BEFORE YOU GO (My Words to My Nephew at His Graduation Celebration)

 This is to you, the first little boy to ever become a nephew/son of mine.  You have decided, after receiving my begrudged permission, to grow up and become a man.  You have made the step from being one of “my babies” to being a man of your own.  I decided to relinquish my right to protest, namely because I had no other choice but to accept it.  Protesting would do no good.

And these are my words to you…words of love, advice, thoughts to chew on over and over when you are the inhabitant of a dorm room in a few months…

(1)    You are never alone.  The lonely times in life, the times of indecision, and the times of wishful thinking are ones spent with a Creative God, Who will give you the comfort, the wisdom, and the ability to make wishful thinking turn into dreams-come-true.  Lean so hard on Him that you recognize is the the need for His embrace at all times, and you miss it when you aren’t close enough to Him.  He made you and He knows you…better than any of us ever thought we did.  There is so much more to you than meets the eye, but in His eyesight He sees all of you and loves you so very much.

(2)    You have a brilliant, unique mind.  Use it…over and over…every day…to touch a world that seems to have lost its mind.  Exercise the brilliance so others are blinded by it and come stumbling out of darkness and into light.  Shine forth the brilliance that God placed in you before you were born.  “Can’t nobody shine like you.”  Only you can be you.  Celebrate the uniqueness of your presence on this earth and dare to be the unique individual God designed you to be.

(3)    Do not ever sell yourself short.  When you were a baby, I remember thinking how successful my nephew would be one day – all grown up, walking out the lessons you had learned, shaking off the labels atypical to a Black boy growing up in the home of a single mother.  And I knew that your parenting village would never let you grow up hearing that you could only go so far because of it.  I was part of that village; I am sure that I was not alone in saying that you and your brother would never end up in prison or “slanging dope” or trying to figure out how to parent as a teen father.  And I know we never, ever wanted you to see yourself as anything less than the success you were born to be. 

(4)    Be adventurous; don’t let fear control your life.  Go see the world.  Go meet your life connections.  Go learn that language.  Go shake the hands of presidents, kings, and emperors. Go…go…go…but just make sure you bring us back some souvenirs.   And don’t let fear chase you back to what is comfortable.  Faith puts you in places you’ve never been so you can be the man you never realized you could be.

(5)    Love like you were taught to, like today is all you have.  Love will keep you when everything else is gone, when life takes you on a roller-coaster ride.  Your love is all other people will remember when you have moved on, as well.

(6)    Live with passion.  While making a living is something we all have to do, living with passion is something few people have learned to do.  Whatever you find yourself thinking about most, the activity you enjoy doing more than anything else, it is most likely the source of your greatest passion.  Don’t abandon it or neglect it.  You’ll be sorry when you get older that you ignored the passion and chose to just “grind”.

These are my words of wisdom to you as you enter the halls of college education and beyond.  You will learn so much about yourself, life, and God that you will forever be changed by the education.  But one thing I want you to remember…don’t let anyone change the real you into a false representation of somebody else.  Be the man you were born to be.  Love God.  Love your mama and your little brother.  Love family.  Love true friends.  And everything else will fall into place, as it should.

I am proud of you,

Auntie-Mom  (Auntie Mya)