The Eclipse

People see the book, the brands, the blueprints. They don't always see the years where I was running on fumes.

There was a season where my life was one long, unbroken shift. I wasn’t working full-time. I was working full-life.

• 70, sometimes 80-hour workweeks
• Daycare drop-offs with one eye on the clock
• Two cars to keep running so everybody could get where they needed to go
• A mortgage that didn’t care how tired I was
• Braces on a kid who didn’t ask to be born into my math
• Groceries, co-pays, school clothes, and all the invisible costs of existing

I’d clock out from one responsibility and clock right into another. Husband. Father. Provider. Employee. Dreamer. No days off from being “the one everybody is counting on.”

On paper, I was doing what a man is “supposed” to do. In reality, I was one emergency away from everything shattering.

The Call That Darkened the Room

Cancer doesn’t schedule an appointment. It just walks into your life and sits down like it pays rent.

The day we heard the word, time slowed, but the world sped up.

Tests. Specialists. Treatment plans. Appointments.

New words I never wanted to learn.

The woman I loved — the one who held everything together when I was out “holding everything together” — now needed someone to hold her.

And in that moment, all the invisible weight I’d been carrying for years turned from pressure into panic.

How would I support them? Cover the house, the cars, the daycare, the braces… and now this? What happens if she can’t work? What happens if I miss too many days at the hospital? What happens if the math doesn’t work anymore?

There is no sick day from being a provider. There is no pause button on bills, no matter how holy your tears are.

I Couldn’t Let Them See Me Break

My kids were still looking at me like I had answers. They didn’t see a man unraveling. They saw Dad.

You don’t get to fall apart in front of your children when the house is shaking.

You might cry in the shower. You might drive around the block just to scream. You might stare at the steering wheel for fifteen minutes before you turn the key.

But when you walk back in that door, you are the thermostat — and they’re watching your temperature.

So I did what a lot of us do: put my feelings in a box, slapped on my “I got it” face, went back to work, tried to outrun fear with more hours, more shifts, more effort.

Outwardly, I looked like a man “handling it.” Inwardly, I was standing under a sky where the sun just… disappeared.

That’s what an eclipse feels like. The light of your life is technically still there — you just can’t see it anymore.

When Hip Hop Went Quiet

Up until then, Hip Hop had been my soundtrack, my therapist, my GPS. Every season of my life had a beat.

When I needed courage, I had an anthem. When I felt misunderstood, I had a verse. When I was lost, I had a hook.

But in that hospital waiting room, surrounded by beeping machines and bad news pamphlets, something strange happened.

The music went quiet.

Not in my headphones — in my spirit. All the bars about hustle and grind, all the flex, all the “I made it from nothing” talk… it wasn’t enough to carry me through this kind of darkness.

Because this wasn’t about money anymore. This wasn’t about ego. This wasn’t about image.

This was about life and death and faith and fear.

The Moment the Pain Got Too Heavy

Another supportive phone call. Someone else to answer to. They ask how is she, how am I doing, but can I tell them about how she’s lost nearly 50 pounds? Can I mention her skin and how my beautiful wife, still glowing in spirit, how her very aura has been dimmed? Can I tell them how just last week, after dealing with weeks of clumps of hair falling out, she finally called me to shave her head?

Can I tell them about the unrelenting cold — not the kind a coat can fix — the kind that rises from the marrow and chills the soul? Even the $400 North Face coat I bought was no match when the cold emanates from the inside.

Nope. Better I don’t share. This emptiness… this pain was mine. Bringing others along would only catapult them into the same darkness. I didn’t want that. The pain was mine to bear.

In the solitude, there was no rhythm to lean on. No beat. No verse. No rhyme. Just me hiding in janitor closets, stairwells, prayer rooms, and late-night hallways with my jaw clenched and my heart drowning in quiet.

But this wasn’t the end of my story.

In that same solitude, when silence became my only company, I finally started looking up. When the weight was too much and every earthly source failed, my eyes had nowhere left to go but heaven. And suddenly — not loudly, not musically — peace began to whisper. Soft. Gentle. Present.

There was no studio session, no chorus, no mixtape. Just a stillness that wrapped around the chaos and reminded me that eclipses don’t destroy the sun — they only hide it for a moment.

And in that moment, I learned something sacred: when the world has no beat left for you to dance to, God becomes the music.

That was the turn. Not sudden, not cinematic — quiet. Steady. Real.

No beat. No verse. No rhyme. But there was God.

The light you don’t see until you’ve been crushed into darkness. The peace that doesn’t need permission. The kind of strength that doesn’t shout — it just holds you together when nothing else can.

What I Learned in the Dark

The Eclipse didn’t just show me how fragile my finances were. It showed me how fragile my foundation was.

I had money principles, hustle in my DNA, books on my shelf, strategies in my notebook…

…but not enough surrender in my heart.

I believed in God, sure. But I still secretly believed that if I stopped grinding, everything would fall apart.

The Eclipse forced me to see: I was not the source. I was a steward.

God was the one who sustained the breath in her lungs, the one who kept my kids’ minds steady, the one who held the whole house up while I was trying to be the beam.

The Eclipse shut down my illusion of control so He could rebuild my understanding of trust.

From “Why Me?” to “What Now?”

At first, my prayer was: “Why us? Why now? Haven’t I been through enough?”

But slowly, the question changed.

“What are You trying to show me?”

“What am I supposed to build so our kids never stand this unprepared?”

“How can this pain become a pattern my son can break instead of repeat?”

“What truth do You want me to carry out of this that will help someone else survive their own eclipse?”

The Eclipse didn’t give me instant peace. But it did give me clarity.

It showed me that the 70 and 80-hour weeks were not sustainable, the “I’ll figure it out later” approach to wealth was a lie, the image of strength was killing the reality of wholeness.

My family needed more than my hours — they needed my presence, wisdom, and plan.

Coming Out on the Other Side

Little by little, the darkness started to thin. A good report from a doctor. A moment of laughter in a waiting room. People praying for us that we didn’t know were watching.

Strength I didn’t have on my own. Ideas that came in the quiet moments, like Someone was whispering strategy from the other side of the storm.

In that slow, painful walk back toward normal, something in me refused to go back to the old version of life.

The Eclipse had done its job. It exposed where I was overworking but under-living, carrying everything but trusting nothing, smart about money but sloppy about meaning.

If God brought us through this, I wasn’t going to waste the lesson.

This book, this course, this blueprint — they are my promise to my kids, my younger self, and anyone facing their own eclipse:

You don’t have to stand in that kind of darkness empty-handed.

Because after every eclipse, the same sun that was there all along steps back out from behind the shadow.