Today dawning full of grace

I awoke in D.C. today. I arrived last night and fully expected to find myself here. But more importantly I awoke. I am happy about that. It appears that I may see an old friend tonight. When I was in New Orleans a couple of weeks ago I saw my old firend's son briefly.

This guy (the son) was in the same class as my daughter from pre-school to about fourth grade. Also, his parents were part of the same pan-africanist/cultural Black nationalist community that my wife and I were part of in the 70s and early 80s. As it happens, the parents split and went their separate ways. I saw the mother in San Diego this past spring. She is doing well. Her health is failing but she perseveres. I would visit the father (my old friend)  on each trip to D.C. in the early to mid-90s. But I stop calling on him because it seemed to me to increasingly be an imposition on him and his family life.

The mother told me her son was in New Orleans and suggested that I contact him on my next trip down. Brenda and I planned for the New Orleans trip for about four or five months. During this period I often thought to call the mother and tell her we were going as well as alert the son. But I did neither. Imagine my surprise when I spied him across the room in the convention hall in New Orleans.

Today, after breakfast, my co-worker and I were exiting the restaurant and paused to ask for directions when I recognized the brother walking down the hall. I called to him and he turned looking quizically for the voice summoning him. We embraced and exchanged greeings. He stated that he was trying to arrange lunch with his father and I should join them. I agreed and emailed the father to alert him to our plans.

He suggest that we meet with his father tonight at 8:00 p.m. Me and the father were fairly close associates during a very intense period of his life that saw him going through a number of personal changes. I don't know that I offered much comfort to my friend during that period because I was very judgmental in my youth. I had not experienced any doubts and felt no one else had to unless they chose to. During this time he split with the mother of the boy that is meeting with us, remarried and then split with that wife and his approximately six month old daugther to enter a different relationship. I did not look kindly on that behavior and tried to counsel him in what I considered the error of his ways.

Ideas about family and commitment mixed with our then social and political philosophy of nation building Black nationalism. Of course, there were my own values that were grounded not only in the intellecual idealism of the nationalist political philosphy but also in the traditionalist Southern values of my youth. Suffice it to say that while I judged him I didn't reject him. Even then during my most judgmental period I held to the belief in redemption.

I am please to have this opportunity for a new beginning.





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