Honestly

By Wilbert Williams Jr. M. D.

If someone loves you and is willing to bear your challenges and walk that mile barefoot, carrying you while their feet are torn and bloody, and give his or her life for you, I believe you can trust that individual.

Honestly is a collection of essays, poems, and short stories.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Trafford Publishing
• Release date: Jun 13, 2019
• ISBN: 9781490794501

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Copyright 2019 Wilbert Williams Jr., M.D..

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the written prior permission of the author.

Scripture quotations marked AMP are from The Amplified Bible, Old Testament copyright © 1965, 1987 by the Zondervan Corporation. The Amplified Bible, New Testament copyright © 1954, 1958, 1987 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-1-4907-9448-8 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4907-9449-5 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-4907-9450-1 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2019903593

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

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To my wife, Iris,

Thank you for your Honesty, Faithfulness, and Love for me.

Contents

PREFACE

HONESTLY

BEARING THE SOUL

SIGNING AWAY OUR CHILDREN

LITTLE CHILDREN

A CHILD IS GONE

EAGLE WINGS

THINKING

RED FIGURES IN SPACE AND TIME

OUTSIDE THE GATE OF LOVE

RACE AND RACISM

HOLLYWOOD

THE COLORED MASK

NO, WHERE TO HIDE

RACISM AGAIN

NOTE OF AN AFRICAN AMERICAN PHYSICIAN

THE UNWELCOME GUEST I

THE SILENCE OF THE EARTH

CANVASSING OF THE MIND

THE PAST

THE EXISTENCE OF GOD

THE BINDING OF RACISM

THE MASK PARADE

BREAK OF DAY

THE UNCHURCHED AND LOVE

WELLS NOT DUG BY HANDS

STEWARDSHIP AND VOTING IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

REBUILDING FAITH

SLIPPING THROUGH THE NET

BREAKING THE STORM

THE REVELATION IN THE SOUL

SONGS OF THE HEART

THE SALT OF THE EARTH

A DREAM

A LETTER ABOUT GRIEF

CHRISTMAS DAY

POSITIVE ENGAGEMENT I

POSITIVE ENGAGEMENT II

MY BEAUTIFUL DAUGHTER

AWAY FROM THE MADDENING CROWD

THE BOY AND THE SOIL

HAPPY NEW YEAR 2018

THIS IS FOR YOU

THE TRUTH

POURING FROM AN EMPTY CUP

THE BEGINNING AND THE END

A HILL CALLED SARA

UNFINISHED LETTER ABOUT GRIEF

THE RABBIT STOLE EASTER

MOTHER’S DAY

EPHESUS

UNBRIDLED FAITH

WATKANTANKA

BREAKING THROUGH

BLACK HISTORY MONTH FROM THE PRESENT TO THE PAST II

CHRISTMAS SMALL

THE NAILING OF BURDENS

CHOOSING TO GIVE

ANGRY VOICES SILENT PAIN

THE SPEAKING FOREST

IN MY FATHER’S HOUSE II

THE NEARING OF THE PASSAGE

THE BEGINNING

A CHILD FACING A SILVERBACK

A QUIET STORM

BLACK HISTORY MONTH FROM THE PRESENT TO THE PAST

AN INDESCRIBABLE MOMENT

HIGH BLOOD PRESSURE

AT THE MOVIE

HISTORY

HYPERTENSION IS CHASING KIDNEYS

THE DISTRACTION OF POLITICS AND THE PERSUASION OF THOUGHT II

THE PAST

MRS. HARRIET TUBMAN

IT JUST SURFACED

WE ARE NOT EQUAL

THE THRASHING FLOOR

INFIDELITY

PIECES OF THE PUZZLE

THE ESSENTIAL MEDICINE

WADE IN THE WATER

AN INSPIRING ANALYSIS AND DISCUSSION

ABOUT OUR WORLD

Dr. Wilbert Williams Jr. was born in Canarsie, New York. When he was three-years-old, his parents moved to the Red Hook Housing Projects in South Brooklyn. While growing up he and his sisters Janice and shelly were protected by their loving parents Wilbert and Laverne Williams, who raised them to be thoughtful and respectful, in an environment where being black confronted him with issues that affected his self-esteem and ultimately his impression of the world through a broad prism. During his first two years in medical school, he would find himself engulfed in a new world of academics that would overwhelm him to the point of a near nervous breakdown.

