The SICKNESS

     Hello Avid reader, well at least I'm hoping that you are an avid reader of this blog lol, the three year anniversary of Shamar's death is close at hand, and you can only imagine the drastic mood change I've had during the month of June. Anyway, tonight I'm sitting here in his shirt and basket ball shorts thinking too much  and I decided to dive back into the chest of tightly closed memories of him and share a bit more. Now, the last chapter I was pulled over on the side of the road with him, trying to convince him to go hoe. Now I guess he must have heard the raw panic in my voice, or maybe he saw the wild fear that filled my eyes, whatever it was, he consented and we made it back home. That first night home, he made me and the baby sleep in the room and he camped out in the living room, a knife at hand ready to fight those who he felt were after him. When a few days went by and nothing happened, he finally calmed down and I was cruelly tricked into believing, or maybe then I was willingly lying to my self.... that he was fine and that we would be OK once again. A few weeks passed, and we laughed at how paranoid he was, he himself saying he could not believe he was acting like that. I laughed but it wasn't a true laugh, for something deep inside me still whispered that he was sick, something deep inside me stirred the deep dark worry that I had in the pits of my stomach.
      The last few weeks that Shamar had being " Healthy", he became a whole new person. Where he was frugal before, he started spending money like water. He insisted on me getting my hair done,  literally and no I'm NOT exaggerating here threw stacks (money) at me and told me to go shopping for me and the baby. Now where most females would have been happy as hell to have this happen, that unease, that bitter fear in my stomach screamed at me that something wasn't right, that this was not my Shamar, for my Shamar had always been a saver, My Shamar would NEVER give me three grand and say go get what I need, No not my Shamar.... to understand why I say not my Shamar... I will explain. For the four years that I was with him, Shamar wore the same thing everyday, a white shirt, blue jeans and his timberland boots, I would jokingly call it his uniform. He drove a beat up Buick when he could have easily had a brand new BMW cash, he would always say, no one needs to know what you have.....  so when he started throwing money at me the alarm bells went off and I worried, man how I worried.. I told him no, I'm ok and every time he gave me money, I would secretly put it back in his safe.  Finally I convinced him that he should put all the money in the bank because I was nervous that he would do something crazy with it. We went and cleaned out the safety deposit boxes and we turned everything over to the bank and yes everything was in my name...... which should tell you how much trust he had in me and how much he didn't trust his family.... I just took a fifteen minute break after writing that last line... the tears blurred my vision and I could not see the screen. Now, If you are smart I'm sure you figured out how we came by this money and if you know anything about banks and their FDIC policy, you may be wondering how I was able to but all this money there and not get investigated.... I will explain this in a chapter soon to come.

        Now, this may seem like a long period of time had pass since his first break with madness, but I assure you it was only a couple weeks. Suddenly, one day he broke out in this itch, It was an all over itch, it was like every inch of him was on fire, nothing would stop it, we tired all the lotions made for sever itch and it didn't work. Finally one night after the itching got to a point where he could no longer take it any more, he admitted that he needed to go to the hospital. We called his mother, (who by the way was absent the whole time during his crazy spell and laughed when I told her how serious it was) and she came to take him to the hospital. While waiting for her to come, I guess the itch got so bad, Shamar took a plate and threw it against the wall, it scared the hell out of Essence and I had to take her into the room to calm her down. His mother finally showed up and as she was leaving I told her, he is not coming home, she said " how do you know?" I said " look at him!, his skin and eyes are yellow, they are gonna take one look at him and they are gonna admit him. Sure enough, she called me an hour later and said yea, the nurse came out, saw his eyes and skin and immediately rushed him inside. So started his days in the hospital, and the end of my life as I knew it......