707. The Unfiltered Truth About Grief and Spirituality

[00:00:02] You're on Pastor Phil. Welcome to Church On The Block, real talk about hip hop, that church and the streets with my great co-host pastor Jay and Ruck Boy on Holy Culture Radio, Sears XM.

[00:00:27] Yo, welcome to Church On The Block. I'm Pastor Phil. You have reached the right channel. Channel 140, Sears XM on Holy Culture Radio. You are with us. You will win a second say,

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[00:00:46] the church and the streets man. And we are talking through what it really means to carry the burden of another, what it really means to serve others who have been affected by violence and affected by violence,

[00:00:59] of the child, affected by violence or the family members. And what does it really mean to live in that space and to serve people in that way? You know, sometimes the church is good and I mean the church

[00:01:11] in the verse will not go local church. I don't know, you're church is the best church, you know. But I'm saying to church is good at times to deal with like stuff for the moment. And that's

[00:01:23] maybe a good space for church when we do it for the moment. But for the long haul, sometimes that can get lost in the salt. Unless you have a champion that's there for NA and AA and SA and

[00:01:35] at an eaters of anonymous. And they're personally going, I know I need to bring this in the church and make this real. And sometimes, you know, the church is focused on some of the other things,

[00:01:44] with some key things and can't be all things of people. But it's almost expected, though, some child that the church would care, you know, that deeply or at least in several gars having awareness in that space. And so but today, man, we're talking to a great leader,

[00:01:58] a great woman of God who's going to share with us her story. And what did she do? And we're God has been heard to do around young families, moms and dads who kids have been taken

[00:02:10] away by violence on the street and she'll explain it without her story as well as what it means to be a carrier of those souls of people in that space. And I would see that. So welcome,

[00:02:23] Miss Banco, I call it Miss Banco, I said nickname. But share with us who you are, what is you do? And how you got to this space of being a serving to the families in this way?

[00:02:37] What thank you, Pastor Field for this opportunity. I am Courtney Geen, affectionately known as Banco. Very good. Exactly. Since 2017, I now go Babby, Jay's mom. And so I am a lifelong Chicago resident.

[00:02:58] I am the second daughter of my mom. I'm a licensed here at Stale, it's what 27 years. I am a faithful member of my church. I serve as the Sunday school teacher in Supertain Dent.

[00:03:12] I'm just a family oriented person, a community person. And I experienced a pain that I never thought I would. It's 2017, when my only child was stolen from me from gone violence. And so since that day, I have been advocate for families living beyond their hurt and their pain.

[00:03:37] I couldn't imagine my life without my son. I often see it before this happened that if anything ever happened to him, I would lose my mind. And God didn't let that happen. And so since he didn't let

[00:03:49] that happen, I made it my mission to put my man on living, helping other people live. And just finding out what's my purpose now because when BJ came into my life, he was my purpose. You know?

[00:04:05] Everything got me, what said to the round him? And so once he wasn't physically here anymore, I had to figure out, now what do I do with my life? And so now I'm learning what I do with my

[00:04:16] life separate from my son. No, what, what, when did that happen? Oh, when he's 2017? How long did it take you taking back through that time for you to realize, you know,

[00:04:39] that my mind is going to be okay like the whole process of and everybody's different. I get it, right? Everybody's different. But in the context of you getting to a place where you were able to

[00:04:54] to see another way. And not only just another way because there's there are some people right who found it. And rightly so, as they go through this and they work on their own healing, they're not ready to create something or partner to do something. And that's all understandable.

[00:05:09] I mean, they sort of like this. I think, you know, expectation like you'd grab this model of this dad, they're going to tell you this or they don't want to talk about it. They may not want to

[00:05:19] share. But in your own story, what did it take for you to get to that space in your own journey? Well, I think because BJ was so much a part of my life and I wasn't ready for him to not be a part

[00:05:32] of my life. I think I'd see all my story too much. As it's like I can slap that into any conversation, you know? It's like thank you for just a real. You have to make sense of real out of time. This was

[00:05:45] me and my son of a paper pot. You know, I don't think to bring him into space because I was not ready to stop being BJ's movement. And so people helped me tell me I was different. Right?

[00:05:58] Way before I became BJ's mom, I was always so you're the different one in Y'all family. And I didn't know what that mean. But once I got to this point and my journey of living without my son,

[00:06:09] I understood that because as you just meet a lot of people don't want to turn to living, let alone happen somebody else's leaf after going through some traumatic like this. And it was like,

[00:06:21] I went to auto palette. I went to auto palette after that, um, just wanted to leave. Just wanted to comfort my community because after BJ was killed, the very next week to more gentleman from

[00:06:35] the neighborhood was killed and I instantly told her, I'm going to see their parents. I'm going to help them. And most people was like, no, you know, you can't. That was a service, the very

[00:06:49] next day after my son that I went into singing and my family was like, no, you're not. Wow. And I could just the church girl in me, you know, being a servant at church, you always there.

