by Mark Anthony
“You’re gonna be in heaven, baby. You’re gonna be in heaven with Jesus. God just needed a point guard, baby. You’re gonna be an MVP in heaven, don’t worry.”
I then told Nicole that I need a few moments alone with him. And Nicole nodded her head and she left the room so I could be with LL.
I cried uncontrollably as I hugged LL’s body and then I gripped his hand and I began talking to him.
“L, you know what I never got a chance to tell you? Daddy never got a chance to tell you that I was sorry. I’m sorry for disrespecting your mother the way I did. I’m sorry for being a grown-ass man and living like I was a insecure teenager. I didn’t want you to see that DMZ episode because I didn’t want you to see your daddy in a bad light. But the truth of the matter is that you just taught me what a real man is. A real man isn’t a coward. A real man accepts responsibilities and a real man honors the decisions that he’s made. A real man is proud to be a family man. A real man doesn’t get his self-esteem from sexing a bunch of women. LL, a real man protects his family to no end. And I am so sorry, LL,” I said through snot running down my nose and into my mouth. “If I had been a real man and lived like a real man, you wouldn’t be in this position right now. I am so sorry. And I can promise you that you have my word that from this point forward I will start finally living like a real man.”
I kissed LL on the cheek and then I walked back over to the door and asked Nicole to come back in.
Nicole could tell that I was crying and she hugged me and rubbed on my back as we embraced each other. Me and my wife both wept uncontrollably. It was without a doubt the worst thing I had ever experienced in my life. But I went and found the doctor and I relayed our wishes to him of what we wanted to do with LL. The doctor had us sign all kinds of paperwork and he asked us if we wanted a priest or any other type of religious professional present, but we declined that. And we also declined speaking to a social worker and all of the other procedural things that they had in place for situations such as this.
“We’re at peace. And we’re sure about this decision,” I explained as I held my wife’s hand.
And within five minutes the plug had been pulled on LL and the little bit of life that was left inside of him slipped away and went off to be with the Lord.
Chapter Nineteen
I wasn’t sure where Meagan was and to tell the truth, that was one of the last things on my mind as Nicole, myself, and her sister made it back to the Walt Disney World resort. The resort was very apologetic and accommodating and they put me and Nicole in a suite by ourselves and they put her sister in a nice room as well.
“We’ll have someone bring your things from your old room,” they said to me. “Is there anything else that we can do for you?” they graciously asked.
“No. This is plenty,” I replied.
Everyone associated with LL’s team came to me and Nicole and consoled us and offered us many words of encouragement. And LL’s coach informed us that they were going to withdraw from the tournament.
“No, Coach Cohen. The kids have to play tomorrow. LL wouldn’t have wanted it any other way. It doesn’t matter if they win or lose, just make sure they play and that they play their hearts out,” Nicole said to the coach as she held his hands.
“Nicole, we are so sorry, you cannot even begin to imagine,” Coach Cohen explained.
Eventually me and Nicole made it up to our suite, and we didn’t turn on the television. We simply took off our clothes and laid on the bed and turned out the lights and held each other.
“Baby, this is my fault. I shoulda been there. I should have been there!” I vented in frustration as I started to cry.
“Lance, listen to me,” Nicole said as she sat up. “Listen. Can you control whether or not one strand of hair grows on your head?”
“No.”
“Can you control whether the sun rises or whether the sun sets?”
“No.”
“Only God can control those things and in the same way only God can control life. This was God’s will, Lance.”
I just sighed and shook my head and continued to cry. And me and Nicole both just laid on the bed holding each other as tight as we could and we cried our eyes out for hours. Neither one of us could sleep.
I knew that Nicole was such a big person in every way. I mean, she had every reason in the world to blame me for what had happened and to be bitter and resentful, but she did the exact opposite.
“Let’s just pray,” Nicole suggested.
I wasn’t in the mood to pray in front of Nicole. I didn’t mind praying alone but I felt like praying with her required me to do some more cleaning up of myself so I asked Nicole to pray and she did. She asked the Lord to be with us and comfort us with his grace and the reassurance of knowing that LL was with him in heaven.
“Thank you, baby,” I said to her when she was done praying.
“Nicole, how do we go on with life after something like this?” I asked.
Nicole didn’t have the answer to that question and I certainly didn’t. But just as surely as the sun had set that evening, as me and Nicole lay in the bed consoling each other, the sun eventually began to rise again. And as much as I didn’t want to live, and with as much pain as the both of us were feeling, we knew that just as the sun would continue to rise and fall each day, that life would go on. So somehow, some way, we had to find the strength to continue on the journey of life as God saw fit for us.
Chapter Twenty
In the days following LL’s drowning, Nicole and I had received word from the coroner as to the cause of his death. They listed the cause as accidental drowning. And on one hand, we felt relief because there were absolutely no signs of blunt-force trauma or blunt trauma of any kind, so we knew that LL hadn’t accidentally banged his head or been hit with anything. Yet we were still baffled and there remained this sense of mystery because LL was an excellent swimmer for his age. He had been swimming since he was three years old, so for him to have drowned in the calm water of a swimming pool was just something that we couldn’t comprehend.
