Death is not the end. It’s more of a... stepping off point

Celebrity deaths don't usually hit me hard. There is a general sadness of course that someone has left behind family members, friends and what not but in general if I didn't know them rarely does it bring a tear to my eye.

With the sudden passing of Chadwick Boseman I have been hit with such an astonishing level of grief that it's hard to put into word. I knew him only through movies and interviews but  he was so much more than an actor to me, and to black people in general. 

I came to really follow his work after it was announced that he would portray Black Panther on the big screen. Now Black Panther is a character that is deeply personal to me for many reasons. The main reason being growing up there was such a lack of black superheroes and one day, I saw this character with the Fantastic Four. It was amazing. A black character that wasn't like a caricature of a pimp or something. Wasn't the butt of jokes or obviously made to be inferior to his white counterparts, he was a god damn king. I was convinced I would never see him on the big screen and given his proper due.

Chadwick Boseman has entered the chat! He took a role and a character that if we're being honest the masses had not been introduced to and took us on a journey. He completely owned the role to the point that if people saw him in the street, they gave him the Wakandan salute as the royalty that he was. 

He could have stopped right there but he proceeded to portray all of our heroes. Jackie Robinson, Thurgood Marshall, James Brown. To the point that the running joke was he was eventually going to portray every black person on the planet. 

The man was so immensely talented and making sure our heroes got their roses. The love and recognition that they deserved while they were here. And now he has joined the greats of the past without I feel ever getting his proper due. Maybe because we took him being on our screens  for granted, maybe because it's human nature not to appreciate greatness until it no longer walks amongst us.

So Mr. Boseman, forever king of Wakanda, I thank you. I thank you as the father of a young boy who LOVES Black Panther. Who wears his mask and will only answer you if you call him the Black Panther. I thank you for the 8 year old boy who got that comic in a Mississippi gas station, I thank you as the 35 year old man who giddily put on his Wakandan sweatshirt and showed up an hour before the movie started to see his hero. The solace that I can take from this however is that for as awesome as T'Challa is, the man behind the portrayal was was even more of a superhero than the Wakandan royalty he portrayed. When I declared it the movie of the decade this is how I felt: 

"I get chills when I think about Black Panther. Was it the cinematic masterpiece that some would expect from the movie of the decade? Probably not. You can even make the argument that it wasn't the best Marvel movie of the decade. But what it was, was this beautiful piece of blackness that we don't get to see enough of, and that representation matters baby. After seeing it opening night I wrote this:

"I...I don't even really have words for what I just saw. Thank you Marvel and thank you Ryan Coogler. That awkward 8 year old who got a copy of Fantastic Four with a black super hero in it from a gas station in Mississippi is so damn happy with what he saw tonight." "

So King, as you said in Black Panther, “Death is not the end. It’s more of a... stepping off point.”