[00:07:00] No, I'm going to show issue you there to serve. So I just felt like, I'm a church in. I got to work. Good. Yeah. Yeah. Did you? Uh, did you, uh, to figure only healing with this? Doctors are

[00:07:12] therapists or pastors and others that you saw after, um, to understand everything that you have wanted. I did. Um, I often saying it sounds so weird, but it's my truth and that is that I was

[00:07:27] blessed in this process. Um, even though I am so well connected to church, I were very closely with my pastor and all of his resources became my resources. But what I realized and had in that

[00:07:40] instance, a lot of the resources didn't deal with my kind of trauma. Um, they who had to encourage me a court and said the Bible, but what people don't understand is what you basically know about

[00:07:54] the Bible. I ain't going to say it don't work in this space, but it has to be presented in a different package. Wow. Just that we need that earth past no sorrow that having can't heal, you can't come

[00:08:06] for a hand that when you've been affected about this type of trauma. It don't, it don't sit on it the same way a day before. And so I couldn't process it from just hearing it from a minister

[00:08:19] that had not been through this. And so I had both therapy. Um, I had to go through counseling. I had to join support groups. I had to meet other mothers that had experienced this

[00:08:33] for me to get to where I am today. Yeah, yeah. We that that's important to here. Um, so that others don't think that um, they overspewitualize right that they would be like you know, uh, uh,

[00:08:47] guys going to make a way out of nowhere and and and those those scriptures and everything in the context is true. The relevancy of it and that moment is not uh, uh, uh, heard and not felt.

[00:09:00] And it's almost, it's almost like a abusive. It can be almost abusive. You know, if you're not careful, you may somebody may think I'm not doing this right because why am I still feeling this way

[00:09:11] when I should be feeling what the scripture says. You know, and I think that people in maybe efforts of, of meaning good or maybe effort that they don't want to test their own grief or maybe

[00:09:21] an effort that they don't know how to support one in their own space of grief that they want to quickly move away from, um, of what they don't know of the pain and bringing into some stuff like

[00:09:36] I would just say, uh, jingle bells, uh, Christianity. Like that is just going to be, um, all coverable. It's going to be, uh, the ashing through this, no, it's just going to be okay.

[00:09:49] Oh, not it are not it are. And I think when me, um, as I mentioned, I'm a dairy family or it's an oriented person, um, from my family, it's like someone dies. We gather, we support each other

[00:10:05] and then after the funeral, everybody is supposed to just go back to who they was. And I have done that for years, like my grandfather passed, ain't these uncles. I was able to just go back

[00:10:17] to live in, but the day after the very beginning, I could, I could go back to being a banker away. I was like, how do I do this? It's, it's the whole map of their normal, you know, that, that

[00:10:33] natural wasn't there. So it took me thin down, having it, angry talk with God because I'm, I'm Baptist girl. I'm a Baptist girl in the, in, in the Baptist church, we tell, don't question God.

[00:10:47] Yeah, read number, like even going back to the day, it happened and, um, the doctor from any end, telling me, like, we, we don't see any, anyway that this can be reversed. And I'm

[00:11:01] spiritual as a knit, you know, from the moment people start coming to my window, Holland, saying, come on, you can't come. You know, I'm come because I hear most people when that happens,

[00:11:11] say something just in the field, write that day. I will go get one and nothing fell wrong. I heard him leave out, not I didn't even hear it. I heard the fire trucks go, I heard the

[00:11:25] ambulance go and I deal with I naturally do because I, the same I stayed just right off of 15th in the past, give out a Friday station. So you know, I heard that, right, right, right, right.

[00:11:34] I just instantly went and prayer like, lower where, but they go one, you know, take care of person, make everything alright, not knowing they were going to my baby. And when I was tired coming

[00:11:45] in the yelling at my window, I still was coming. I saw one young lady, my dad says to King, I said, okay, you go with him. I'm gonna get up and take a shower and I be there. She's like,

[00:11:55] no, you gotta come down. Like, I gave the indication that it was in the emergency and once nearly about the house and he said, I still was coming. His guy, my mom was flying in there and

[00:12:07] I didn't and we get bad at like, I'm like, where are you better slow down? You're gonna get a ticket. See, like, I don't care about what I'm trying to get someone to ask her. And like, I'm just

[00:12:16] feel calm, even as we at Rose Hospital, I see his mentor, he's selling the security guy who I am still nothing to me see at my baby Andrew was on to death. And so I walked the never on my

[00:12:29] scene as he arrived up and there telling me, just thought somewhere. And I'm like, okay, I threw that. And I go to such a head and they're like, no, no, don't such a head and I'm like, why?

