This Can't Be Life

     I often think about these things called "life" and "death."  You know, why am I here?  What is my purpose?  Why do we have to die and all that kind of stuff.  When I think about those things, I think about history and my ancestors and all the things that they, as African Americans had to go through.  I wonder if they ever questioned, "Is this really my life?"  I question why one group of people had to endure so much pain and misery at the hands of another race and their only crime was the color of their skin?  It just doesn't seem fair to have to live with the fear of death on a daily basis.  Not of dying from old age or illness but for the color of your skin.  It is an awful thought that at times brings me to tears, but I am also amazed at the strength that my ancestors had to have in order to survive during Slavery, all the way through the Civil Rights Movement and shit, things are not as bad as they were but you still have to have a great deal of strength to be an African American today.
     Can you imagine women who were continuously raped by men who did so because they could and who raped them because they "owned" them.  Imagine these same women who had to give birth to children who were the products of these rapes and see their rapist stare back at them when they looked into the eyes of their child and who more times than not, had to look at their rapist on a daily basis and act like nothing happened.  Imagine being a mother knowing that at anytime your very own children could be sold and you would never in your lifetime see them again.  How heartbreaking is that?
What about the women who watched their husbands, fathers and brothers lynched right in front of them for the sheer reason that a group of people could and did get away with it?  Could you imagine that?  You would have to be strong as hell to have to deal with so much heartache in one lifetime.

     As I think about all that my ancestors had to go through, I am reminded of the Jay Z song that says, "This can't be life.  There's got to be more.  This can't be us."  I wonder if they would have been singling this in the cotton fields as they worked sunup to sundown, receiving no pay, bullshit living arrangements and scraps to eat.  You had to be very strong to endure a life like this and look death in the face on a daily basis.  Yet, through it all, they believed that God would see them through.  They believed when they were raped, beaten, when their families were sold away, when they were hanging from a tree.  They believed and stood on faith.  Could you have done that?  I wonder if they every questioned why God would allow them to have to go through so much?  I wonder if they asked God, "why me?"  I wonder if they, like myself, ever wondered why God would allow such things to happen?
     Now, fast forward some 100 or so years later, when the unimaginable happens, i.e. the Massacre in Colorado, you have to wonder how in the heck was this all in God's plan?  Since God knows us before we are born and knows every aspect of our lives and how it will end, did he know that innocent people would die when going to the movies by a crazy person or does the devil supersede God's plans and things happen that he didn't foresee?  I mean really, why would you plan for someone to die in such horrific ways?  I don't get that.  I especially don't get when people say after someone has died, "that it was God's will."  REALLY?  How fucked up is that? God really planned for innocent children to be gunned down, people dying in fires, lynched, from diseases, etc is all in "the plan?" I don't understand that!  Don't get me wrong, I believe in God but I just hate the concept of having to die one day and I hate even more that some people have to die in such a horrendous fashion.  Hell, if we have to die why can't we all just go peacefully in our sleep? Why do some people have to suffer before death?  Is this all the fault of that bitch, Eve?  She messed up eternal life for all of us.  She single handily screwed us all up for a damn apple?  Then, the people in the time of Abraham had to start acting a damn fool and God reduced everyone's lifespan to 120 years.  I swear, some people really can mess some shit up!  Thus here we are in 2012, dying way to young and some of us are enduring unimaginable suffering all around the world and have been doing so throughout the pages of history.  Left alone with all of these thoughts I begin to hum to myself, "This can't be life. There's gotta be more.  This can't be us!"