His views of many topics of discussions have, at times exhausted his understanding of what he calls the human condition and its aftermath. He meanders through some of the most straightforward issues to complex questions about existence and survival. He wrote his first poem at 14 years-old, which speaks about being a black boy in a world where he believed he was hated because of the color of his skin. He has lost trust in people but not hope. During his teenage years, he struggled to find his place among his peers and never has, and did not excel in any sport. He realized when a teenager that education was the key to his survival, obtaining meaningful employment and healthy self-esteem.

Honestly takes you through an exciting journey of topics via literary prose that will dazzle your mind and challenge you. At times you may think, what is he trying to say. Dr. Williams starts and stops abruptly about matters concerning world crisis from the most mundane to the unanswered thoughts about universal questions of honesty, faith, and trust. He pours from his soul, disappointment, frustration, faith, hope, and trust in a world of hidden and overt calamities. He is bold and direct as anyone dares to be, and opens himself to questions about why we are here.

DR. WILBERT WILLIAMS JR. Graduated from Albany Medical College of Union University in 1978 in Upstate New York. His career spans more significant than 40 years of practicing medicine. After medical school, he completed one year of internship and two years of residency in Family Medicine and passed his New York State Medical Board exam. There was a physician shortage in the United States Virgin Islands, and the Federal Government asked him if he would like to work in a health center on St. Thomas or St. Croix. After two years on the Sister Island of St. Croix, he decided to remain on the island for 30 years with his wife Iris and seven children. During his time on St. Croix, he returned to the Red Hook Housing projects in Brooklyn and volunteered time caring for people medically. When he returned to the United States mainland, he worked in a small town in Ellenville, New York. He then, became a private contractor and worked in Oklahoma with the Iowa Tribe and then, with the Dakota Tribe in South Dakota. At the time of writing, Honestly, he is in South Dakota for Native Americans. He currently lives in the United States with his wife Iris and has thirteen grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.

Preface

June 6, 2019

There are no clear lines concerning love as I experience it. At one moment, I believe that I deserved to be loved then, I don’t understand why I am loved. I do think that there is a line concerning love when one experiences and realizes its purpose. What does love do?

Love decreases anxiety, fear, and disappointment. There is nothing like it. Without it, we are lost in our human conditions. We are floundering, thirsty, and hungry for love as we raise our voices due to pain, loss, and grief. The flip side of this quagmire of injury is hope, faith, and confidence in one’s self and God.

Love is an enormous gateway to freedom that can never be bargained or paid. We can escape from the swamp that sucks one into a dark place and holds one hostage to their worst thoughts and behaviors if we live to love. The gift of love opens vast territory into a hopeful realm. Without it, we are relegated to mediocrity and self-destruction and situations that are difficult to untangle.

Love moves us forward to recapture or regain our confidence and purpose for living. It wipes away the stains of self-guilt. It covers and seals one from the marsh. If there is anything, we need, it is love.

Love dwarfs the onslaughts of hypocritical behavior and outright soothes our souls and minimizes our sins. It exists in spite of our trespasses. No one and nothing can conquer it. It is the most potent term. It is dynamic and forceful. It heals and restores every broken heart, and it stabilizes the mind and quickens the soul. It is a cure for the ills of the Creation.

When I was five years old. I began to experience love in an imperfect jurisdiction. Some things propel me forward and backward. Sometimes I feel nurtured, and at others, times starved. However, love has never failed to lift me and care for me. The form of love minus the reality experienced has, at times, become a menace to me. One thing that remains during emotional storms is love.

When I make mistakes and behave with deliberate negative speed and disregard, without love, others are damaged. Love completes the circle restores and heals. It permeates every fiber and positively vibrates the soul; I cannot live without it. I don’t want to live without it.

The gift of love opens vast territory into a hopeful realm. Without it, we are doomed to mediocrity and self-destruction and entanglement. Love moves us forward to regain our confidence and purpose for living. It wipes away the stains of self-guilt. It covers and seals one to establish clarity of use in the marsh.

