Welcome friends to another wonderful issue of The Beat Within. This latest double issue, 27.05/06, delivers plenty of solid writings for you hungry readers. We are thrilled to get this latest magazine into your hands. We are confident you will find inspiration in the following pages. As always, we will pass the keyboard over to OT to get us through the editorial note. We do want to say how thrilled we are, to officially welcome our young writers from the Kings County Juvenile Center! Through the JC Montgomery School in Hanford, CA. A big thank you to Principal Elizabeth Norris and teacher, Jorge Hernandez, for making this new partnership a success! Also, great news, we are about a month away from returning to workshops inside San Quentin State Prison. It’s been 2 long years, and we are ready to reconnect with our amazing friends inside. Please enjoy this issue and without further ado, here’s OT!
We would like to welcome you readers back to another double edition of the one and only The Beat Within. This is the ONLY, and I mean only magazine that keeps it one thousand with all its readers, contributors and allies. This is OT once again reporting to you from Managua, Nicaragua. It’s hot!!!! Whew! Let me swig this lemonade real quick before I get started on my spiel.
First off a big shout out to youth that participated this week, reading your work, your stories, and your truths, is really inspirational. Also a big shout out to the guys in San Quentin, for coming through with that picture prompt. I really dug the reflective writing y’all contributed this week. You are appreciated. I also want to give a big thanks to all the powerful writers who submitted work for the Beat Without (BWO) Section.
Last but not least, a round of applause for all the editors, typists, workshops facilitators, and volunteers that helped with putting together this amazing issue. No matter how big or small of a role you play, your role is essential in making this magazine happen.
I want to touch on the importance of being appreciative of others and staying positive no matter how hard the situation may be. Many of us all have been in bad situations, tight situations, sticky situations, slimy situations! You know what I mean! We all go through the struggle. The struggle is real man!
You know every time we have loved ones pass away, or homies, friends, friends of the family, or even family members, we all wish we had those last few words with them. We even maybe wish we had that one last hug, that one last dinner, or just a little personal time with them to tell them how much they were appreciated and loved. Some of us actually get that honor maybe with close relatives, but it’s rare.
During this pandemic that took so many lives (Over 5.8 million and counting worldwide), we were forced to isolate and stay away from those who were very ill and on the brink of passing away. We all have someone that we have lost that’s close to us or relatively close to us in the past couple of years; some due to natural causes, some due to gun violence and street issues, some due random shooting sprees, or police brutality.
All this reminded me about my homeboy Gustavo who died at the age of 37, from Melanoma Skin Cancer. I was actually with him during the final days of his life and you could say I was his primary caregiver. His cancer got so bad that he was paralyzed from the waist down and couldn’t walk. I had to push him around in a wheel chair, help him get in the car, put the wheelchair in a trunk, you know all essential steps you need to take care of someone in a wheel chair.
This was an impactful moment for me. Gustavo, I remember I first met in San Francisco and as irony would have it, or God playing his cards that he’s so good at playing, I would be reunited with Gustavo, in Federal Prison.
We were both doing time and he would be in the cell right across from me. He was from Mountain View, CA. and born in Nicaragua (just like me).He was an amazing tattoo artist that had great knack for great art and had great shading skills.
Fate would have it, that he would get out before me. He got to Nicaragua one year before I did. Fate would also have it that a year later after serving my time in the Feds, then fighting my case in Immigration, (Which I lost) I would touch down in Nicaragua after getting deported from the United States.
The very first place I worked at in Nicaragua was customer service at a call center for Capital One Bank, in the credit card department. He was already a supervisor. So we clicked up again. That was my homie I knew from prison. We started hanging out. I didn’t drink at the time, matter of fact, I didn’t drink for my first two years in Nicaragua, for personal reasons.
We would go out and he would drink beer, I would drink coffee. We would reminisce about our days in prison and we eventually bought some tattoo equipment and he did some tats on me. Not too long after a tumor grew out of his head. I was at the hospital when he had his tumor removed.