[00:12:40] Hey, that's when the panic started. So going into this room, it said a doctor to tell me that this is not reversible. That's when I came to that realization that what I believe God would do,

[00:12:53] he had to die. So it put me in that space like my past few stories tell us, God ain't gonna see on nobody else something about you before he tell you. And so I'm like,

[00:13:08] wait a minute, this don't match. You said that I will bring it to me first and it's like, maybe he didn't, you just didn't receive it. And I'm like, no, he didn't feel me this, not this.

[00:13:18] And so if I'm in size set with my baby and I talk to him, talk to God with my angry boys telling him, like, you let me down. You did on your word, you know, it's not having story with supposed

[00:13:31] to end. And even at that time, once I realized that this was totally out of my hand, that God was not gonna reverse this, that's when I think I turned into the spiritual man

[00:13:44] because I didn't want to face the hurt. I had got a glimpse of it. You know, when I first seen him laying there, I got their real eight. I ain't like that heavy that felt. So I was like,

[00:13:57] I'm not spiritual man. You know, with some people just flowing there, I blocked that in it. And I think it was because I had been in this space two times before, just wasn't with my

[00:14:09] child. I in 2015, my cousin was killed out of police. So that was a big one. You talked about, uh, they look on the gun. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That's my fingers.

[00:14:25] So my family had we through that trauma and then in 2015, another one of my cousins was shot outside of that salon when we were in the 13th and Pulaski. And yeah. And so those were two

[00:14:41] incidents where I was up close and personally, right there with these moms happening to process this. And I think they were kind of like introductions. So what I was going to have the experience

[00:14:56] because I was there when we first got the images. You know, we would tell one thing about my cousin, look when I'm a McDonald's or dealing with someone got us the images of how he really looked.

[00:15:06] It was totally not so. So to see those images, I was like unbelievable. You know, doesn't that was shot at the salon? I said they'll win him on the ground and it said,

[00:15:20] I'll fire you to get there. So I had experienced all these up close and personal moments that I didn't get to share with my son because I didn't see him on the ground at Franklin. That's it.

[00:15:30] And you know, I was out the house. The truck was already taking him to the hospital. So when I got EVJ, he was in the emergency room being prepared to be worked the one. And so I just jumped into

[00:15:44] that spirit man trying to block out the real herd and painted it. And I don't actually start feeling the real effect. So what happened until that the court was over. Because as I was wondering,

[00:15:58] the different cases, you know, most of the converted to the National Community, nobody is called. Well, running a young man that killed BJ, he was called that very weak. Couple of days, he was called and then the other man, he was called some months ago.

[00:16:14] So I went to six years and that whole six year process, I was believing, God, okay, you didn't save my son on life on this, but you're giving me this, I only took it

[00:16:27] and it didn't get this. Yeah. So like DM, that's when I began to feel all the hurricane pain of what had really happened to me. So you mean they didn't arrest the kids? Yeah, they didn't do it.

[00:16:40] But they're not charged. They're not charged or murder? Nope. They're not charged or murdered. They would charge what a salt would have deadly weapon. So once I went through that process,

[00:16:54] it opened me up soon. Like the real agony of pain, losing the tail and it put me in a van plate with shirts, it put me in a van, put me in a van because I began to not question God,

[00:17:10] but not feel as confident about the scriptures that's I used to. I mean, that's real talk. We're going to come back to that right there. You listen to church on the block, real talk like about the church of the streets, holy culture radio, seers six and channel one

[00:17:22] for you stay with us. We are talking about a great woman of God in Chicago and the effects of how was happened in her life with the laws of her son in a violence situation, how that has

[00:17:38] how the transition of that in her own life impacted her relationship God impacted relationship with his church. We're fighting through that to find that piece. So we are here with Korniki Baiko

[00:17:56] as we have affectionately call her share with us what you said that last part about your maddigod, your maddigod, how are you saying that? As you were discovering, as you were just feeling,

[00:18:08] as you're going through the motions of everything that you're feeling with the laws of your son. Once I had to accept the reality that my son was not going to fool through, there's gunshots

[00:18:19] that he said, I began to not feel confident about the script anymore and not being confident about the scripture wasn't a place I wanted to stay in because as I said, you know, I'm a Christian

[00:18:33] Baptist. I love God never want to see myself not love him and even with not feeling confident back at the script, anyone want to church. I didn't stop loving God. I was angry at him because

[00:18:46] I was always so it's okay to get angry at God but don't charge him foolish. You know, because the guy gave us what we really deserve, I be there right along with you. You know,

[00:18:58] because the script is seen as the ways of saying is there and I know I sing it. So I show my anger to what God, you know, just saying how I feel. Saying how you're saying what I thought,

[00:19:14] saying what I went to learn and I come from a community as I see at the first time, I have a big family even though it's just me and my sister, I have a million cousins.