There are still instances when I am propelled onward and backward. At other times, I feel nurtured and wanted then, discarded.

When I was growing up in the early sixties and seventies in a housing project, it was notorious for drugs and gangs. Life Magazine wrote a cover story about the community. It was titled The Death of a Neighborhood. Many successful students graduated from public schools in the area and are positively impacting the world.

Red Hook Houses are one of the most popular communities and the oldest in New York. Three blocks north there is an underpass, the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel. It jets under the Hudson River that dumps into the Atlantic Ocean for two miles. The channel stretches too, and from lower Manhattan where Wall Street is located. On a clear day, if you look west, you can see New Jersey.

The community has two Olympic size pools that are remodeled. One was, sixteen feet deep and had a diving board about twenty feet high, and a massive 4-foot huge rectangular pool. To the southwest of the swimming pools, is a track and field stadium. Even people who did not live in the Red Hook Houses came to enjoy the amenities. At the end of each school year, the stadium as we call it was full of students competing for medals and trophies from the public and junior high schools.

To the west is a baseball field, which is still used. To the east is a park that had benches and grass. It is called a lover’s lane. In the late evening, people would have intimate relations as they watch for any on-lookers. To the south was another park. It had a kiddie pool. The water was very shallow. A child could sit in it, and the water bath to their waste. The park had swings for the children to enjoy.

The large red-brick buildings look like castles attached two and three together. They are six stories tall and five apartments at each level. Thousands of people live in those dwellings. It is a site to behold.

Coffee Park to the west has a walkway that curves around beautiful grass. There was even a World War II statue with a helmet and battlefield equipment and a rifle hanging from his shoulder. The grounds include another children’s park, and it has a kiddie pool, swings, and an attached baseball court. Two sixteen-story buildings look like skyscrapers where hundreds of people live. They are still called the new projects.

Red Hook had many stores that offered what its inhabitants wanted and needed daily. There was a drugstore, four grocery stores, two corner stores (Bodegas), two five and dime stores, a laundromat, two candy stores, insurance company, a meat market, deli, movie theater called the Clinton, vegetable and fruit market, meat market, two dry cleaners, a check cashing business, Police Athletic League Community Center and a library.

There was a store called Sal’s. It was a candy store. Children and adults loved it, and Sal served delicious red syrup dripping apples. He dipped them in a hot sweet liquid. Sometimes the liquid would slide down the side of the threat. Before it would fall toward the ground, you had to swirl with the apple on the wooden stick punched through the bottom. Then, quickly lick it and hope it didn’t burn your tongue. He also sold popcorn and cotton candy and one-dollar toys. It had candy that you could not find anywhere but at Sal’s. When it was hot, we could depend on Sal to have Italian Ices that was various colors and flavors.

There were gangs, drugs, and criminals but love permeated the community which became known as a ghetto. The hostile environment was no challenge for love. Indifference, hostility, and deliberate assaults never stopped the love I received. The gangs did not challenge children. We did not have to be concerned about stray bullets or be encouraged by the toughest of gang members not to protect us. They were a kind of military or police force that insulated the community from external invasion. The area was known as the Hook. Outsiders feared the community. It was during my early childhood when I first remember hearing about two by four pieces of wood with nails in them, and zip-guns used in gang battles. There was a saying that if you came to Red Hook and did not live there, you might leave minus your teeth or some damage to your body. I remember watching the gang called the El-Kovons, marching past the apartment where I lived. Without fear of reprisal from the police, they would walk in unison on Columbia Street singing, Eh-high-Lubbadubba. To this day, I don’t know what it means. I admired them and felt protected because although they were dangerous, they were respectful of children. I never heard of one parent or child that was harmed by them.

As a child, the only challenges I had was protecting me from my wildest thoughts, grabbing hold of superheroes, and being a black boy who could not find himself in a white world. It was literally painful to believe that I was not worth loving. Considering that I was unwanted amid some people who loved me was not enough. The love that I experienced framed my view about everything, even me. It would become a focal point in my life that would allow me to see beyond myself. It would encourage me to understand what I needed to be to heal.

I began to experience the pain and disappointment that exposed my inner fabric of confidence and hope. Although I did not know how to be