Put on Your Crown

by Queen Latifah

  The rest of the story unfolded like some sickening nightmare. I don’t even know how it happened, but the next thing I remember was Shakim bundling me into his car. We flew down the highway to University Hospital in Newark, where they’d taken my brother. Shakim was driving fast, but it felt like we were in slow motion. When we approached a red light, I screamed at him to gun it. Stopping was out of the question. I wanted nothing more than to get to that hospital. I had to see my brother.

  Faster, Shakim!

  As we were driving along, the blue skies turned gray, then black, and it started to pour. This storm just came out of nowhere. That’s when I knew how bad it was. I could feel it. Right before something horrible like that happens, you get this knowledge, this little voice inside you letting you know that whatever it is, something’s about to take place and you’d better brace yourself. It could be that hunch you get the moment before your car gets into an accident or a nagging fear when you’re out too late on a deserted street in the wrong kind of neighborhood. It’s like God is trying to give you a heads-up. Whether or not you’re ready to hear it, He’s just letting you know. He’s preparing you for what is about to go down.

  I wasn’t prepared, but I already knew. Winki and I had this connection—a bond. We were both Pisces—two fish swimming up the stream together. He was two years older than me, and he was my hero. We always knew what the other was thinking. It was like we were twins. It was the type of spiritual kinship that only the tightest of siblings can share. But something told me our tie had been severed.

  As we drove into the darkness with the rain whipping into the windshield, we could barely see the road in front of us, but I didn’t care. “Faster, Shakim! Go! Go!” As we pulled up to the emergency entrance, I recognized the motorcycle in the back of a tow truck—the Kawasaki Ninja ZX7 we’d bought him for his birthday. It was mangled and smashed and looked as if it would have been impossible to escape serious injury unless he’d somehow managed to jump off it before it crashed. I started pleading and bargaining with God: “Please, Lord. Please make it all right! I’ll do anything. If nothing else, just this once!”

  The car was still moving when I opened the door and ran out. As soon as I got inside, I saw my brother’s crew.

  “Where is he? Where’s my brother? Is he okay?”

  They didn’t speak. They didn’t have to. I could see it in their faces.

  My mom was there in the waiting room, and her eyes were wet from tears. I collapsed into her arms, crying, hoping, and praying. She was eerily calm. She told me in a soft, steady cadence exactly what happened.

  “Dana, Winki’s been hit and his bike went under the car. Now all we can do is wait.”

  So we waited. And waited some more. The anticipation was unbearable, but we didn’t really want that pain to end, because there was still hope. Then the doctor came into the room. She was still in her scrubs, and she looked haggard and strained. She pulled off her surgical gloves, lowered her mask, and peered down at my mother and me as we sat, clinging together and trembling on the hard waiting room chairs. Then she spoke.

  “I’m sorry. He’s gone.”

  There was a second of stunned silence. Then it came out.

  “No, he is not!” I yelled. “No! You ain’t telling me this crap! You have to do something! Get back in there and help my brother! Get back in there!”

  Circuit Overload

  I was out of my mind. The tears were flowing so fast, I couldn’t see. I was screaming and yelling, but the doctors kept their cool. I guess they’ve seen this type of thing before. They told us they took extraordinary measures to save my brother. They cracked open his chest and used twice as much blood as they normally would on a patient in his condition, because he was a cop.

  We were crying and shaking and trying to make it make sense. But that’s the thing with death. It’s non-negotiable. Nothing and nobody can do anything to change it. And even though you know it, you don’t accept it. But my brother was gone, and he wasn’t coming back.

  That was without a doubt the worst moment of my life. It was life-stopping in every sense. I literally stopped living. It was like when an electric circuit gets a surge of power and it just can’t deal, so it shuts down. Right then and there, a part of me died along with my brother. The only thing is, after all these years, I still feel the pain. Even now, eighteen years later, I can’t talk or write about Winki’s passing without tearing up. A line in “Over the Mountain,” a song I wrote on my last album, Persona, sums it up best: “Wish I could share it all with Wink, and I can still see his face every time I blink.”

