Dice Presents: Delusional Deaths and Farcical Funerals

                                                       

It's the white elephant in the back of your subconscious.  The inconvenient truth of our mortality is something we grapple with passively or pro-actively.  Some of us are content with our fate ("when its your time to then its your time to go") while others obsess over it...maybe not to the lengths of Tupac where we're dam near prognosticating our untimely demise and how it will happen BUT obsess over it, nonetheless.

With that said I'm sure everyone has done this:  Imagine your own funeral.  You want to know how it will turn out----who's life have you affected enough that they will come out and show you love?

If you're like me then you've had visions of grandeur in how your homecoming would unfold.  I want the effect of my departure to be a mixture of Biggie's and Dr. MLK Jr's homecoming where my loved ones in all major cities swarm the street in tear dropping melancholy and disbelief which inevitably leads to me having a national "hood holiday" in memoriam.  The vision continues.

Upon entering Ford Field in Detroit (there was no church in America large enough to host my homecoming considering the SuperBowl/AllStarGame hysterical demand and requests to attend---the Lions game was also suspended as a result) you see thousands of people congregating and fellowshipping with each other.  Droves of people jostle for position to form lines designed to pay their respects to my family, while "The Godfather" anthem dramatically plays in the background, emphasizing the magnitude of the moment.  I can see people now kissing my old mans pinky ring on bent knee..."My condolences 'DiceFather', your boy was a shining light in this dark world, he will be sorely missed. We'll never fully recover, we'll just have to learn to deal with it."

Suddenly the man is cut off by a video tribute being played on the Lions' big screen Jumbo Tron.  It starts off with a montage of my childhood pics and continues with various soundbites and highlights.

The tribute is concluded and there's an 8 minute pause of subsequent weeping, crying and emotion permeating throughout the crowd.  One by one, family members come to the stage and speak---Momma, Momma-Cia, Diddy, Donny, Mwat', Mai, Layla (she makes the crowd laugh when she re-enacts our signature tiger roar), Auntie, Karl, Kevin, Anthony, Jerry, Grandma, Piggy and all other family members who can momentarily suspend their grief and summon up enough courage to give their two cents for ole Dicey Dice.

Only because of time and logistics (shout out to "Junior" BG, "Fruit" T Smooth and the rest of my 313 crew, Gerald, Kedar, and Kam) but the homies Low-P, Troop and Flippy Don speak on my behalf while providing comic relief and exclusive insight to my life. Thanks for giving the mood a much needed and refreshingly new dynamic.  Steve I know you'd hold me down too but I don't want you to stumble on your words and Lim, my "Prestige" Hugh Jackman 'frienemy', Im not sure what terms we'll be on at that point. It must go without a hitch!

Of course the world's most beautiful women in the world are there (comprised of fans, celebs,friends, family and my ex flames, "wouldve been/shouldve/couldve been flames"---memo: you shouldve gave me the buns when I was alive).  Some will speak, others will just serve as eye candy, highlighting and reminding my guys that I was always in company of beautiful women.

Ironically, said chicks that I didnt "get with" in person, are so impressed with my classy homecoming and how eloquently my life was described that they get with some of my best friends.  Great.  I'll be posthumously living vicariously through my friends.

On a good note,however, my old man ends up writing my biography and an additional book highlighting the importance of fathers and sons fostering a relationship.  I live forever as the true Legend of Dice.

But I digress. Or should I say delusionally dream?  Recently I told a close friend of mine then if he'd ("he" in general, meaning any of us 'commoners') die, that aint nobody gonna think about him...in regards to people pro-actively treating his life like a movie or book; trying to investigate and unravel layers of fabric that defined him as a man and glorify him.  I told him 'if we want to live forever and be remembered, we have to do something extraordinary and big.'

We laughed about that until the recent and senseless, tragic killing of the Chicago Angel Hadiya Pendleton.  The whole nation felt her loss, and before the nation did, the city of Chicago did.  Hadiya was a student of my aforementioned friend, who's also a CPS teacher.  Before the whole nation caught wind of what happened, my friend was stricken with grief and mentally damaged.

My friend told me she was the sweetest little girl ever and was special.  He also told me authorities found her laptop and personal notes so contradictory to what I said, someone will probe and investigate her life.  Her story will continue.  Hell, even Kobe Bryant tweeted about her.  So yes, someone is and was thinking about a commoner...

So now I guess the lesson I learned is this: you don't have to be a "hero" to be remembered and appreciated.  As long as you have a good heart and tried to please God, you are a hero.  And that sounds like everyday people....The "everyday" person who continues to maintain and do the right thing through God is the hero. Because of that, they will love ("Freudian" slip), umm "live" forever. And that's not delusional at all.  That's real.