Coping with Loss

This week's blog is dedicated to my grandfather Vernon Doc Sylvester Sr. who passed away on Nov 9th 2010. He an outstanding man, father, grandfather, husband, uncle and person all around. He will be laid to rest today. He will be missed.

I now feel like a certified officiando on loss because I have encountered more than I would like to admit. My grand mother died when I was eight years old, and although I was sad, I didn't feel the full extent of the impact. So when I was twenty years old and two friends of mine died three weeks apart I thought my heart and head was going to explode. I don't think I was coping with their loss, I was just in the midst of sadness and memories and just riddled with a numbing pain that just had me want to shut down. I was so angry because these two young men were so awesome, how could GOD take them? How? It was not fair. Two years later as I was getting over the loss of my friends, my cousin Vaughn was killed in a tragic car crash. I will not go into details but he had a three year old daughter at the time and his wife was pregnant. Talk about unfair. My cousins on my dad's side were my first friends and basically siblings....when Vaughn died we all mourned as a collective. We had lost a sibling, we had lost a piece of our tight link and that impact has left a big hole in my heart, only to be filled with memories of an earlier time.

This time I was going to deal with my cousin's loss and deal with it powerfully. I am a poet and I cry through words very often. I cry through my words and I realize that I am okay once I purge those words out. I have written several poem for Vaughn and i speak to him openly often, it helps me deal with the fact that he is not here but he can hear me wherever he is. Now, as my grandfather has left this earth I have yet to breakdown...and I am not sure if I am going to breakdown either. I have dealt with his death through poetry and also talking to him out loud. I am coping with his death by talking about him with my family, speaking about him to my daughter when I am feeding her and recreating him for my husband who did not have an opportunity to meet him. His body is gone, that is a fact. His smell, smile, moment of sleeping and waking and sickness is gone, but his memory and legacy lives.

How would I coach a client on loss? I would say be with your emotions. We have some people who are naturally the strong one and they feel as though they have to be the strong one by controlling their emotions. They are the ones who want to cry but do not let it get more than a lump in their throat,even when they are alone. We have our dramatic criers who cry enough for the strong one and everyone else. They cry, and cry and cry and they don't care how loud of for how long....that's what you call just being with it. The dramatic crier doesn't care about looking good or holding it together, they are crying out of pain and that pain has them let it all out. I would suggest not fighting your emotions or fighting your pain and just being in the presence of it. Be with your sadness, talk it out, get with people who share the same loss and purge it out. You should write down your feelings, talk about them, make a scrap book, put your loss into something positive that will allow you to have a beautiful memory of that person.

In the end, your loss is yours. You can lose the same person as your sisters, cousins, whomever but at the end of the day, that loss and how you cope with it is unique to you. Do not let anyone dictate how you should feel, how you should be or tell you that you're not doing it right. There is no right way. However, there is a healthy way to be with loss. If you find yourself hindered, losing touch with what's real and being a detriment to yourself by not taking care of you, then you are not coping, but hiding from coping. If you find yourself grieving excessively and none of your goals are being accomplished, then you are hiding.If your world is gloom and grief and in every conversation you have you MUST discuss this loss, then you are also not coping. If you attribute every thing in your current life with the loss of this person, then you are NOT coping.

The biggest thing to remember here is that we still have life. There is a life that we are put here to live and I am pretty sure that our loved ones will want us to keep living. We do not cease to live because our loved ones have died, but we breathe life into their memories and we allow ourselves to feel their presence, be with their legacy and honor them by doing our best. We honor them by being blissful, happy, taking charge of life and being productive. You should deal with loss in a group if you can, and just say all that needs to be said, however you MUST continue to live. You must continue to have life and do all that you would have done as though they were still here. You should never use the dead as an excuse to check out of life and a reason for you to be a zombie...it does not sufficiently honor their memory. If you find yourself struggling more than you can handle, then you reach out. You find a grief group, you go to therapy, do what you need to do to be better and to get better because being riddled with gloom and grief is not healthy. It just isn't.

I write this blog with my family in mind. We will get through this and we will come out stronger. We are all connected through love and there is nothing greater than that.


In Memory of my grandfather...DANCE WITH MY FATHER

BEING GAY IS A SIN....(says who?)

I have been dancing and struggling with this topic for weeks now and I have said a few things but today I am ready to bare all.