[00:19:25] A million cousins and my millions of clubs and half kids. So it's a lot of money. So a little close. My baby actually on his dad said he was the eighth child out of the

[00:19:37] net. He is dead, he died and so he has a lot of siblings. So when this happened to my baby, I went to my flesh and I'm like, y'all better do something about this. Y'all better make this right.

[00:19:50] Whoever did this job that I'm going to get through, you know, I went to black and people wanted to move because they loved me. They love my baby and as I said, the young man who on Q will be J

[00:20:02] work called and one of the reasons they work called is because the community rolls up and get the young lady, the detectives tell me what the young lady's there like, B.J. is one of

[00:20:15] our best kids over here. So to see doing that to B.J. at Skater's I am, I can't keep my mouth closed. You know, so it was that gave me some comfort that my baby was so loved in his community

[00:20:28] that even if people fear they can't forward. You know, yet just as it makes sure that's not happened and so as I saw their love ahead, I had to show their model of which was that.

[00:20:41] And so I'm just going to know my love, I began to want to support other families that was going through this. But when I went to support them, I made sure I didn't step in that space like

[00:20:52] people had stepped in my space. I didn't want to go telling them their earth had no side with they having concealed because that sorrow I was feeling at them, I mean, it didn't feel like

[00:21:02] heavy, I hear it because the idea they are woke up and felt like the sorrow exists a fact. I was listening to the scripture, I was reading the scripture, I was listening to the

[00:21:10] sermon, the gospel signs and one none of it. It was actually irritating me. You know, irritating me. So when I went to support families, I didn't want to say those cliche things. But I also encouraged them. Don't charge God foolishly. I don't know what's going on right now,

[00:21:28] but don't charge him foolishly right now. And so that became my comfort and seal guy showed me what he was doing. And that was just honoring his word. You know, he was honoring his word.

[00:21:41] He told us that so as a manly of he must that. He just never told us how to with that. Or we it's so I had to be into just trust his word, trust his word, when added on the standard,

[00:21:53] trust his word, even when they won't know that comforted because country had a popular belief. The scripture don't always comfort. So like a lot of script, he had been real to me. I now

[00:22:07] know what that scripture mean. That's how he could come and then go in. You know, and I try to use the, I didn't try to use church and scripture as a bandit because it's like he could have

[00:22:20] banded on a gunshot. And that's what we, where we now live and what are going to shot. I live with the phyzoac me a pain that girl shot little that BJ took his say it. He, he got it

[00:22:32] in that I got an in the way. So I can't put a banded on. I had to put therapy and I have to put advocate known that I have to put you know, I gotta put some other stuff. And so that without being

[00:22:45] built, you know, transitive key my girl shot well from taking my life because after this happens to be J. I. I. I love Russia. Never had life but went and it was got had. They were ready to put

[00:22:59] me on fields and stuff. My therapist and she told me, no, that's your career. So she gave me things to do. And when I went back to see my doctor had lower a year later, no problems with

[00:23:11] love Russia. And it was all because trauma, but we're not told that in that community. You know, most people in that community don't even go see a therapist at the these type experience.

[00:23:22] And so I was blessed to be introduced to a therapy and a community of people that helped me learn how to navigate my grief. So that I didn't try to last it the way we normally do in that community.

[00:23:35] Yeah, yeah. Do you find yourself at times suit angry and got a different terms? I do. Yeah, yeah, just last week one of my guy thought it was graduate and I was excited. I was happy

[00:23:54] and I sent him a serum or an end on the Pral, my mom and everything. And when I got ready to leave and walk back to my car, it doesn't don't mean BJ was six months from graduate from college.

[00:24:06] So even though you're happy, excited for your guy, baby. This is something you'll suddenly never got the experience. Though you work so hard to keep him safe during grandma school, ask school college and he never made here. This is a voice always will live with. And when that

[00:24:23] ache rose up in me, I had to set it down. I mean, even that day we went to the event. And I thought to when we were driving through downtown. Like this is a trigger for me to come through this past

[00:24:35] because you know, my baby what the school here, he got left the same camp as down there. And how would happen? Go down to the UC that's like a money, taking full cycle of the terms and

[00:24:47] your school won't do there. Used to be a moment of happiness because my son is down found Chicago going to school doing something different. So now that's not what this is. It's

[00:24:59] an eight because it's a reminder of my journey being cut short. And so coming out of her fear money, I went back to that place of like God, you did me wrong. You need, well, you let me work.

[00:25:14] I'll be hard to get him through high school, everything. Only tonight, even let him walk around the stage. I'm thankful. I know if you can see it back there, but his school deaf was leaving

[00:25:24] with a, I think the grief. Yeah, I have the Bible more words. It's up there. The silver. Wow. That's beautiful. He's still there. I don't know. The other get his degree, but nothing will replace. Yeah.

