Don't Die Young: What you know by 40...

... is that if you can help it, you shouldn't die young.

September 13th, 1996 wasn't a typical Friday at Xavier University of Louisiana...

Folks who didn't go to Black colleges tend to think every Friday was like the 'Doin the Butt' party from School Daze.  Shoot, I was hoping that every Friday would be a 'Doin the Butt' party.  But alas, every Friday wasn't that.  In fact, I'd say Yale gave Xavier a run for it's money as a party school.  There wasn't enough scholarship money flowing through Xavier for folks to be partying all the time.

Anyway, this wasn't a typical Friday because it was like a 'Doin the Butt' party on the yard.  It was the fall festival concert and Common was just wrapping up a ridiculous freestyle that left the crowd on fire.  That's when Dr. Rovaris took the stage and said he had some sad news to share.

As soon as he said it I heard a guy in the crowd yell "Aw, hell naw bruh!"  See for a week we had all been waiting to hear about how Tupac had survived getting shot again, but the news was getting progressively worse.  First he was in a coma.  Then his lung collapsed.

Dr. Rovaris, a very religious man who had invested countless hours in me personally as the Director of Graduate Services, Dr. Rovaris seemed genuinely hurt.  That was surprising because I'm sure he hadn't been a fan of Tupac's more violent songs.  But I think he knew what Tupac meant to us.

"Tupac has died.  This is a young man who died far too young.  Let's take a moment of silence to send him some positive energy on his next journey."  There were audible gasps.  People bowed their heads.  A couple of guys teared up.   Some girls were hugging and full out crying.  I was aware of something deeply and personally important to me, though I couldn't fully name it.

I remember thinking 'this is why I went to a Black college.'  So I could be somewhere where a professor would do this, where we could share in our love for a complex sage of a Black man that the mainstream had boxed in as a thug, a thug, and nothing but a thug.  I also remember thinking 25 years was a decent life considering all Tupac was able to do in that short time.  I had no urge to cry.

But now, 29 days from 40, I can't help but imagine what Tupac would have done with 15 more years.  What personal challenges would he have figured out.  What programs he would have started.  The movies, the experimental albums, the political campaigns...

If you listened to his music as I did, you knew that he was a vast mind with a singularly heavy weight to his voice, that when he spoke or rapped, he spoke as if he bore history and the future all at once, that when he dramatized the word he gripped you with tenderness and ferocity and humor and pain.  This was at 25 years old.

Imagine him, 29 days from 40, blogging every day, fasting, long done with self medicating and heavy drinking, maybe married, maybe raising kids, maybe going to congressional briefings with Van Jones and Alicia Keys.  I think about these things and I'm brought back to that moment and ready to cry now for what we lost in Tupac.  

Thinking back over the people I've known who died too young I can't help but feel cheated.  Mostly because my parents died before being able to love my children.  My children not having the blessing of their two warm, loving, spiritual, patient, kind, brilliant, wise, educator, Black, New Orleans grandparents is a travesty of fate.  This is what will bring me to tears daily.  What my children lost when my parents passed.

But my mom was 51 when she went on.  My dad was 61.  Neither was necessarily young in age.  But upon reflection, I think that dying young is actually not tied to age.  Dying young is dying with unfinished business, with life's work on the table, with love left to express, with joy unexperienced, with a story left to tell.  And although Tupac was only 25, it's hard to say he didn't do everything he was supposed to do.  And even though my parents were 50 and 60, it's hard to say they weren't supposed to get to love my children.

With tears in my eyes right now, I can say this though.  It's now up to me whether my parents died too young.  If I live their story in the way I raise my children, in the way I teach young people like they did... If I root myself in what is greater than myself the way they did, whether that be spirituality or social justice... If I lift my eyes every day to the mirror and acknowledge their living flesh as the body I carry, their love as the spark of that light in my eyes, their lives as the shepherds of the soul I see there in the mirror... then not only did they not die young, but they did not die.

In the spirit of that, I want to share some of the wisdom of a 25 year old Tupac.  I encourage you to find some time to watch this whole thing.  Tupac's power and wisdom are stunning, humbling, and uplifting.  And when you finish that, there's a song about dying young you should hear...
 
Listen to a 25 year old Tupac:



So by 40, you know it's better not to die young.  But if you do, that make sure you live full out while you live and make sure you leave your folks with something to carry forward...

Max Frost wrote a song about it.  Like to hear it, here it go...