Deep Stuff | Funkidivagirl.com

To the readers of Shankman.com and Gawker.com: this post is for you.

I’m a sucker. Basically I like to think the best of the human race and give people lots of grace to make mistakes and well, be human. And I really try to do my part to make my daily interactions with people be as pleasant as possible. But sometimes I am reminded of just how unkind some people can be and it really makes me sad. I have a blog, I am on Twitter and I love Facebook for interacting with my friends. And I’m not the only one; social media is one of the fastest growing forms of media today. I think that is very valuable in connecting people on both a professional and personal level. But just like other forms of media, it can also be used by cowards and gossips. I would never say anything in any form of media that I wouldn’t say to someone’s face, but that is obviously not the case with everyone. (And Diddy…if by chance you are reading this…yes, it is I who said that your tweets were lame. I don’t mean that they are terrible; you just need to tweet more about your fascinating life and have more dialogue. ”On my way to CSI set” is not very interesting. That’s all I meant; just trying to be helpful.)

Just like the tabloids in the grocery line that people gobble up by the millions or those awful celebrity gossip blogs on the internet, people love to form opinions about somebody based on ill-gotten facts and mis-information taken out of context. I refuse to read those rags or blogs or follow anyone on Twitter who promotes that trash.

And this is what basically happened when my husband’s recent tweet hit the internet. Did he say “I hate Memphis; it is a hell-hole of a city?” NO! He tweeted a very obscure and heavily veiled dislike for an unnamed town. The person who was initially offended by the tweet made an incorrect assumption and the readers of Shankman.com ran with it. I’m amazed that half of the debate was whether or not Memphis is terrible looking town in need of a major over-haul. THAT IS NOT WHAT HE SAID! Now, what I would have said was “Some racist fool in Memphis almost got a beat-down; I hate this town!” But, that’s just me.

Anybody who uses Twitter and knows what they are doing, knows that it is a dialogue that takes place. Any sane Twitterer would have tweeted back, “What town are you in? Why do you say that?” And it would have been a conversation shared with many people. That is the beauty of Twitter and social media in general. Where it gets ugly is when people abuse it by carrying out their own vendettas against individuals, companies or groups of people.

Are we so out of touch with each other as humans that we can’t confront each other in person, if the circumstances allow? Is all human interaction reduced to emails, texts, tweets and internet slander? I suppose that is the easy thing to do because it makes the person you are attacking less human.

Many of the comments on Shankman’s blog were not constructive or thoughtful discourse about the use of social media, but were insensitive attacks against my husband’s character–someone that they don’t even know. I think that people forgot that they were talking about a real person with a real job and a family to support.

People: that is my man that you are talking about! He is my husband of 15 years, my best friend and partner. He is a father to 2 beautiful children. He is a son, a brother and a friend to many. And he IS the Keyinfluencer; anyone who knows my husband would say that he is a master connector, network guru and social media rock star. And anyone who says otherwise is a hater.

You got beef with my husband? Then you say it to me. My name is Sherrelle Kirkland-Andrews, otherwise known as Funkidivagirl and I am proud to be married to James Andrews, The Keyinfluencer.

Bring it.

On November 1, 2008 a good friend, father, son, brother and life partner was lost when Shakir Stewart committed suicide. I barely knew Shakir, but my husband had known him for many years and considered him a friend and “little brother”. We were at home when we found out the news and my husband was devastated. At first he refused to believe that Shakir took his own life and insisted instead it was foul play. But as it became clear that indeed Shakir’s death was by his own hand, my husband grieved even more as he struggled to make sense of it all. How could this man, so young and successful, take his own life?

We attended the memorial service on Morehouse’s campus and the place was packed with those who loved and respected Shakir. Many people spoke, my husband among them, and all said the same thing: that Shakir was loving, loyal, funny, supportive, smart, and most of all, that he loved life. It was no doubt that Shakir was a special person put on earth to touch many people and change many lives.

I will never forget talking to Shakir’s mother after the service and she said, “I didn’t really know my son.” I’m sure that it is a sentiment that many suicide family-victims share. Who was this person in their last hours, in so much despair that life didn’t seem worth living anymore? Certainly he was not the person that everyone spoke about at the memorial service?

