Like a whirlwind, people were in and out of my house as I sat in the living room in a daze. My heart and my son’s heart were completely broken. How were we going to live a life without the man that we loved. The man that loved us fiercely. He was all that I knew. He was all that I wanted to know.
Arms wrapped tightly around me, then pulled me in. “I got you, Sis. I promise you two will be alright. Me and Chance are here,” my sister, Joy, said with a whimpering voice.
I had the best big sister and brother-in-law, but they weren’t Julius. No matter who was there for me, none of them would be my husband. I wanted and needed Julius.
Present Day
Twenty Years Later . . .
“Ma, sit down somewhere! You’re going to cook the whole house because of your nerves. We can’t eat anything else, woman,” my son fussed from my living room.
His cousin Chance Junior (CJ) snickered from his seat next to him. CJ was the perfect mix of my sister and his father. Time seemed to have flown by. I couldn’t stop staring at my son and nephew as grown men. I was so proud of the men that both had become.
Every day, I thanked the men that stepped in after Julius died. They didn’t take their love, time, and effort off my son. I knew Julius smiled brightly from heaven at how amazing our boy grew up to be. He only gave me a little bit of hell during his teenage years, but his uncle Chance was on his ass.
Junior was his father’s replica down to his love for numbers. My baby boy was his investment firm’s top earning broker. He never ceased to amaze me. It was like Julius took everything that was good, amplified it, then put it in our baby.
A brain aneurysm was the cause of death when it was all said and done with. We had the perfect day before. We physically expressed our love for and to each other in the wee hours of the morning, then hours later, he was gone. A man that was in perfect health had a fucking brain aneurysm. I cursed God for years. If I had to be honest, I wasn’t sure if we were at 100 percent yet.
“Junior, don’t make me grow wings to get to you and CJ from this kitchen. You act like I’ve been cooking all day. Joy, get yournephew before I fight him.” I cut my eyes to my sister who sat at my kitchen island.
Her fork hovered over her plate of food. Her eyes connected with mine. “Julius J., stop being a butt and eat your mother’s gluttonous food,” she jested.
My mouth fell agape. “Really, Joy! I cook like this all the time.”
She set her fork down on her plate. “Sis, there is a ham on the counter over there and a roast in the oven. Yes, people eat ham for breakfast, but they don’t usually cook a whole ass ham to get the slices to put with the damn eggs. You can just tell us that you’re nervous.”
“Auntie Ju, you have no reason to be nervous. You busted your ass! You got this in the bag,” CJ encouraged.
I had the best family, starting with my parents, Charles and Julie Sampson. They loved me and my sister so fiercely, and we were their everything. Our mama and daddy at eighty and seventy-eight were not in the streets. They were on the oceans.
My late husband invested on their behalf, which allowed them to retire early. After Julius Sr.’s death, his trusted business associate continued to invest. My parents’ house was paid off, and they had no true overhead, so they lived their lives on cruises for senior citizens now. When Junior started his investment ventures, my parents were his first clients with a fifty thousand dollar check. They made me question myself as a parent because I only gave him ten thousand.
I could have given him much more, but I wanted to be conservative the first go-around. My late husband thought of everything to ensure that his family was taken care of in the happenstance that something happened to him. He made it so that if I didn’t want to, I wouldn’t have to work even after his death. The home that we lived in when he died was already paid for. We owned rental properties and had multiple investments.
I could have sat on my ass pretty much for the rest of my life. When Junior got the wind under his investment wings, it was up from there. Every time he made a great investment, it was like I could feel his father smiling wide from heaven.
Between Senior and Junior, I could have just sat down and stayed pretty only, but I couldn’t. I needed to feel whole. Before his death, it was my son and my husband that made me whole. After, there was a major chunk missing, and I needed to fill it, so I did.
I found a career that I was amazing at. I went back to school and committed myself to something. When my husband was here, I felt my purpose was to make sure he, my son, and myself were happy, which in turn made me happy. A time came that I needed to readjust my purpose. It wasn’t about just rebuilding my life.
It was about my purpose. I was still on the mission to find it. My application submission to become the president of one of the top pharmaceutical companies was a major step toward my purpose.
CJ was right. I busted my ass for this. My eyes traveled to the clock on the wall. “Juanita said that the announcement will be made on the six o’clock news. It’s already after four, and I haven’t gotten the call. They must have picked someone else.”
The interview process for this position was unique, to say the least. I assumed going into it that if I got to a certain round that I would interview directly with the CEO, Robert Brand. That didn’t happen, and I was a little disappointed.
Robert Brand was the things that boss niggas were made of. I did my research on him when I decided that I would apply for his old position. I wanted to see what his climb looked like. He started with the company in his early twenties where I was a late bloomer. I joinedMediGenixat thirty-eight as a regulatory analyst after I graduated with my Master of Public Health(MPH) with a concentration on Health Policy from Emory University, Rollins School of Public Health.
“Ma, they haven’t picked anyone else. They are going to call,” Junior said. His tone was soft.
My feet carried me to the couch that he and his cousin sat on. I plopped down between them. They both laid their big heads on my shoulders. “I love y’all sickening asses. Let’s watch a movie or something.”
“Now that sounds like a good idea. Chance said that he will be here before six for the announcement,” Joy said before she sat on the other side of her son. “What we watching?”
A calm came over me as Junior picked up the remote for the television. This was what it was all about. The people in this room supporting me. To them, it didn’t matter if I got the position or not. To them, I would still be the awesome Jubilae Plates who was capable of anything no matter how far behind or lacking I felt.
You’re not behind, Ma. You’re becoming.Those were the words that were engrained into my spirit by my son every time he thought I felt I wasn’t enough. He would say it with his voice, a text, a scribbled note on a pad in the kitchen, or Post-it. I would always be enough for the people in this room.
