All Boys Aren't Blue by George M. Johnson

All Boys Aren't Blue by George M. Johnson

Author:George M. Johnson
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux (BYR)


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I was about to turn twenty-one when I got the call that he had been hospitalized with congestive heart failure. His strength mirrored his stubbornness, especially when it came to his own health. He had a fear of hospitals and doctors, as many Black families do. Medical mistreatment and discrimination have made us distrustful of places responsible for our health. So, we wait till we are damn near dead before we go.

He was literally lying in his bed barely able to breathe when my brother Garrett walked by his bedroom and saw him struggling. Garrett told him, “Either I’m taking you to the hospital or I’m calling the ambulance. But either way, you are going.”

We were planning to celebrate my twenty-first birthday in Jersey, and I had brought all my line brothers with me. I was in my final semester of college at Virginia Union University, and the party was supposed to be in Plainfield.

It was about two hours before the party when I went up to the hospital to see him by himself. I just wanted to make sure that he got to see me on my birthday, and I him. I walked into the room and saw him sitting there watching TV with a full-faced oxygen mask on. It was the first time I’d ever seen my father with a scared look on his face. I’m not sure if he was scared by how bad he’d let his health get or scared for me to see him in such a vulnerable state—the strongest man I knew now reduced to that hospital bed.

I sat down beside him for a few minutes—extremely nervous and scared to see him so sick. In that moment, all the little arguments and head-butting we’d been having seemed so frivolous.

“I wish you could come tonight,” I said.

“Yeah, me too,” he said. He looked so disappointed. I think he realized that the sometimes-selfish man he could be came with a cost, too. Missing this milestone for me was that cost. I assured him that it was okay, and the most important thing was for him to get out of there.

I went on that night to have my twenty-first birthday party with the rest of my family by my side. All of my cousins, the village, and some of their friends came to celebrate me officially becoming an “adult.” It was a bittersweet evening. I kept wanting my dad to be there with me. It was a reminder of how we can take people for granted. It’s easy to believe that you will wake up every day with the people who were with you the day prior. You watch them age, but do you see them growing old or ever picture them not being here?

Something changed in him the day of the party. When I came back home a few weeks later for Thanksgiving, he seemed to be happy and much more appreciative of life. We drank together, legally, for the first time. And when it was time for me to return to Virginia, he hugged me.



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