[00:25:41] Actually, yeah, him accomplish his goal. No doubt, no doubt, no doubt. Well, man, this is deep. And it's still to me, deep as it is in the trauma and the pain that's there, refreshing.

[00:25:55] And what I mean is that in our humanity, God still meets us in that space and is not left us. You can find a profit in the Old Testament where there's salt that didn't say

[00:26:10] even Joe. God, let me just kill me now. Just kill me now. Like they anger frustration with God. They were authentically real in those spaces like that. And sometimes I think in our walk of faith,

[00:26:21] it's an illusion to be not real in your feelings and your emotions. God, well, why are there sometimes stress, hyper-oppression, other things can come because we have been not given the freedom to know that our faith isn't is solid and secure in Christ. And yet what we're going

[00:26:44] through and experience you right now, it'll make no-to-agg, I'm kind of saying, no kind of sense. You don't have the mystical magical words for it. And then it was crazy if some people

[00:26:55] go so far to almost make you feel bad, almost make you feel away because you're not abiding in the Lord in some kind of way. And almost like like in these, all that needs to be

[00:27:09] unearthed and dug up and throw away so that there can be a free-earer space to be over that spot. Because I'm sure there are many people who had losses and good meaning people come along

[00:27:24] side and say some things, you know, like, you know, on that, I'll work out at the end or whatever and that's the wrong time and they've made them want to away from faith all together. Like

[00:27:36] they made her heard that from somebody they thought they trusted understood and did. But one of the examples, and I want to talk with you about how you transitioned that into the work with it,

[00:27:47] with the families. But like one of the examples in the Bible, I think which is a pure way to look at walking with someone is when Joel was going through his stuff and the people sat with them for seven

[00:27:59] days didn't say, chat. You know what I mean? They may say it passed a lot. I mean, they may just say one thing to do with the chicken. I mean, they may have just sat there but sitting there was

[00:28:08] still like being present. Give so much peace. I could sit and see you. We watch a silly show or watch a no show. We not even have to talk. I'm just there. It's like there is anybody. There's

[00:28:21] a presence of someone here who cares for me just being here with me. And I've experienced that just and I don't know what to say or how to say it to somebody. They, you know, they may have been

[00:28:30] wanting me to say something. When it wouldn't until I was ready or till I felt, man, this is so enough. Wow, you're giving a whole bunch of stuff in that moment. People have to realize that

[00:28:40] that it's shutting up is a spiritual gift. Like you can shut the heck up and walk with somebody and just be there and let God do what God's gonna do through you. Well, as you say in the word,

[00:28:51] just the spiritual presence of that space. So, um, some types. You don't have two things that I experienced like first, the being attacked. Um, so before it has happened to be Jay in,

[00:29:06] January, uh, I lost my best friend. Um, well, I don't like to say, I'll also name them because I've been so when they have a relationship with God, they're not lost. Yeah. So, whatever that's

[00:29:17] for you, left me and Jay, we were supposed to go on a cruise and July for her feet to be a bird. Oh, man. And we had been paying on this trip all year. So the trip was paid out bad,

[00:29:32] Sam April came. She left in January. VJ left in April. The trip wasn't flat. So when she left, we almost canceled the trip but her daughter reminded us like, hey, my mother, she knew

[00:29:46] she had this hard issue. She said anything happened to a Theo tape the trip and spread her ashes that she received. Wow. So a lot of people backed out the trip or we still went and I went,

[00:30:00] I was kind of deep in my grief like I will honestly say I was out of my head. Um, so I could grab a lot of turns on the ship or whatever. And when we got to land and I got to

[00:30:12] test the car back home to let my family know I made it safely. I was good. Um, uh, Nessage can't do from my inbox from a woman or past actually that I highly respeciting. That's the respect that said his day, um, but she really led into me.

[00:30:29] Right. She told me like she's very disappointed in me that she can't believe that I'm on a cruise and I just be a bit my son and that I'm out here acting like this and I mean, she just led into me.

[00:30:42] And so when I first went to the Nessage across my spirit because I'm like, oh, Lord, I shouldn't have taken this trip. I shouldn't be smiling. Soon be happy. I went into that state.

[00:30:52] And so I went back and remember going back to my cabin is just getting a bit of this rain there and I woke up and it was almost like when I went to sleep and I woke up,

[00:31:00] I didn't let me remember that conversation and it's me like, what you just appeared to and I'm like, oh, I went and took a nap and did it. Don't only what happened and I said,

[00:31:13] was it real? Yeah, this is what you read it. And so I remember later that day going to the cabin and just selling people like a yes, I'm on the cruise. Yes, I did it very much.

