This is one of three(3) poems I composed while locked away inside my 6x9 concrete grave after learning that the two women instrumental in raising me had passed away within ten days of one another. My grandmother (aka "Mommie") and her daughter Pansy, passed away in 2001.
Pansy died 02/26/01, like the courageous and brave Queen she always was in my eyes and in the eyes of those who knew her. She battled a very rare and incurable form of cancer, and after about a year long battle, she became very bad off and she called all the family together, then told the home health personnel present to disconnect her from some machine she had been hooked-up to because she was ready for whatever the good lord wanted with her. She died later that day at home.
Damn that woman was special, and she did something few of us would of ever done that February 26th day.
Well Mommie was already distraught by the fact that her eldest child (Pansy) had an incurable form of cancer. Coupled with that, Mommie was having her own health problems, namely difficulty breathing which required her to use a breathing apparatus machine. Mommie, told Pansy, "I'll be right behind you". Mommie was admitted into the hospital a few days later and with the incompetence of HealthSouth HMO doctors/nurses (who gave my Mommie wrong meds causing her internal bleeding ;which they said was just stomach aches or gastric problems etc.,) Mommie got her wish and died ten days later on March 06,2001. Yeah they let my Mommie bleed to death, at Health South, in Clearwater, Florida.
My family never told me the truth about all the factors contributing to Mommie's abrupt demise. I'd only find out the truth out on my birthday last year when I had to make a emergency trip from Texas back to Florida, because HealthSouth had again failed to read patient charts, thus causing my "biological mother" to suffer internal bleeding and cause her kidneys to stop; requiring her to be placed on dialysis machines.
My family knew I would take Mommie's (and Pansy's) death hard. That was always my biggest fear. I know it's all prisoners biggest fear to be locked away and have a loved one pass. To make matters worse, I was on CM 1 status under false pretense, and the FDOC was not about to consider allowing me to attend the funeral of either relative. Had the beating incident of May 06, 1997 at Charlotte Correctional not occurred, I would of been home to properly pay my respects to these two Lovely African Queens. So in lieu of being there I cried and cried for days, cursing myself, the walls around me the FDOC, the guards who beat me that May 06th and other times, and all those who'd wrote me bogus DRs which pushed my release date back. I cursed society for not seeing the correlation between, out-dated or non-existent social programs, teen pregnancy, hopelessness, poverty, drugs, unemployment, crime, violence, prisons.
As always I searched to gather myself because I could of went over the edge like I witnessed many others do while on CM status. The pen has always been my weapon (ask FDOC and other elected Florida officials) and my friend, so I wrote the 3 poems I shall be sending to you all. Writing these poems took up many days , but it was good for a guy in my situation. I must say these poems are probably the reason I'm still here on earth today.
Thanks for your love, support and for just listening. Remember I been deprived of such social interactions, and this past year it has come slow with me, but thanks to people like you all I've done better than a lot of people coming out of a sensory deprivation chamber.
Much luv, and respect,
Sharif
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