26 Jan Khalid’s Corner: Two-parts

Wisdom from Community Leader, Khalid Elahi

Staying alive is a two-part thing; it’s GOD and it’s you.

We all have a choice and that’s part of why we pray, so that GOD would add protection to us while we are living out our choices.

I used to risk my life in the same fashion as many did before me, and will do after me, and I did it with pride.

But along the way, the many obituaries that my name graced the back of as pallbearer and the mamas and grandmamas who sobbed—not cried—but sobbed in my arms, did a number on me.

I learned that I wasn’t so evil I’d hurt a grandmama or a mama in that way, even if I was at odds with a brother.

I learned that I was man enough to face a man and draw out an agreement with the guarantee that bullets wouldn’t fly.

The agreement that many of us hashed out in 1992 still stands today, so it can be done. But who is willing to continue the incredible work?

It is truly a sad day when somebody I coached loses his or her life to the barrel of a gun.

Staying alive is a two part thing, it’s GOD and it’s you.