[00:31:26] I don't know why I'm here other than this was my free trip. And I feel the coming here. I don't have my um but don't do that to me. You know, don't, don't let me write that because I'm trying

[00:31:38] to learn this. I never thought I would have to experience this or live this. I'm just trying to never realize so please say the inbox is state of no calls. I'm just trying to live here on my

[00:31:50] her and I begin that room after that and going out to eat with her and her trying to explain to me according to the scripture I had wronged I was and it was day day out in the school. I'm

[00:32:02] going to get to know God for myself because of my first thing that wasn't girded up in the work. I would have believed everything she said. Right, right, right. I then you got to tell me like

[00:32:14] this is not what I'm saying to you. Right, right, right. So I was looking at the truth. It was not wronged down the join yourself and I had to get into the seat gap on myself and I think that's where

[00:32:29] what I do was bird that up because I wanted to hear people understand they grief because doing that same thing. That young lady who saw was killed. It was a young boy that was killed and

[00:32:42] being the woman. They had to start doing all this lavish stuff. Oh my God, when the baby was killed at the McDonald's and they went and got out of that. That's where he's on like that one.

[00:32:53] Eight out of my all kind of lavish stuff and people were like I think the dead went to jail and it was them going on. But people with the head is well, I'm going to look like she was grieving

[00:33:04] and at many feet understand they grief lived here for everybody. Yeah, yeah, grief lived for everybody and I wasn't going to let anybody put my grief in a box and I wanted to help other people

[00:33:15] not let people put their grief in a right. Right, right. Yeah, we're dealing with the real truths right here. Real truth, real stuff in love. We'll be right back church on the box. Stay with us.

[00:33:27] We are with Dr. Cornique and we are talking about how grieving that we are talking about the fact that sometimes folks just don't know what to say and even at a funeral at a funeral

[00:33:40] sometime you know, you just you say this on the block right? Hey man, you do it. Sometimes you just go with normal statements and you see somebody had a funeral who you noticed the brother of the mother of

[00:33:50] the dad of that child, he said man how you do it. What you think they're going to say right and then even even people say to me so I'm just saying, man, I'm just going through right now. I know you are

[00:34:02] as well because sometimes you know you just try to get words out of your mouth and you say something that you normally would say but then I've said that if people were like yeah you write man I'm not

[00:34:12] my mind and you were right right now. So helping people to feel that way but you were talking about going to give about about grieving and things like that. And then tell us how you help folks

[00:34:27] in this process. You know we talked about a family and they're grieving and talking about your story about going on the trip but how do you how do you navigate and help people folks church

[00:34:40] folk or not church folk or folk sound figure got out in that process. Yeah so as I was mentioned in like that experience with that lady I had then feel like that's what I birthed.

[00:34:56] Look it's a support group I do is help understanding grief we are spiritually based because I do feel like God is the center of my survival. I did not have survived this without God. I just had to

[00:35:11] learn a God in a different way. It does not mean he's different. It's just the way you apply it is different you know I can I can value some jail and I can have some jail where you put your jail on me

[00:35:25] not be the way I put my jail but it's the same jail. So God is feel we and see has not changed because my BJ that but the way he works with me now is different. And so I wanted to show people how to

[00:35:41] feel see God and receive God and I do that through this support group. And we just we deal with that real issues you know I encourage people not to feel bad that if they're angry with God

[00:35:54] because he told us angry but seeing not so we deal with scriptures like that to help people agree from a real place as I was seeing what you have people began to judge that young lady

[00:36:06] about how she or an express to grief after her son I think the young boy was right seeing a something and people was like you don't even look like she's grieving. What how do you look when you

[00:36:16] agree? You know I don't get up and I'm looking quiet and or I'm looking sad you know some days I get up with the biggest smell on my face. So it's like killing me the people saying you don't

[00:36:30] look like you're grieving because grief don't look the same for everybody you know for some people grief won't let you get out to be it. Then there's people grief won't let them sleep. Some people

[00:36:42] grief won't let them eat. There's other people grief make them eat. So that's mad. My dog he had heard that everybody grieved differently but nobody asked the grief alone. I have a huge

[00:36:53] huge huge greed we want to help you process that and navigate that so that you can greed help the lead because if you don't know how to process your grief yeah you love to go all around things

[00:37:05] or you're going to stay in the stagnant in the place. If I had a landmine grief dear what it wanted to do to me I wouldn't be here seven years later helping other families navigate they grief journey.