The only theory that made sense was what Steve had theorized, which was that LL had likely had some type of cramp or a massive charley horse, which caused him to panic and swallow water and ultimately drown. Steve said that if LL had eaten within the hour of having gone in the pool then the chances of him having cramped up were high and that was likely what had happened.
Only God knew what really had happened, but Steve’s theory made the most sense, because LL had eaten a ton of food only a half hour or so before going into the pool. And I was sure that he had never had a charley horse before, so if he had caught a cramp while in the water I was certain that the pain from that would have freaked him out. So Steve’s theory made sense, but yet it couldn’t be verified.
Eight days after the tragedy, we held LL’s funeral in Brooklyn at the church in which me and Nicole were members of. It was a church called Christian Cultural Center. It was a huge mega-church that seated five thousand people and literally every seat in the church was filled. Although LL’s drowning had gotten some media attention, and it had been mentioned during the announcements at the church during their regular Sunday services, I could have never imagined seeing the sea of people at his funeral. But for LL’s sake I was grateful that they had all come out to his home-going ceremony.
Nicole and I had discussed burying LL in his basketball uniform but ultimately we decided that it would be best if he were buried in a nice suit and that was what we went with. But we were sure to put a basketball inside of the casket with him along with his Riverside Hawks basketball jersey.
His team had went on to win the championship down in Orlando and the team had unanimously decided that LL should be given the MVP award. So next to his casket stood a huge MVP trophy that was at least five feet tall. Around his neck we also placed the national championship gold medal that all of the team members had received. And what LL would have been the most psyched about was the issue of the Sports
Illustrated Kids where his name was listed as a first-team sixth-grade all-American, which basically meant that he had been considered as one of the top five eleven-year-old basketball players in the country.
After the eulogy was given and after a highlight reel of LL was played on the church’s huge television screens, and after everyone had walked by to view his body, tons of people lined up to approach the microphone and say something about LL.
Nicole and I both never had any idea just how many people LL had touched, and seeing all the love that he was receiving was the most comforting and reassuring thing for us.
I was the last one to speak and I had convinced myself that I would not break down and cry but as soon as I approached the microphone and opened my mouth the tears began to flow.
“LL was more than just my son,” I said as I began. “In some ways he was my mentor. And I say that because the word of God says that if we train a child in the ways of the Lord that when he grows up he will not depart from those ways. And as I stand here today, I cannot take credit for raising LL in the ways of the Lord. But without question I can dish out praises to my wife for the way in which she trained LL in the ways of the Lord. She did such a good job that he would have to remind me to pray and remind me to trust God for things. Everyone sees the accolades that LL got for playing basketball and I often used to get asked if I was one of those obsessive fathers that pushed him to play. But I was never like that. What people don’t see and what most would have never realized is that LL fully understood the power of faith and the power of prayer and he would faithfully pray for God to make him taller and pray to God for discipline to practice and I fully believe that God blessed him in the area of sports simply because of how LL relied on God. But as I said, LL was more my mentor than I was his, and so I want to leave everyone with something that I think LL would want me to say. And when I say this, please know that I am saying it more to myself than I am saying it to any of you. In the word of God it says ‘when I was a child I thought as a child and I acted as a child, but when I became a man I put childish ways behind me.’ For all of the children that are in here today, live your life as a child. Live it to the fullest as LL did. But when you get older as I am, remember to put childish ways behind you and live like a man.”
With that, I walked away from the microphone and made my way back to my seat next to Nicole and she gave me a kiss and squeezed my hand.
“That was so nice what you said,” she whispered into my ear.
I thanked her and before long we were making our way out of the church and heading to a cemetery located out on Farmingdale, Long Island.
“Lance,” Toni said to me as she touched me on my arm.
“Hi Toni,” I said as I turned and gave her a hug and an embrace. I was glad to see her.
Toni then said hello to Nicole and I said hello to Toni’s husband Keith. Sahara had been sitting with Toni’s mom.
“Can I talk to you for a second?” Toni asked as she took me off to the side.
“Lance, I just want to say again how sad I am and how sorry I am for what you are going through and for your loss. And Keith and I were talking and I just wanted to let you know that you are Sahara’s daddy and you’re her father so it would only be right that she keeps your last name.”
I motioned for Keith to come to where Toni and I were standing and I shook Keith’s hand and looked him and Toni in the eyes, and I said, “what I just said when I was talking, I meant it and it applies to me. I have really been acting and behaving like a child and Keith, you’ve always shown me respect from day one and from day one you’ve always embraced Sahara and accepted her and loved her as your own. Only a man who has put away his childish ways can raise another man’s child as if she were his own. And so Sahara can and should take your last name. I would be at peace with that.”
Toni looked at me when I was done talking, and she looked at Keith and I could see a tear stream down her eye.
