See You Again(1st Yodaism of 2017)

Henry David Thereau once said, ~On the death of a friend, we should consider that the fates through confidence have devolved on us the task of a double living, that we have henceforth to fulfill the promise of our friend's life also, in our own, to the world.~ Let me ask you this question, what are the character traits of a best friend? Essentially, character traits such as trustworthiness, loyalty, being non-judgmental, sticking with you through thick and thin, dependability, listening to you vent, etc. are considered to be a number of ways that best describes an immensely beloved individual called a friend or in this particular case a best friend. You see, for those who had the privilege to have gotten to know Michael "Biggie" Rawlings they have their own personal stories concerning their friendship with him and I think it's safe to say we could all sit for hours on end sharing the good times along with the bad. Here is my story.

Without a doubt, the start of every friendship has a beginning and ours all began in the Summer of 98' at Fred G. Smalley Youth Center. Thinking about it further, I would be introduced to him when I was eventually assigned to Biggie's 10 & 11 age group and upon my first initial meeting with him he seemingly exuded a free spirited, charismatic, friendly charm. For it's those aforementioned character traits where he had the ability to welcome you in with open arms along with putting you in a comfortable sense of ease knowing full well the insane chaos I didn't know I was getting myself into. Of course, it would be 13 years of miraculously surviving the utterly insane personal, emotional, physical, and not to mention mental chaos known as The Insane Asylum all-the-while establishing a strong, cohesive bond with a guy who didn't just become my friend and former co-worker as he also became my brother.

As I said before, Biggie Rawlings wasn't just my friend and co-worker as he also became my brother. Granted, we were never blood related and despite that fact it didn't stop us from continually insulting, as well as arguing with each other as normal siblings do. For the most part, I've spent more time and hung out with him in the past 14 years than I did with my own brother. The Dynamic Duo is what we come to be known by others to the point where if either one of us saw someone usually from the Youth Center there first initial question he/she would ask where the other is. In addition, there would most definitely be a humorous point of contention between the two of us pertaining to who should be Batman because neither of us considered ourselves to be Robin. Needless to say, I disputed his claim to be The Caped Crusader by telling him he's incapable of scaling up past the 1st floor side of the building whereas he countered with how there is a height requirement being The Dark Knight.

January 11th 2017 marks the 3 year anniversary and the day where family/friends paid respects to a son, brother, friend, and/or former co-worker. Yet, it wouldn't be the standard funeral as myself and a few others wore wrestling shirts instead of suits in his honor. As I recall, that whole week from January 4th-10th I was able to hold myself together until the funeral on the 11th. While sitting there in the front row, I felt all the emotions that I held in come tearfully pouring out and it was a sense of therapeutic release because beforehand I didn't really deal with it. In any case, I was the first to speak and I shared several things one of them being that 2 days after he passed away I nearly texted him because Jake "The Snake" Roberts showed up on a old school edition of WWE RAW, which is a moment that made a deeply emotional impact knowing what I was about to do.In hindsight, I appreciated all the texts, phone calls, and Facebook messages I received from people who were concerned about me during that whole week.

In retrospect, when you've spent so much time with a guy you've deemed a brother as I have you know things. If you think about it, the things that seem insignificant are now in a way meaningful such he's the type of a guy who's a die hard Miami Dolphins/Hurricanes fan, is a huge fan of Prince, liked Dr. Pepper, a lifelong pro wrestling fan, and he didn't have a driver's license due to a somewhat reasonable fear of driving. However, one of the things that stands out and those who know him can attest to this is that he never really liked wearing underwear. According to him, he found it cumbersome and freely admitted it to the point where there were conversions with myself and others on why wearing underwear was a considerable hassle. Hey, it's part of who Biggie was in his own unique way. In the end, I along with many others will have Biggie in mind on this particularly solemn day and we all know we will see you again, which is a song from the movie Fast 7 performed by Whiz Khalifa featuring Charlie Puth.