[00:37:16] Right so it's like you have to get real with yourself in this time and say yeah I heard I don't see how people this time heard as you see and God it's stopping you to this hurt. Yeah it's hurt

[00:37:29] and lots of words that I completed in. I wouldn't have seen this doesn't hurt you know people see me the basketball game they see me doing a Christmas event and they think that the void is not

[00:37:42] there one young man actually came up to me because April 13 we just did ethics and you will find saying BJ Sand is more real classic and one of his friends came up to me and say I'm not you didn't

[00:37:53] mention my brother once I don't when he was up that South West. I think it's a new year and I'll see us I did I talked about how that's why we give the scholarship away because he was a college

[00:38:02] still and he's saying it was so worried I didn't even remember it. He was like that's working he's been angered me it's because I come and it's like I was just moving around like he not

[00:38:11] did. I say when see this thing I don't come back here because he did I come back here because he lived here a lot of people when he was angry I was a bitch and then my family angry that I

[00:38:22] go back there and what I went back far because the game is felt that the very part of my son was killed it and when I gave him his idea even though I thought it was insane I followed because I

[00:38:33] thought my baby spirit more there than that the cemetery some people can go back to the cemetery and see it and all that I can't go to the cemetery. I thought he was killed four days before his

[00:38:45] birthday so he was shot on April 10 they pronounced the April 11 April 15th what had been his birthday and so I went to decorate me as hair stone and I couldn't because I'm like I don't connect with

[00:38:58] this place but yet I think it's not that the fog I can see that the arrows and see my phone ring or somebody on the keep from me because that's why I connect you know and so I go back today

[00:39:09] apart to feel his presence and also to show up the families how the time they are misery it's a mission or it's a purge you know and I watch people come out and enjoy the self I watch them

[00:39:22] come out and something actually forget that we're there in memorial form you know it's just that must love there and it's nothing we can do to bring our love once back but it's a right we can

[00:39:36] do to keep their legacy and who they were going to become and who they could have became a lab and that's what I thought my phone could found just trying to keep the legacy of who

[00:39:45] be Jay would have been or who I thought he would have been a lab. I mean the fact that you're there at the park where he was alive that you know where he was most alive that where he was

[00:40:00] engaged seeing where people recognize his skill or can ask his fun or recognize his love is art that makes so much sense to me like that's the space to be where you would go see him play

[00:40:14] where he would be you know when he was acting up come on you guys go on like all the things that happened in the life of a parent and it's shy of man and in that space you know the mystery of death

[00:40:26] and the mystery of God's move of our spirit and the spirit of those repairs is real I think that with that it being without people thinking in some kind of worship or mystery if we know we got

[00:40:44] good spirits we know that the guardian angels and we know that they're evil spirits we got to recognize that the spirits of those who have gone before are still within us in present in spaces

[00:40:54] with this right and so there's no way to really for me to explain it other than that I can't give you know scripture verse on it I just know when I'm in a space I'm like yo I know my mama will

[00:41:04] see my mom passed the 2018 again my mom would be happy right now I feel my mom strength right there that that's just a mystery of who we are and all you may wear spiritual beings yeah kind of

[00:41:15] figure this out trying to figure this out in the flesh I mean so much sense to me so so hooked right him so bring out hugs again it means what help understanding grief help understanding grief so

[00:41:29] you guys having yummy every week yummy every other week we meet every third Thursday in person and we meet every Thursday on land for our colleague Thursday night prayer what it's just where

[00:41:45] people come on it's on Facebook and if this today right when we first get into this they see just a 12 stage or the 7th stage is a green and every week we come on to see what's

[00:41:58] they doing I often crack up with them and tell them I'm all alone today you know I'm angry in some days I don't even acknowledge that it's any stages because today you want to

[00:42:10] bell bejade today my problem was about me you know if today had it been the Thursday I wouldn't you got on that something about half of our bejade I forgot about something

[00:42:17] happened about what to my car so I knew that black folks let them know that don't leave every moment talking about what happened to your child because through my therapy I've learned that there are

[00:42:32] triggers that tell our man we back in this space but we can bring an navigate or how to bring a man from this space and that's what I try to bring back because a lot of people won't go to

[00:42:43] the therapy or don't have access to therapy so what I learned in therapy I try to bring it back to my community so they don't say it's the in those places that this trauma takes us to

[00:42:54] because that brings up the same after this I never knew that until I went through the therapy and they showed me a brain that wasn't traumatized and a brain that was you know so near

[00:43:06] I understand why I feel like I feel some days had the smallest thinking you know sink my ship I was just happy and now I'm crying and you know it's the effects of the trauma and when nobody

[00:43:18] teaches me that I'll tell you that now you're synaptic in your crazy or you're weird oh you're not you're great so tell me about the brain piece again when you saw that I've heard that before

[00:43:30] and I've seen it there's some some Christian neurologists or or a neocyltious that have connected with they talk about that too and I've seen some pictures of it help from a low over back I ripped it down just real quick a little bit and I don't remember every

[00:43:48] stop but there's been just training that I took because when I went to the therapist that the therapist told me I didn't eat the therapist that I was her I was our co-teacher but she showed

[00:44:01] it was a strange thing I was brain and she was telling us what the right brain, the right side doing the left side does and the fence after grief after you've been a you experienced a trauma

