Ain’t God Alright?!? 🙌🏾

The emotional struggle I felt since Friday was heavy. So much so, that I didn’t know how I was gonna show up for the Vlog yesterday. I went to visit the family who lost their loved one and they gave me some strength. We swapped stories as children watching their parents age and how we can’t get them to answer their phones, I listened to the ones who are in my mother and her sibling’s age range discuss their relationship with cell phones and how they don’t keep them on their “hip”, and hearing the laughter and screams from the children playing in the yard while also being told to stay on the grass made things so much better!

I tried my best to get home by 5 o’clock but didn’t quite make it so I had to go live from the car. We quickly started with the surprise prayer from Pastor Courtney because she needed to go celebrate her husband’s birthday. I need y’all to listen to it because I only asked her for a back-to-school prayer; I had no idea she would offer a full sermon. Had me on there crying and stuff…

Make sure you have some “Stand in the Gap” friends 🙏🏾🙌🏾 https://www.instagram.com/tv/Cg7tr0zJqTy/?igshid=YmMyMTA2M2Y=

To get the guys on together and hear Jaylin say he’d been waiting to come back on live did my heart good. Then to be surprised by Deshawn who seems so different than just a few weeks ago at graduation. I’m (the viewers too) so excited to watch him succeed!

I get a tad bit concerned when they get on together 🫣🫢😂 https://www.instagram.com/tv/Cg73u7UJTml/?igshid=YmMyMTA2M2Y=

I rushed to post the videos and change clothes because I needed to take my mom to see The Eve of Jackie with her sisters. As I was pulling out of the complex I saw a cousin and his family walking like they live here. Come to find out, they DO live here 🤭! Sean gets on my nerves, but I can’t wait to go to dinner with Yolanda because she has always been so kind to me (she got it from her mother whom I adore!).

We talked too long so I REALLY had to rush because I was determined to get my mother there “on time” (right at 8p, but before the show actually started). I planned to go to Vendor’s Market at the Convention Center AND the Urban League but, after finally finding a place to park, I ran into friends who engaged in conversation about their children and their college lives where I once again learned I’m not alone. *Spirit went higher*

Briefly walked through the Urban League since many of the vendors were packing up and Janel (Earbobz) wasn’t there. By then it was time to get my mom. I drove around looking for street parking, but ultimately had to go to the deck which turned out to be perfect!

Didn’t know my nearly 80-year-old uncle was out with the sisters and that is when the party started…

Wheeled my mother up to the Convention Center where my aunts said I was going too fast and my mother needed a seatbelt 🫣🙄🤷🏾‍♀️😂. The aunts and uncle went shopping while my mom and I stayed in the lobby and did some OUTSTANDING people watching 👀.

We waited for the shoppers to get what they could before the vendors shut down, and my mother asked me to call the Village Chief, Nigel Alston. I FaceTimed him and Ms. Sarah to ask about the closing parade. Technology is such a powerful connector and means so much as people continue to age, because while we were so close in proximity, FaceTime was the best way for all parties to engage. 🤗🙌🏾

The people watching continued as I saw high school classmates, I was able to schedule a Kijiji interview, my mother’s best friend and her children came so they were able to sit together and talk, I saw former Mount Tabor football parents/grandparents who were so excited to share their college move-in stories, and community members I engage with through Kijiji and Nourishing Forsyth.

My nearly 80-year-old uncle (from Key West, former basketball player, and retired Dade County educator) to my aunt/his wife: I haven’t been out this late before.

My aunt (from Winston-Salem, graduated from a Seventh-Day Adventist College, and a retired Seventh-Day Adventist Principal) to my uncle/her husband: I have!

Me: When 👀🫢

Her: 🙄

Her to me (in her head, I think): Mind your business 💁🏾‍♀️

~1130p…My nearly 80-year-old uncle (who’s not from here and doesn’t live here, remember, so who does he know besides us?) goes outside and gets missing for a little bit, only to come back and say he had to go speak to a Frat brother. *Things only the Black culture and the NBTF can do*

We ended the night with the NBTF closing parade. My mom and her best friend heard it but were not interested in getting up to go see it. That is also where and when I was able to capture this moment…

Michai didn’t want to go because he said it was for old people, a former teammate’s family told me he left for the same reason, and a cousin couldn’t keep her mouth closed from yawning because she said she was ready to go since no one her age was there. We have to get them engaged.

This was my aunt and uncle’s first experience at the NBTF because they have always had to return to Miami to prep for school during this time of year. I hate they were here for a sad occasion, but grateful they were able to witness it. Even if we get my sister, brother-in-law, and other cousins to come, Michai probably won’t want to. Either way, I’m so glad last night/this morning ended/began as it did because these are moments we probably won’t witness again and in the words of Jackie Wilson, played by Chester Gregory for the last time, “Your (Their) love keeps lifting me higher and higher”!

Present downtown but not in the pic…De’Ron, Nhyla, and Michai. Also not pictured but I think is now part of the family…Harry Harris, Sr. whose conversation about Blackness gained a new friend in my uncle on the back left, and his scholarship ideas are something I’m going to share with the guys.

I hope y’all see why I defend my city, some of the people in it, and why I get hype about the NBTF each year it comes. Memories are made…

OAN: I’m in the house all day while Michai has the car out celebrating. So for those who think we’re joined at the hip…1. Mind your business 💁🏾‍♀️ 2. We aren’t and 3. Make sure you remind him that the locks will be changed, so just as he thinks he’s about to be free, so am I, so he might wanna call before he comes home 😂🤣😂🤣