After the procedure was over he didn’t want to stay there. I mean the hospital didn’t look anything appealing. It looked like a run-down elementary school, with a splash of county jail. There were steel bars everywhere reminiscent to the same ones I saw inside facilities. I was surprised to see they had hospital equipment.
He got out that same day. We went to get something to eat. We didn’t know that the cancer had already spread to his lymph nodes. Crappy hospital-care if you ask me. So, the next surgery they had to remove it from his throat. At the same time he was dealing with this horrible back-pain. We didn’t know the cancer had spread to his spine. Till this day I still don’t understand how the hospital didn’t detect it either.
So after recovering from the neck surgery, a couple weeks later he checked back into the hospital. The very next day, he could no longer feel his legs. He couldn’t move, people. You know how hard it must have been for that man to deal with the fact that he couldn’t move his legs. It was horrible. I kept trying to hold on to my faith that everything would turn out alright.
I prayed to God every day. I kept a positive attitude every day I was by his side, even when there were days that I felt completely helpless. But this was someone I used to do 1,000 burpees with every day in prison. He was a strong and healthy, and now, he couldn’t even walk? He couldn’t wiggle his toes? Or stand on his two feet?
I would go to work very early every day, and get off by 1 or 2pm so I could go chill with him at the hospital all day and night. It’s a trip because he was in the hospital for almost two months just laying in bed, before out of nowhere the doctor finally walked in and told him, “You have stage 4 melanoma Cancer. There is nothing we can do for you.”
Man, that doctor was cold hearted. I couldn’t imagine how Gustavo must’ve felt. I asked the doctor why they had him so long without a response and he just said it was already too late.
They gave him an estimated six months to live, when they released him from the hospital. I would take care of him every day. We would watch TV together and joke around. We would watch Monday Night Football games, and talk about how much the Niners needed to get it together. I still remember his last night alive.
It was a holiday here, December 7th, 2015. We were chilling on the porch watching the fireworks. We were actually arguing because he no longer wanted to eat. I had been having trouble with him eating the past few days prior I had to force him to drink a cup of milk, and I had to threaten to kick his ass, for him to drink it.
He didn’t look too good. He was struggling to breathe, as if he were fighting for each breath, as if his lungs and his conscious were working on the same page thinking “I’m not done, yet.”
I kissed him on his head and told him I love him as I remember him saying “Love you too homey.”
At 3:30am while the work bus had already picked me up to go to work, I received a phone call saying that he was dead. I immediately jumped off the bus and headed there. I saw him lifeless, no longer breathing, body stiff. Nothing seemed real to me at the time, and I didn’t cry until we had his funeral which was the next day. I had to let it out.
My faith was put to the test. My mental toughness and spirituality were tested. Life itself, I didn’t know what to make of it. I was sleeping in a hammock right after his funeral when I had a dream. He told me to not be sad, and to not second guess life. He told me to stay positive and to continue to have faith. I felt someone slap my face, and I fell off the hammock.
No one in sight. I was a little scared, but felt at peace. From that moment on, I was going to be as real as I can with everybody I loved. I was going to appreciate my loved ones, my friends, my family and anybody I came across with. So I stay hopeful and I stay positive no matter how hard the circumstances get. If we only have one life to live. If we only have so much time on earth, then why spend time being mad? Why not just enjoy it? Smile, laugh, and appreciate it… because the struggle we call life is beautiful.
One love to everybody going through the struggle. OT is signing out with the utmost love and respect. The Beat keeps going and going…
Thank you OT for sharing such a heartfelt and moving story about Gustavo. May he be at peace. Our heart goes out to you and to all who knew him. All right, enjoy the latest issue of The Beat! Please do not hesitate to reach out to us if we can be of any support. We love hearing from you, as we always do our best to make sure you are acknowledged in due time. Thank you for your patience and support. Sending you our best! Until the next issue!