Move, B****, Get Out Da Way

A couple of days ago, these two women claiming to be Jehovah’s Witnesses showed up at my door. I don’t know about you but, whenever I’m in the mood, I have a good time with Jehovah’s Witnesses. I like the way they start to shift from foot to foot when I begin to bring my point home that, yes, they’re nothing more than proselytizers and, yes, their only reason for being on my doorstep is to get me to see things their way. To recognize and agree that this world is in chaos because folks have turned their back on Jehovah God. Of course, they vehemently deny this.

“We’re here to share knowledge with you,” is the response I often get.

To that, I simply smile, because I know better. They believe that through sharing the knowledge given them by their white founder (amazingly, some of them have no idea who founded the religion), they’ll convince me to join their fracas—the saving fracas. The one that requires them to go house-to-house knocking on the doors of people they don’t know, trying to influence them to get in while the gettin’s good, if they expect to be part of that 144,000 that will be called up to heaven.

Each time they stop by, I practice civility (because my mama taught me to) while, at the same time, dispensing my own brand of knowledge. I also ask the tough questions—the ones their religious indoctrinations will not allow them to ask, answer or even consider, for that matter. Eventually, like a Ludacris song (can’t believe I’m quoting him), they end up having to “move, b****, get out da way, get out da way,” because can’t nobody save me or anybody else through religious intonations.

Now, bear with me as I shift gears. I used my recent experience with the Jehovah’s to make the point of folks always out to save somebody. And do take into consideration that the majority trying to do the saving are oftentimes worse off, meaning saving ain’t been working for them so how are they going to work it for you?

The same can be said as it regards those near and dear to us or maybe not that near and dear but important to us in some way. Despite there being every indication these folks don’t want to be saved, we cling to them like our lives depend on it. We’re their crutch. We’re their toilet (because usually they’re constantly shitting on us). We’re everything we believe they need us to be. But, in the end, we find that all that still isn’t enough. Over time, it can make us bitter, make us resentful of these particular people and all people who appear to fit the same mold. It’s not unusual for us to end up wondering if anybody or anything is worth investing our time or if life is just one fruitless journey.

Case in point: My mother made her transition this past December. Anyone that knew my mother knew that she was the duct tape that held our family together. No matter how much of the weight she had to bear, she did whatever it took to hold up every one under pressure. Her Achilles heel, if anything, would have to be that she cared too much and didn’t know when to let go and let life.

Her most significant saving project was my brother. While I can’t be sure whether it was due to some nagging guilt about his predicament (my brother was shot and left paralyzed from the waist down at 13) or just because it was her way—or a combination of both—she spoiled this boy until he was so rotten he stunk. Did everything for him: washed his clothes, his body, cleaned and doctored his wounds, cooked his meals, managed and paid his bills, cleaned his filthy sheets, put up with his drunk rants (of which there were many), stressed and lost sleep over his uncanny ability to fly drunkenly through windshields multiple times and survive, used her last dollars to buy him cigarettes and more alcohol (which he didn’t need).

There was nothing she wouldn’t do for her “dook,” as she called him. She did so much for her dook that her dook, at 38, now seems incapable of doing anything for himself. There were times he lashed out at her for all she had done. Times when he told her how much she was smothering him, how she never allowed him to be a man. In all her attempts to save him from himself, I came to realize that she was actually helping him to drown in his own fears, in his own tears.

My mother’s death was unexpected, so there was no time for her to explain to him how to keep house should she die, what bills needed to be paid, how to manage his money, how to use an ATM card, how to balance a bank account. She never got the chance to tell him that the only reason he could have cigarettes and liquor all month long was because she paid for it with her money. She also never got to tell him that once he paid all the loans he’d initiated without reconciling his finances, he had no income left for the month.

So, basically, he found himself flapping in the wind when she died. For the first time in his life, he was on his own. For all the years he’d said, “you never allowed me to be a man,” he was now being tossed into manhood. My mother’s ability to save him from himself was to be no more.

Out of all the things I’ve noticed since my mother has been gone, the one that stands out the most is that through all her saving, she never taught him how to cope with life and its complexities. How to deal. That’s the element that was always missing. She thought that she could do the coping for him. She didn’t think ahead to the day when she wouldn’t be there to cope for him.

Today, my brother has me, he has my sister and his nieces and nephews, and we do love him, but we can’t be the savior my mother was. For one, it’s not healthy for him. Two, we just don’t have that same saving complex about us because we know how it ends and the burden it entails. The relationship between my brother and mother provided us an excellent example of that.

The same can be said for your relationships with others where you strike out to save them from the perils of life and, most times, from themselves. There comes a time when you need to take the advice of a person I still can’t believe I’m quoting—not just for them, but for yourself, too—and “move, b****, get out da way.”