[00:44:13] like we did of a child being killed through gun violence and she was so when that's how the brain doesn't respond or like a naturally does because it's stuck in that moment and so everyone

[00:44:23] when we realized we're stuck in that moment there's things we can do right the way we breathe you know the way we see to help us most better tell when you're in those positions you

[00:44:36] tensure jawline you you you you tighten your hand we're talking to release the jawline unloose your hands plant your feet as a flat as you can to the floor begin to feel the chair

[00:44:48] begin to acknowledge the snails and the colors because what it does is shift it's your brain back into the breath because something that you get the brain to make it go back to that

[00:44:58] place the trauma and we don't want it there because that's where the chemicals are released in your body to make you begin to produce sickness and illnesses and so it's the fight us survival that's why every they teach us fight or fight fight fight or free

[00:45:15] right yeah sounds so good all that I've learned to help me and as I help me I got to help those around me because I think so that this and then go back to the surroundings it would agree with them on my

[00:45:29] dad and I'm trying to tell them I know how you feel and they look at me like you can't possibly know how I'm feel you have I don't know about the again but then when I explain these things to them

[00:45:40] I understand teach them that you can get your left of that you can get your smell but if nobody else tells us that we think rap is smiling and living is this honor and that love one one

[00:45:51] nextly it isn't yeah yeah I get that I get that all the time and the opportunities God has given me to preach serve and love our families who have lost uh loved ones to buy I've in my 36 years of serving youth in young adults 30 of them in Laudeville

[00:46:10] it's about 200 young people that I've done funeral sports right and so having to have the weight of that and going through almost feeling as though I've gone through the loss myself as though it was my child there's a you know I raised them myself going to those

[00:46:28] various emotions in that space but yet never owning and ever saying I know what you feel like as I don't I I know what is like to be on the other side as a person who serve and love just

[00:46:41] some or your daughter in that space but I don't know what it feels like. Yeah it's a experience there's the not to say those things to people because just growing up in church I always felt

[00:46:53] that's what you should say but now that I'm on this journey and I meet with so many families that's been affected I learned that all that grief is different so even though I mean no

[00:47:04] what's your feeling I don't know how you feel it you know I know I know I know that other women that's all the only child feel but because our relationships was different I don't

[00:47:15] know how to feel it and is different you know it is different for each one of us so I'm going to tell them I know how you feel and I tell them I know what you feel it. Right right for the

[00:47:28] few seconds that we got left uh Dr Courtney uh I'll tell me so folks want to find you or connect with you how we have a Facebook page it's a hook 82g it's hook R&B just this on Facebook and

[00:47:48] we have a website is our dot be just this hooks at gmail.co those are the two platforms you can find me on Facebook and email. Yes if you are struggling through something it doesn't have to

[00:48:02] be because you and Chicago um we always say in our work at the at the firehouse one person's work is every person's work so as you experience what you're going through or or you look

[00:48:13] for support for other folks reach out and find them online and find ways in which you can connect uh socially as you said every Thursday at 6 a 6 p.m. 6 p.m. on live on live right uh yep

[00:48:28] group R&B just the stage. Yes yes to check that out um so bank oh thank you so much I love you so much I appreciate you your heart is so golden to me and in this community and uh I honor your work

[00:48:42] and whatever we can do to continue to support I hope they folks who are listening here and have resources is important funding to help with the needs uh I would hugs has gone all there's more things

[00:48:54] that they uh want to do in support and ideas to help other families in this process so if you want to reach out look them up on Facebook and uh and support and support thank you so much for this

[00:49:07] opportunity. Yes yes thank you we'll keep working together dropping bars. Beautiful conversation with bank oh or cornique he Dr. Cornique he um but her testimony really talks about the brevity of life

[00:49:22] and how quick life impacts with only streets of Chicago on a west side where violence is always running rampage or just a regular life but check this out. Bible says that our life is three

[00:49:33] scoring 10 scores 20 years so that's 70 years but then it says if you're really strong you can probably live to be eight when the average age of say a man is around 73 or so and a woman is 79

[00:49:48] but you take the age that you are now and you you know minus that from the average age of 73 and my age I'm 60 so you might have said towards 73 that's 13 years then take the amount of

[00:50:00] years that you have left if you do that subtraction and then take that ton aims the amount of days you have left was years so 13 years for me would be 4745 days left then I want you to take

[00:50:13] I'll even have my levishy to paper and cut out little squares of the amount of days you got left and then every day you wake up throw one of those squares away just to give you some

[00:50:24] sincerity look at what the depth is of the brevity of life whatever you plan to do for the glory of God and guys came in you need to get around to it right now not because of fear not because of

[00:50:38] threat of death because we only have this one life to live thank you for listening to church on the block real talk about hip hop the church and the streets