  That kind of loss is something you never get over. It leaves a void that stays with you for the rest of your life. You cope and you deal and you learn to move on. But for me, after that night, my life wasn’t the same. And I know deep down in my heart it never will be.

  I know I’m not alone in this. Many of you have suffered this same kind of pain. Everyone goes through loss in life. No one is exempt from it. It doesn’t matter if you’re rich or famous or beautiful or not. Life will come down hard on you, and you’ve got to get back up one way or another. You hit a fork in the road and you can choose either to deal or to self-destruct. For me, that turning point was my brother’s death. You get through it, but not past it. Because you don’t stop loving that person. But you have to keep going. The key is to go in the right direction.

  It took me a long minute to decide. Losing someone so young, with his whole future ahead of him, is unfathomable. My heart breaks for the thousands of family members who’ve lost sons, daughters, brothers, sisters, fathers, mothers, wives, and husbands in Iraq and Afghanistan. How do you ever make sense of a loss like that? I understand exactly what Janet Jackson is going through now. She lost her big brother, too. A few months after his death, she was on an interview with 20/20, and she said it all: “I guess you have to accept what is. But it’s just so… hard.”

  The suddenness of a tragedy like this is cruel. You don’t even get to say good-bye. Someone who is a huge part of your life is ripped away from you, with no warning. You also know it won’t be the last time you have to go through losing someone. The longer we’re here on this earth, the more people we love get taken away from us, and there ain’t a damn thing we can do about it. The only thing we can control is whether we start living again, or not. For months, and months, and months, I chose not.

  Cue the Rain

  I was numb. Angry. Guilty. I had every kind of negative emotion. I blamed God. I blamed myself. That bike I gave Winki for his birthday, the one that gave him so much joy to ride, took his life. I’d lost my rock. My protector. My anchor. The one who made me laugh and believed I could do anything. It was a grief that goes so deep, you can’t find the bottom. It’s something you just don’t understand until you’ve been through it. You swing between disbelief, denial, and uncontrollable sadness. I’d wake up crying and fill my day playing basketball until I was ready to drop, then drink until I fell asleep. I’d wake up the next morning in tears, because nothing I could do would block out the reality that was waiting for me. I stopped working. I dumped my boyfriend. I wanted to love him. I even wanted to get married. But the emotions kept shutting off. There was no point.

  A few years before Winki died, when I was just starting to gain some traction on my music career and good things were coming our way, I wondered if there’d be some ultimate, cosmic price to pay for the success I craved. I don’t know if superstitious is the word, but too much of the good life made me nervous. Maybe it dates back to my childhood, when I thought we had the perfect family and my parents’ decision to separate seemed to come out of nowhere. Ever since then, I didn’t quite trust happiness. Deep down, in the recesses of my mind, I was afraid fame and fortune’s price would be the loss of someone dear to me, like my mother, my father, or my brother.

  So when I did lose Winki, I guess I resented my success. I love and appreciate all that I have now. But even today, if you ask me or my mother if we’d trade place
s with our lives as they are now for what they were back when we had no money and were living in the projects, we’d do it in a heartbeat if it meant getting Winki back. And the irony is, my career had reached a high point at the time of my brother’s accident. Right before Winki died, I was on top of the world with a hit album and a top ten single. I was nominated for a Grammy. I’d just had a ball doing a part in Spike Lee’s Jungle Fever. And then my brother passed, and I stopped caring. When I actually won the Grammy, it kinda made me smile, but only for a second. There was too much sadness for me to be in the moment and really enjoy it. Nothing seemed to matter anymore. Shakim begged me to get back into the studio. We had another album due, but I wasn’t interested.