I know that all three major religions have said time and again that being gay is a sin and all those who choose that lifestyle are going straight to hell. The God that I know is a benevolent and kind God who loves all of his children and created all of us in his image and likeness. That is still true, right? And God loves everyone all the time for no reason and he will never forsake any of his children. This is also still true, right? So what is all the gay bashing about coming from these so called "saved" individuals. How can you look at another human being, who is a living breathing, beautiful individual and say "You're going straight to hell." What? You mean to tell me that priests and pastors who have molested countless children, engaged in fornication, adultery and not to mention greed are going to heaven because they have repented and asked for forgiveness so  therefore they have a first class ticket to go see the Lord? Really? Meanwhile, someone who lives a good life, abides by the law, prays, and operates like everyone else is going straight to hell because they are gay? I beg your pardon? That doesn't sound like the loving merciful God to me.

In the past few weeks the world's attention has been caught by one young man's suicide. Tyler Clementi  was one of the latest victims of bullying and a violation of rights because he was gay. What is that about? What is the epidemic about? Is it new? Of course it is not new, but now because there are more GLBTQ groups around the plight is eased a little bit. When we think gay, we often imagine hardcore lesbians with bad hair cuts and wrangler jeans, or an extremely feminine man with bad makeup and a red feather boa.WAKE UP!!!! Gay, Lesbian, Transgendered and Bi-sexual people can look like anything. They aren't spectacles and they don't have to walk around with a sign that says....I AM GAY! Lately many celebrities have come out to talk about their own horror stories about being bullied because they were gay. However, just as many of them come out to speak out it seems like another gay attack occurs, and each more brutal than the next. Why?

I have heard people close to me say being gay is so nasty, its unnatural, its an abomination and the worst thing a person could do to their families. As Kyle from Glee asked, "Who the hell would choose to be ridiculed, abused and laughed at?" Some people may argue that there is no way that you could be born like that because it is unnatural. However, unnatural according to who or what? The religious books? If you are going to say its wrong because the bible said so, one of my eyebrows will go up and my mouth will form into a frown. The bible, the same tool that has been used to oppress, scare and intimidate poor people for centuries? That bible? The same bible that justified slavery and the abuse of women? Yea, I am going to go with no on this one because I refuse to turn my back on a beautiful group of people because the bible told me so. Let's not forget that the bible also says to love everyone as you love yourself.

What does Pure Peace say? Pure Peace promotes loving everyone all the time for no reason because love is always the answer. No one deserves to be punished or shamed because of a choice that was not theirs to begin with. Pure Peace doesn't recognizes all paths to GOD and love is our religion. We love everyone and we believe that everyone deserves to live in peace no matter who they are in this lifetime and we do NOT believe in punishing anyone for who they are.

If you or someone you know is having a hard time with being comfortable in their own skin and needs some light in their life, please have them contact Pure Peace Life Coaching.

You can reach us at:

Email: PurePeaceLC@gmail.com
Website: www.purepeacewithlove.com
Telephone: 201-500-7146


Love is the answer

Beautiful...Beautiful...Black Men...This is for you!!!!!!

Originally I was going to blog about something else, but I was sitting here daydreaming about my husband and that triggered something inside of me.I have a deep sense of love and appreciation for brothas and I figure, hey, why not let the world know.

Lets start with the great and the obvious. Black men in every shade is just beautiful. The poetry that lives in the skin, swagger and style of black men is what makes me smile and melt every time.They come in all professions, some legal, some not and some of them are self employed but anyway you a slice it, a hard working brotha is just a beautiful sight. Lately I have been reading all these different posts, and articles about the death of the black man, and forget black men because they only want to exploit sistas, and  how they are always in jail and so on and so forth. Although there is some truth in there about the tribulations of SOME brothers, NOT all of them are bad, on trial and should be thrown away.

This blog is dedicated to brothas period! I don't know what it's like growing up as a Black man in America. I do know though that wherever brothas grow up, there is a stereotype that follows. If he's the sole brotha in a milky white town, he's either the savior or the devil in someone's eyes. He can never just be him, out of the scrutiny of someone. Brothas growing up in the hood, now we all know the stereotypes there; He's bad. He's going to do be bad if he don't stop hanging out with these bad boys. Or the opposite for the quiet and studious ones. He's a nerd, he too quiet, maybe he gay. Lastly, if he's really cute then he's too conceited or he's a player or some girls are always going to fight over him. Can a brotha just live?

