Mac

[DISCLAIMER]

If memory serves, I met Mac in 1992 when I was a resident at a children’s home. The cottage in which I lived was sponsored by a local Church of Christ (CoC) congregation that was attended by Mac and his family.

Upon meeting, Mac and I became friends and I looked forward to seeing him at youth group functions. During the summer between my freshman and sophomore years of high school, a family from the same CoC congregation took me into their home under legal guardian status.

With more liberty afforded to me than when I lived in the children’s home, Mac and I were able to spend more time together outside of official church functions. After receiving my driver license and securing transportation, Mac and I frequently explored the streets of Bomb City.

Eventually, I introduced Mac to a number of my contacts. Although he expressed interest in getting to know my friends who were affiliated with the Crips and Sureños, I didn’t want to bridge my CoC brother with the brothers and sisters from the barrio.

Back then, I thought of people and situations in dichotomous terms of “good” or “bad.” Regarding Mac, I conceptualized him as a good person who didn’t need to get caught up in a bad situation. All the same, I didn’t always do well when it came to protecting Mac from hood life.

For instance, Mac once brought a male friend of his to a CoC youth group function and the guy saw a rag hanging from the rear-view mirror of my car. Foolishly, that ranker sent a conditional message through Mac: either I removed my bandana, or he’d kill me.

Had I used logical and reasonable thinking at that point, I would’ve either dismissed the threat or simply removed the flag from my vehicle. However, at that stage of life, I didn’t know anything about the Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy (REBT) techniques I currently practice.

Irrationally, (and forgive me for speaking with weasel words herein) I may or may not have green lit Mac’s friend through a Bloods set that was passing through the city. Hypothetically speaking, the carnales with whom I was friends wouldn’t have sanctioned a hit of that kind.

Homicide was bad for business. As such, it wasn’t uncommon for renegade sets to rely on alternative hitters to put in work so that heat wouldn’t affect one’s own peer group. Hypothetically, Mac’s friend got the message and recanted his threat before a hit was carried out.

Looking back, Mac could’ve been in significant danger had things gone according to plan at a local pool hall where the Bloods may or may not have rolled through. Aside from that speculative scenario, Mac wasn’t in any serious danger related to me.

Generally, when not participating in CoC events, Mac and I cruised the streets of Bomb City and enjoyed sharing new music with one another. One song that comes to mind is Naughty by Nature’s classic song “Hip Hop Hooray” from the 1993 album 19 Naughty III.

Mac seemed to enjoy the chorus that stated, “Hip hop hooray/ Ho, hey, ho/ Hey, ho, hey, ho.” Alternatively, I appreciated lyricists Treach and Vin Rock spittin’ fire on the track. On one particular occasion, when cruising South Georgia Street, a moment was seared into my mind.

I remember glancing at Mac in the backseat and observing him with a smile on his face, both hands extended up toward the roof of the car, and him swaying side to side while singing the chorus to “Hip Hop Hooray.” The experience burned into my memory is that of satisfaction.

A couple years afterward, following my relatively brief jaunt to Aurora, Colorado, I invited Mac to join me when enlisting in the Marine Corps after I graduated high school. He declined the offer. I knew that if I didn’t choose a path other than the calles, I’d end up dead or incarcerated.

From that moment, my CoC brother and I grew apart. I went off to travel the world and Mac took a diverging path. Occasionally, I’d hear about him from his sister. Once, Mac was invited to a cookout at her house and although he confirmed the invitation, the plan didn’t fall through.

Recently, I learned that Mac died. Now, he’s become yet another individual whose face I no longer will redact when posing blog content, as I do this for those people who’ve departed this world (and for my dad who’s still among the living).

For those who routinely read my blog, which is all of hardly anyone, you may notice a pattern. I memorialize some people through blog entries as an expression of gratitude—the quality of being thankful; readiness to show appreciation for and to return kindness.

In a way, I consider this practice as something akin to a scene in Braveheart (1995) wherein young William Wallace’s uncle Argyle Wallace stands by while men play bagpipes at a ceremony which is cloaked in darkness for the boy’s departed dad. The scene unfolds thusly:

William: What are they doin’?

Argyle: Sayin’ goodbye in their own way, playin’ outlawed tunes on outlawed pipes. It was the same for me and your daddy when our father was killed.

I’ve seen a lot of death in my life. The older I grow, the more those around me are uprooted. About this matter, I’m not self-disturbed. After all, I have lifelong familiarity with death and I practice unconditional acceptance. (Also, I patiently await my own uprooting.)

Therefore, I live in a way as to practice eudaimonia—a life well-lived. I don’t know the details of how Mac lived his life up until his death and I don’t waste what relatively little time I have in life entertaining unfalsifiable claims about an afterlife. (Clearly, I’ve set aside my CoC beliefs.)

As such, I don’t irrationally seek to cathartically comfort myself with absurd notions about Mac looking down upon me from some ethereal plain of existence. Once as a believer, I subscribed to Ecclesiastes 9:5:

For the living know that they will die, but the dead know nothing; they have no further reward, and even their name is forgotten.

Now, I don’t pretend as though I’ll one day reunite with Mac in another life. Instead, I write a blogpost in his honor and as a means of sayin’ goodbye in my own way. Mac may not be watching my back in an imaginary afterlife, though he damn sure watched it at one point in life.

For his presence in the relatively brief time that I knew him, I’m grateful to have called Mac a friend in the calles and a brother in the CoC. May those who’ve self-disturbed with unfavorable beliefs about his passing find peace. Rest easy, homie. One.

If you’re looking for a provider who tries to work to help you understand how thinking impacts physical, mental, emotional, and behavioral elements of your life, I invite you to reach out today by using the contact widget on my website.

As the world’s foremost hip hop-influenced REBT psychotherapist, I’m pleased to try to help people with an assortment of issues from anger (hostility, rage, and aggression) to relational issues, adjustment matters, trauma experience, justice involvement, attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder, anxiety and depression, and other mood or personality-related matters.

At Hollings Therapy, LLC, serving all of Texas, I aim to treat clients with dignity and respect while offering a multi-lensed approach to the practice of psychotherapy and life coaching. My mission includes: Prioritizing the cognitive and emotive needs of clients, an overall reduction in client suffering, and supporting sustainable growth for the clients I serve. Rather than simply trying to help you to feel better, I want to try to help you get better!

Deric Hollings, LPC, LCSW

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