  This whole time, I didn’t realize how terrified my mother was for me. I was too locked in my own grief to see how it was affecting the people around me. There was a moment where my mom suddenly stopped crying in the hospital. It was because she realized she had to be strong for me. The hurt she was feeling was profound. She’d lost her baby boy, her firstborn. But she was scared she was about to lose another child. She was afraid I’d lose myself in the darkness of my grief and never find my way back.

  My dad took it hard, too. He kept saying, “They took my chicken.” That was his nickname for Wink because he kept him under his wing. But he’d lost a few precious years with his baby boy. Dad had some problems with trauma from the Vietnam War and being an undercover cop that led him to substance abuse, and for a few years he wasn’t as accessible to us as he wanted to be. He lost Wink just as they were getting close again. His heart burst with pride when his beloved son followed in his footsteps and joined the police force. Then Wink was taken away from us all. It made my father really focus on all his children, doing everything he could to make up for the time he lost with all of us.

  But I couldn’t focus on anyone but Winki. I was stuck in a long moment of grief and despair. I clawed my way out of it slowly. At first, I got through the endless days by going to Winki’s grave and talking to him. Somehow it brought me peace. But the real healing started when I got back on my motorbike. I wasn’t scared to ride, exactly. A motorbike—or at least the vulnerability of being on a motorbike—was what killed my brother, and somehow it felt like a betrayal to do that thing we enjoyed so much together, because that was the very thing that took him away from me and my family.

  Back on the Bike

  But my brother’s spirit was asking me to ride, and live, for his sake, and he’s been on the bike with me ever since. That freedom—the feeling of the wind on your face and the body, the sound of the engine, its roaring power—was what gave my brother and me such joy during his short time on this earth. I still wear the key to Winki’s bike on a gold chain around my neck when I’m feeling sad. And when I ride, I ride for both of us. When I’m hugging those roads, whether I’m driving the coastal highways of California or tearing up the New Jersey interstates, it’s almost spiritual. I’m in control of the bike and holding its handlebars, but I’m not in control, because at a certain speed it’s just me and God. There are no cell phones, no distractions, just me and the elements. I feel excitement, joy, and oneness with the universe. When I’m on that bike, I’m talking to Winki. And I’m talking to God. I’m saying, “Okay, Lord, take care of me now. I’m in Your hands.”

  Shakim and my mother were so relieved to see me back on my bike, because they knew it also meant that I had decided to come back to life. Then I actually started to work again. It wasn’t so much that I cared about getting another hit record. I just needed an outlet to express what I was going through. I needed my music to heal. I started writing songs for my album Black Reign, including a tribute to my brother called “Winki’s Theme.” I stayed up all night writing that joint. I was living in the house I’d bought for me and my mother and brother to all live in together (not that the three of us got the chance). Mom was asleep in her room upstairs, but at five a.m., I just had to wake her up. I wanted to share what I’d created with the one person who would understand every word in that song the way I did. She heard it, smiling, crying, and nodding her head to the music all at the same time. It was a message of pure love for my brother, and we both knew that he’d be rocking to it all the way up in heaven. Mom later said the album title perfectly summed up my life in that moment: It was a black period, but one over which I would ultimately reign. The queen inside me was alive again.

  Why Me, Lord? Why Me?

  It’s funny how art imitates life, life imitates art. Years later I made Last Holiday, a movie that addresses, in a lighthearted way, the crossroads where we have a choice between living full out and giving up on life altogether. (I mention this film a lot because it made a huge impression on me.) My character, Georgia Byrd, gets the news that she has weeks to live. After a miserable night alone at home, polishing off a bottle of wine, she turns up in church for her gospel choir recital. When they start to sing, this repressed, wound-up little thing who’s too shy to belt out a song, starts talking out loud, in full voice, to her God. “Why me, O Lord, why me!” she says over and over and over again. The church ladies love it. They think Georgia is speaking in tongues, and they join in. But Georgia really means it. What the…? God, why are You doing this to me? What did I do to deserve this? She’s mad as hell at Him, and she wants answers.

