standard 9-5.\u00a0 Then, at that level, the business owner has multiple customers to deal with–multiple personalities, multiple budgets, multiple issues–multiplicity rules.<\/p>\n

And here.\u00a0 My baby sister in Christ.\u00a0 Going through so much that she has to walk away.<\/p>\n

I rub her head, caressing her long beautiful hair, as the loving “big sister” I am and squeeze her back–knowing that there is nothing else left for me to do.\u00a0 So, I close my eyes, look up to heaven, open and them and mutter,\u00a0“Lord, take care of your baby.”<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Well, Keith has officially got me off task.\u00a0 Now, I’m supposed to be thinking about something.\u00a0 I start to drift…again..and just as I begin to push the Google Chrome icon on my monitor I remember a couple of days ago, at this very moment, when I received a notification on my cell phone.\u00a0 Every muscle […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[2],"tags":[8,14,18,23,24,70,29,32,35,36],"class_list":["post-235","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-memoirs-of-a-paralegal","tag-drama","tag-law","tag-legal","tag-legal-soap-opera","tag-maya-angelou","tag-memoirs-of-a-paralegal","tag-online-drama","tag-paralegal","tag-soap-opera","tag-sweet-danni-j"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2WTgw-3N","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.sweetdannij.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/235","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.sweetdannij.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.sweetdannij.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.sweetdannij.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.sweetdannij.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=235"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.sweetdannij.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/235\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.sweetdannij.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=235"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.sweetdannij.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=235"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.sweetdannij.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=235"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}