Toni then hugged me and held me tight and massaged my back with her hand.
“I love you, Lance,” she said.
“I love you guys too,” I said and made sure to give Keith a pound to show him respect.
We eventually did make it to the cemetery and the quick service that we had at the cemetery was also packed.
I thought it was hard seeing LL being given CPR, and I thought it was hard seeing him on the life-support equipment in the hospital, and I thought it was hard seeing LL’s body in his casket. But without a doubt the hardest part for me was when LL’s casket was lowered into the ground and people threw flowers on top of it.
I knew then that it was officially over. I wasn’t living a nightmare. My son, my own flesh and blood, was really gone. But the thing that gave me peace was that I knew LL was more than just his physical body. Yeah, his physical body had been placed in the ground and it would return to dust as the word of God says, but I took solace in knowing that LL’s spirit lived on and that his spirit would never die.
Chapter Twenty-one
In many ways life for me after LL’s passing was just one big blur. It was a blur because I had slipped into a serious state of depression. Just about everything had been stripped from me. The six-hundred-thousand-dollar publishing contract that I was supposed to sign had been pulled off the table two days after LL’s drowning. So financially I was ruined. I literally had nothing and I was still on the hook for making restitution to the victims of my DUI accident.
But the truth of the matter was I didn’t care anymore about material things and money and fame and success because I knew that I didn’t have the character to support those things. And until I developed my character, giving me money and wealth and fame would be like giving a three-year-old a loaded 9 mm handgun. I knew that because one night, about six months into my state of depression, I had decided to pray to God. It was something that I hadn’t done in a while.
While I prayed I could remember something in my spirit telling me to just be quiet and to just be still. And as I was quiet and I was still, I heard something ask me if I was done.
“Lance, are you done?”
I nodded my head.
“I asked you, are you done?”
“Yes,” I replied.
“Are you sure?”
“Yes,” I replied and then I remember tears just streaming down my eyes.
“So do I have your attention now?”
I nodded my head.
“I had to break you, Lance. That was the only way that I could get your attention. But what I break I have the power to fix and rebuild.”
I knew what I was hearing was the God’s spirit talking to me. And while I wanted to listen, I also was very angry and I just couldn’t understand why my son had to be taken from me. And I repeatedly asked God why.
“Why, God? Why? Why?” That’s what I said over and over and over again as I cried and prayed as hard as I could. Unfortunately, I never got a direct answer from God as to why LL had been taken from me.
But a few weeks later the strangest thing happened.
Steve had called me and he told me that Meagan was trying her hardest to get in touch with me.
“Steve, I am so done with that life. I’m not trying to go back there,” I said. I was assuming that Meagan had given me some time to mourn and now she was still gonna try and get with me. And I also didn’t want to speak to her because I was assuming that God was trying to test me in some way.
Steve relayed my wishes to Meagan but then a few days later he called me back and said that Meagan had dropped a package off to him and that he just wanted to get it to me so that she would leave him alone.
Against my wishes, Steve came by my apartment and he dropped the package off to me and he didn’t stay long. We small talked for a little while and then he left. The package that he brought with him was inside of an unopened FedEx envelope.
I opened the FedEx envelope and I saw a yellow sticky note that said for me to open the envelope marked number one, read that one first and then
open envelope number two and read that one second. It was signed from Meagan.
So I opened envelope number one and it was a long, handwritten letter from Meagan. It was five pages long with writing on the front and back. And as I read it I quickly realized that Meagan was pouring her heart out to me and at the same time she was releasing a lot of personal things about herself that no one else knew and that she had been bottling up for years.
In the letter she explained how when she was thirteen years old she had become the victim of incest and how her dad had raped her and how he would repeatedly have sex with her up until the time she was sixteen years old and how that had screwed up her self-esteem and her sexuality. She said that it was due to the sexual trauma that she had experienced as a teenager that had caused her to do things sexually as an adult that she later would regret. Meagan wrote:
Lance, I was out of control with my sex life and I took risks and did things that I shouldn’t have done. And while I blame it on what my dad did to me, it came to a point where I was an adult and I had to be responsible for my actions. And so just before you and I had gone to Orlando, I had taken the first HIV test that I’d ever taken in my life because I wanted to start living more responsible. Yet at the same time I was scared and didn’t want to know the results so I waited until I got back from Orlando in order to get my results. And to my devastation the results came back positive, Lance. And that’s what’s inside of envelope number two. It’s the results from my HIV test. I wanted you to see the original date of the test results. And I’m telling you all of this, Lance, because I want you to know that I believe in my heart that the first time we attempted to have sex that things worked out as they did because God was protecting you. And there is not a shadow of a doubt in my mind that what happened with your son was also God’s hand protecting you.
You’re special, Lance. I don’t know what God has planned for your life but if He would protect you the way He has, it has to be for a reason. So although you and I never got to do that interview that you had promised me (smile), I think that you need to interview God on a daily basis until you discover just what it is that He has ordained for you.