I have often wondered though what a brotha thinks about when he is encountered with these plethora of stereotypes daily. I wonder if some of them ever make him cry and want to get away from all the hype. I think of the ones who walked down the wrong path and wonder if it would have been different for them if they could do it over again. I wonder if some of these young guys feel terrible when they are on trial for murder, they must. I truly believe that everyone is born with innocence and something corrupts that innocence and they take a less than desirable path.Is there enough nurturing for young, black boys? Recently I read a case about a father punching his six year old in his chest because he couldn't fall asleep. He punched him repeatedly until he had a seizure and died, all the while his father screaming "Man up" at him. Could that be the issue? Young black boys have to man up because their environment says that they have to before their times? Just questions I have in my mind.

The black men that I have in my life are pretty stellar. Many of them are amazing fathers and husbands. They have beaten the odds of going to prison and dead at a premature age. They hold down careers and are constantly improving. They support their communities by mentoring and giving monetarily. I am grateful for that reality. I honor these men because they have gone above and beyond to make sure that they are not a stereotype. They have satisfied their own personal goals and have made their families proud. These brothas did what they knew was right and I am proud to know them. There are the other brothas who took a path that lead them to a lifetime of Central Booking, prisons and running from the police. I could say they make brothas look bad, but it's not about looking bad at this point. It's about supporting the little ones who are at a high risk of falling into a criminal lifestyle. Those same brothas who made it out of the hood or who made it out of the suburbs with a clean or not so clean police record have a duty to mentor a young boy who is at risk. It will alter his world, not just because a brotha is in his life, but a brotha with the same circumstances but chose a successful path.

I know not every brotha will be like the ones in Tyler Perry's movies but those men do exist. There are those brothas who do some unpleasant things for a number of years and then something changes in their lives and they change for good. Then there are those brothas who lose their lives to prison, drugs, crime and eventually death. Despite where in the spectrum brothas fall, we still need to show them love and honor them. We meaning sistas. I know some people will say that brothas play games, and they play sistas and they are no good and they are dead beats. However, what we need to remember is that they were not always that way, nor were we. At some point in time there was a beautiful coexistence between brothas and sistas and something happened. Something happened that divided the Black family and we turned on each other. We even hated each other and it has become very evident from the way that we speak to each other. Based on speaking to both men and women I have concluded that both parties want the same thing. To be loved with no judgment, not to be confused with to be loved and NOT taught. Both brothas and sistas want these things from each other, but somehow some sistas think that brothas don't have the courage to give them that and some brothas think that sistas are too far removed that they don't even bother.

STOP IT!!!!!!! Everybody needs to stop fronting like they don't need love. Both parties, sistas and brothas. We have all these groups that have popped up placing money over each other and blasting the message that brothas/sistas ain't shit. Really? So if we are all hating on each other, but still desiring a relationship then how do we expect that to happen if everybody is fronting like they hate each other? I understand that there is pain in everyone's past that has probably left some damage in your heart and spirit but one has to remember that not every man is the same. No and I will repeat that, not every man or woman is the same. If you really think about it, if YOU keep encountering the same thing time after time and YOU keep ending up with the same end result and if the common denominator is YOU then could it possibly be that YOU are the same, and YOU have not learned from your previous mistakes and YOU are looking to recreate every relationship to fashion the first? Brothas and sistas, whether it's going to take growing up, altering your thought process and realizing that we are here for each other something must be done. We cannot continue saying that we do not need each other, YES WE DO. The Black family unit is looking to make a strong comeback and we need more younger couples to make that happen.

I was guilty in my former years of saying that brothas weren't worthy. However, a few of my brothers were my reality check on brothas and I realize that I am the source of everything in my life and I had to alter ME. Once I got that I had to clean up my mental and shift my thoughts towards the positive for ME....my whole world opened up. I met all kinds of great brothas, and not even for dating, but just meeting to have conversation. When I met my husband we had great conversations. We talked about past relationships, the black family unit, and we were real with each other. No masks, no hiding, just kept it 100% through tears, truth and sitting on the hopes of creating a very strong, structured family. It is possible for everyone if they allow themselves to be vulnerable and at peace with the chatter in their minds. This blog is about brothas but I cannot possibly write about brothas and not include sistas. We need each other. We need that family unit once again. We need to raise our kids in unity and not every man for themselves. We need to build dynasties again, so that our children can stop dying before their times.

I love BEAUTIFUL BLACK MEN AND WOMEN AS WELL.

Dedicated to my husband, Mr. J.Sylvan : )