Good bye My Love ( The Second Loss)

 It`s been quite a few months since I've done any writing on this blog. It seems my life is always chaotic and I just cannot seem to find the time to sit down and and transfer my thoughts to words. But , alas that my friends is nothing but a lie. The true reason why I have not written anything in almost a year is because I have finally reached the part in my story that I dread the most, the part where I talk about his death. For me it has been this one singular thought, if I write it out, I am speaking it into existence, and I will finally have to acknowledge what I've managed to keep at bay for the last four years, Shamar is dead and he is never going to smile, hug, kiss me, or see his daughter grow up. So, why am I writing today your wondering? I`m writing because something traumatic happened to me today and the only way to clear my mind was to write... so here I am.

When Shamar got released from jail, he came home, but somehow, I knew something was different. I noticed that his legs were very swollen and his skin was very yellow. I told him to go see a doctor but he insisted that he was fine, that it was the lights in the house casting a yellow tint on his skin and that the reason why his feet were swollen is because he was wearing slippers when he was locked away and I accepted his explanations. So what finally got him to go to the doctors? one day he broke out into an all over itch that wouldn't go away. Nothing worked and after trying numerous creams , he finally conceded and decided to go to the hospital. We called his mother to pick him up, as I did not drive at the time, as she was leaving, I told her that he was going to be admitted, she asked why and I said, look at him, his skin and his eyes are beyond yellow, there is no way they are going to release him tonight and sure enough I was right. After several hours she called me and said, the nurse took one look at him and immediately admitted him. They said he had jaundice and they needed to run more tests . Two days later, we were all hit with the news, his liver was failing and he would need a liver transplant in order to live. The hospital decided that while he was sick, he wasn't sick enough to stay there, so they released him into my care to come home until a liver became available for him.

Now , I had always been the stay at home mother, but now Shamar was bedridden, so I had to get a job. I went and applied to Shoprite, a local supermarket near where we lived, I got the job and started working nights there. So here I was now, during the day taking care of Shamar and a two year old baby. His mother nor father was no where in sight, and I say this here so that later when I talk about his family, you can understand my rage. Shamar lasted two months at home, I cooked, gave him his bathes, rubbed him down and made sure he was comfortable. I got a new bed for the bed room and a new TV so that he was comfortable. I was sleeping in the living room, because he had lost so much weight, that I was afraid if I slept next to him, I might roll over and break him somehow, silly huh? Shamar did not like that. One of the most vivid memories I have of him was the day he looked up at me and said, why don't you sleep in the bed with me anymore, whats the matter, you don't love me anymore? that almost broke my heart in two, so I started sleeping in the bed with him.  About the ending of June, I started noticing that he was sleeping more than usual and he wasn't eating that much. I asked him if he felt any different and he assured me that he felt fine. One night, I came home from work and I saw that he was in the same position I had left him in and his water glass was still full. I woke him up and helped him drink some water and then I fed him some food. About four in the morning I woke up to Shamar standing at the foot of the bed, I asked him what he was doing, he replied that he was using the bathroom. He then proceeded to pee all over the bedroom floor, then he climbed back into bed and went to sleep. I realized that he thought he was in the bathroom and I knew that his condition had worsened. I remember crying my eyes out as I cleaned up the pee. I called out from work that day to stay home with him. I called his mother and told him what had happened and that I wanted her to come take him back to the hospital. She said she was at work and I had to wait until she got off. Late that afternoon, Shamar got very confused, he went into the shower fully clothed and tried to turn on the water, stating that he wanted to take a shower. I had to wrestle him out of the bathroom and into the living room because he did not recognize who I was. I locked my daughter int the bedroom and called 911,  when they finally arrived, Shamar was screaming at the top of his lungs, completely delirious. They took him out the house in a straight jacket. Shamar never left the hospital after that.

They moved him to a hospital up north to prepare him for the transplant. The last time Shamar spoke to me, was when I went to visit him, via his mother. He was receiving a blood transfusion and was looking very weak. He asked how I was doing money wise and I said we were fine, because even in that state he was more concerned about me and his daughter. He looked up at me and said, don't leave me, don't worry, I`m going to get this liver and I`m going to be fine, then we are going to do all the things we talked about. I kissed his lips and we exchanged I love yous and I left. When I got home, my phone started ringing, Shamar had gone into shock, but they were able to revive him. Now because I didn't drive at the time and I was also working, I wasn't able to visit as much as I wanted. I kept asking his mother how he was doing and she kept telling me he was fine. I finally got a day off and rode up there to see him. As I was walking to the room, his mother said, Debbie, just to warn you, he looks a little bit different. I said ok and walked in, my heart left my chest and fell to my feet. Shamar was hooked up to at least seven different machines, he wasn't even breathing, he had a machine pumping air into his lungs, I looked at his mom and said , cant you see that he`s dying, he`s not even breathing, why didn't you tell me he was like this???!!!! she had no response. His doctor came in and explained to me that I could speak to him, but he doubted that he would hear me. I kissed his face and took his hand in mine and I begged him to fight, I told him that he could not leave me and our daughter all alone in this world, and as I said those words, a single tear fell from his eyes and I completely broke down. Shamar died a few days later on July 6th, 2010 at 2:30 am and with him went my heart and a piece of my soul.

Loss Number One

In 2007, Shamar was making good money through his "business". We started looking for a way to make it all legit on paper, just in case Uncle Sam started looking our way. After racking our brains, I came up with an idea. Why not invest the money into stocks, and if we make a profit, we would be washing the money and making it clean. Now we had no experience , no knowledge of the stock market , but Shamar trusted me and gave me nine thousand to invest , just to see if it would work. Now, with no help, I started watching Bloomberg TV to try and get and idea on how to go about trading. At the time solar energy was a big topic and I decided that we needed to invest in that market. But what company? how many stocks? should I go all in?? I had no idea. After a few days, I had a list of possible companies, now came the process of elimination... at the time, my favorite show was CSI Miami , and there was a company on my list who's stock symbol was CSIQ ( Canadian Solar) and that's the company I chose. We walked into Charles Schwab and placed the nine thousand in an account, then we stared buying shares of CSIQ.

After a few weeks all nine thousand was placed into CSIQ, and then wonders of wonders, we started making money! it was unbelievable. With in the space of six months our nine thousand turned into twenty and the bank was willing to loan us their money so we could do more trading. At first I told Shamar not to touch the banks money, because I realized that it could end up hurting us in the future. But it was like fast money to Shamar, we would go to bed and wake up the net day up another thousand. He wanted to do it bigger and better. He made the decision to trade with the banks money, sell CSIQ and do day trading instead.

Day trading was much more risky because , instead of having  your money sit in one company for lets say a year, each day you were instead moving your money from one company to the next, jumping from one stock to the next. Shamar loved it. He loved that in the space of ten minutes he could make a thousand dollars, but her never knew how to walk away, for every thousand he made each day, he lost about four. Anyway , by the beginning of 2010, We had turned that nine thousand into eighty five thousand and change. I think that we did  pretty good for a couple of first timers. However, all good things must come to an end, two months before Shamar went into the hospital for the last time, The stock market took a dive and while I begged with Shamar to sell the stocks we had, he insisted that we hold steady and yep you guessed it, we lost it all. When Shamar died, I had three thousand dollars to my name, between his court fees and lawyer fees for when he was arrested and him giving away majority of his money in the height of his madness, I was left literally broke. This was my first loss of 2010.