You ever met somebody that was mad at life? I mean really mad, furious. So mad that they would beat life down if they could. But you and I know that you can’t touch life like that. You see life will choke you down to your knees, body slam you, pin you down and won’t let you up, if you ain’t careful. When the chips fall and the game is over, life is gonna be the winner every time. Being respectful of life means more than saying yes sir and no sir, Mr. Life. You got to cut out all that bitterness and learn how to live in life. Some folks that can’t take out their frustration on life, they grab whoever is closest to them—their family and friends, people who love them.
Now Life is kind of like a deck of cards. You shuffle them and you get what you get once the hand is dealt. Nobody wants a bad hand but it happens. If you’re smart, you’ll learn something from that bad hand. When old Life throws lemons at you, you better make lemonade—and make it sweet. That’s right when it’s storming in your life and you don’t see sunshine no where in sight you better not lay down and cry woe is me. Only the strong survive the circles of life.
Something else about Life, it don’t discriminate. It don’t care who gets the bad hand and who gets the good one. You ask yourself a hard question, what do you do if you’re on the bottom and want to get to the top? Simple, get life’s ugly hand off your throat so you can breathe because if you don’t negative stuff will be flying out your mouth about everything. When this happens, you won’t be able to see the trees because all that negative stuff will be nothing but a big old forest and will blind you on what you really should be seeing.
You know something else too? Sometimes you look at life and wonder why you can’t get no place especially since you changed your life—snatched it out the hands of the devil and turned it over to the good man up above, like Cousin Charles keeps saying he’s done. Well some folks seem to forget that you got to reap what you sow. Your sins are forgiven but you still got to pay for all those bad seeds that you sowed. That’s right all the wrongdoing you did for years before you turned right ain’t in the clear yet!
“Jesse,” Cousin Charles looked at Daddy and dropped his head in his hands. “Ain’t nothing in the South for a black man but problems and trouble. As soon as I finish this crop, I’m heading north to Detroit. Did you see those Cadillacs that Rico and Jimmy drove down here for the family reunion three months ago? Even Junior Boy lives in Chicago and got a nice ride and decent clothes. Look at me!”
He pulled on his tattered overalls and worn out plaid shirt and cursed. He did look like Bozo the clown. Cousin Charles picked up that empty whiskey bottle off the ground and threw it at the moving train with all his might. Glass shattered as it hit the side of the rail. Boy was he mad at life!