But, yes he was. He possessed all of those good qualities and some bad ones too. Everyone one of us has, for lack of a better phrase, a dark side. A part of us that is full of doubt, insecurity and pain. And if you don’t have it, just keep living. Life has a way of eventually breaking us down. By “life” I mean careers (too stressful or non-existent), money (too much or lack thereof), people who break our hearts (by dying, leaving and just being human) and all the other things that grind on us day after day and have the potential to zap our strength and steal our joy. Life can really suck sometimes. The thing about despair is that it can be such a slow decent downhill that you think you are handling it fine, but then one thing can happen to send you careening over the edge.

I was once in a terrible state and my entire life was crumbling around me. I was blessed to have support from family and friends, I had joined a local church and I was in therapy. I was in a mess, but handling it remarkably well, or so it seemed to me and everyone else. And then when I thought that my life couldn’t possibly get any worse, it did. Just like that, I snapped. I hastily packed a bag and jumped in my car. I didn’t even know where I was going. I found myself on the Garden State Parkway and 90 minutes later I got off on the exit for Ocean Grove. I vaguely remembered my local librarian talking about this beach town in New Jersey that was founded by a Methodist preacher and somehow I knew that it was where I needed to be. After exiting I remembered that I had long ago heard of a bed & breakfast there called the Love Letter Inn, and without any directions I drove straight into town and stopped directly in front of the inn. It was late in the evening when I knocked on the door and was greeted by the owner. The only room that she had left was the bridal suite and it was over $150 for the night. I couldn’t afford that, but she took one look in my eyes and gave me the room for $75. I cried and slept and looked at the ocean outside my window.

The next day I checked out and looked for more affordable accommodations as $75 was even too much for me at the time. Another kind hotel owner found an inexpensive room for me with a shared hall bathroom in a place a block from the beach. I had been missing now for almost 24 hours and my cell phone was ringing continuously as friends and family became worried. I didn’t want to talk to anyone, so eventually I just turned it off. I sat and cried and stared at the ocean. On the beach there was huge cross planted right in the sand. I don’t know if it is always there, but it was there then and I knew that it wasn’t an accident that I ended up in that coastal town. At the time, I really didn’t know how to pray or what to say, but just sitting near that cross soothed me.

That evening I finally checked my voice mail and as I listened the messages became more and more frantic. The last message was from our town’s police chief (who was also a family friend) saying that he was going to Lo-jack my car if I didn’t return his call. Trying to head off any drama (too late for that, right?), I called him back. See, the funny thing was I had just talked to him before I received that “last straw,” so he didn’t understand my disappearance. I told him what had happened to make me run away and I will never forget what he said to me as it changed my life forever: He said, “You are putting too much faith in people, in circumstances. Only ONE will never let you down and that’s Jesus.” I clung to those words, re-dedicated myself to Christ right then and checked out the hotel. As I left, the owner gently took my hand and said, “You look so much better now; I think that you’re going to be okay.” And I was. My entire life drastically changed and although things got much worse before they got better, I handled them with humility and grace.

Unlike Shakir, during my darkest hour I didn’t want to harm myself. But like Shakir, I felt so much pain, and so much despair that I had to do something to cope, so I ran away. My absence, for even just a short while, caused many people grief and that I do regret, but understand that I was just trying to keep myself from breaking in a million pieces. From all accounts it seems that Shakir, like me, had many people that he could have turned to for help. Could have one of his many friends or family members helped pull him off the edge? Perhaps they could have if they had known what was troubling him, but your mind and soul can be a powerful battleground. If the war isn’t won there first, it can be really hard for someone else to reach you, no matter how much they love you.

Has life gotten better for me? Yes, it has. Do I still feel broken and beaten sometimes? Yes, I do. But I am certain that I will never run away again as I have something to believe in more powerful than the people and circumstances around me or even myself. There was, as they say, “a blessing in the storm”, in that I now know that I can handle whatever life throws at me, hold on to His Unchanging Hand and emerge stronger and wiser than before.

I wish that Shakir had won the battle that was raging inside of him, because I’m certain that he would have used that lesson to be a blessing to those around him, just like he always had. But his death doesn’t have to be in vain. We touch each other everyday in big and small ways. Let’s let our touch be a gentle and loving, yet lasting one. With God’s grace we can make the decision to be a better person and love harder, laugh longer and live louder. In doing that we honor Shakir and others who just couldn’t hold on another day.

Shakir Stewart

April 12, 1974 – November 1, 2008