  Georgia Byrd was inspired, or you could say she was forced, to just go live. She had to make a decision to either lie down and die right there or pick up and live all of the dreams and desires that she’s had all this time but held back on for one reason or another, mostly fear and worry. Her character inspired me to live better.

  You don’t realize sometimes when you play these roles that they’re going to impact your life the way they do. Living in Georgia Byrd’s life for a few months made me realize how important life is, how short time is, how important it is to follow your dreams and your goals.

  Everybody at some point has that “why” moment: “Why me?” “Why us?” “Why my mom?” “Why my dad?” “Why him and not me?” When my brother died, I don’t even know if it was just a “why me?” But it was surely a big old “why.” Now, instead of thinking, “Why me?” I realize, “Why not me?” “Why anybody?”

  But I was able to come through it and kind of open myself up to the divine design of it all. The loss of someone I love was not something that I liked or expected. Bad things happen in life, but it’s hard to see beyond our own pain. I didn’t want to be alone with my thoughts. I didn’t want to process my grief. I’d stay out late and party until I couldn’t stay awake anymore and then just sleep as long as I could. But all that stuff just covers it up for a minute. At some point, you have to get back into the race. I know that’s what those who pass would want for us. If I’d continued down that path and failed to live my best life, I’d have dishonored my brother’s memory. I couldn’t stand the thought of disappointing Winki.

  There but for the Grace of God Do I Go…

  People would say to me, “Sorry about your brother, can I have your autograph?” And I would think, “You don’t care about me, you don’t care about my brother, all you care about is your stupid autograph. For what? To prove to your friends you met a celebrity?” It seemed so dumb and shallow. I’d be thinking, “I’m in pain and you know it—but you don’t care about Queen Latifah, she’s not a human to you.” It really bummed me out, but as I got more and more in touch with my spiritual side, I came to understand how these folks don’t mean anything by it. They’re just people. They just don’t understand. It’s like when Jesus said: “Forgive them, for they know not what they do.” If Jesus could do it while he was being persecuted, who am I not to be able to do it when people are paying me compliments!

  So I came to realize that this was a part of my test. Instead of expecting everyone to feel my pain, I had to turn it around and see how they have their own lives and problems they were coping with, and my celebrity just represents an escape from those difficult times. Maybe it was something I sang that made them fe
el good. Maybe it was something I said that made them laugh. They felt a connection to that, so they feel a connection to me. I can’t ever forget that’s an honor. It’s an honor to be someone who can make others happy. That’s all they wanted. I came to appreciate it wasn’t all just about my pain. Pain is all around.

  There’s an Angel Watching over Me…

  Therapy helped. I learned there’s a process that everyone goes through when they grieve, and it takes longer than you think. But what ultimately got me through it was my faith in God, even though I blamed Him for doing this to me in the first place. I really believe that God had His hands on me the whole time, and my family as well. We came through it when we didn’t think we could. All of this pain taught me something. Somehow, through the fog, I remember one particular thought was planted in my brain—I think by God, but maybe it was Winki: “Don’t let it all go.” Don’t let everything go, because you’re going to make it through this. God gives you some skills, and it’s your responsibility to use them. It’s a gift, and you don’t turn down gifts and you don’t not appreciate them. That’s part of who you are. It’s the reason we’re all here.

  I won’t lie—I know I’ve been blessed. I’ve been lucky. Sure, I worked hard, but I’m not so big not to know I couldn’t do it without help—from family, friends, and God. And along with all that good, there’s got to be some bad. That’s life on this earth. We ain’t in heaven yet! And until it’s our time, we’ve got work to do.

  I now know my brother is where he was supposed to be, and so am I. We’ll all be together eventually. Winki’s job on earth was done. He made peace with God before he went. He was proud and happy. He was about to settle down and marry the love of his life. He was a respected member of the police force. He was loved by friends too numerous to count. He was adored by his mom and baby sister. His dad was beyond proud of him. He was a good man who lived life full out, and in doing so, he set an example for us all. He accomplished what God wanted him to do. God has a plan for all of us.