Growing Up King by Dexter Scott King, Ralph Wiley Page A

traumatic for everyone, but
     at that point, there was less of me there to be traumatized. We all had withdrawn, some more than others. Me more than Yolanda,
     Yolanda more than Martin, let’s say, and Bernice far more than me. But we could relax with Uncle A.D. and Aunt Naomi, be young
     children again, not so somber or fearful or filled with these strange but seemingly necessary feelings of formality. We were
     with him on the beach, swimming in the ocean. I’d gotten stung by a jellyfish, a Portuguese man-of-war. My uncle brought me
     out of the water, and tended to me.
    “The Reverend A. D. King, brother of Martin Luther King, was found dead in an in-ground swimming pool in the rear of his Atlanta
     home…” “Just over a year after Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., was assassinated at a Memphis motel, A. D. King was found in his
     underwear, floating face down…”
    Outside Atlanta, Uncle A.D.’s untimely death barely caused a ripple of attention. But inside our family, it was a nightmare.
     Alveda always suspected foul play of some kind or another.
    Uncle A.D.’s death was officially ruled accidental by the Fulton County coroner.
    Alveda never bought it for a second. She had sat up with him watching television the night before he died. She said he’d been
     unusually quiet; you know the saying—it was more like TV was watching him. Then she finally went to bed. It was mysterious,
     because a man who loves to swim doesn’t drown in his own pool. When the paramedics arrived, she noticed there was no water
     in her father’s lungs, suggesting foul play. Much later on, she and Jeff Prugh, a locally based reporter, later an editor
     at the
Marin Independent Journal
in Novato, California, went to the Fulton County coroner’s office and found no medical examiner’s notes on Uncle A.D.’s death.
     They were told, “Dr. Dillon [the medical examiner] had a bad habit. He kept it in his head.”
    My uncle had been investigating my father’s death. We hadn’t finished grieving for our father; it was hard to believe Uncle
     A.D. was gone too. Uncle A.D. had become one of our surrogate fathers. He’d take us places. We spent time with his children,
     who were close to our age. Vernon—named for his father’s first pastorate, Mt. Vernon First Baptist Church in Newman, Georgia—
     was fun to be around: he made you laugh. Daddy liked to swim too; he’d taught me how to swim, but he was nowhere near as good
     as Uncle A.D. Alveda was nearly grown at the time, maybe eighteen. I was eight. Vernon cried hard. They were all devastated
     by the loss of their father. Until this day, Alveda, as a grown woman and mother of six, and as a former Georgia state legislator,
     Mrs. Alveda King Tookes, I still don’t believe she’s recovered. You never recover.
    Burial plans were once again made at Hanley’s Bell Street Funeral Home, and another King man was buried. We had to keep on
     living—that much was not open to speculation, theorizing, or wondering why. We had to keep living, keep forging on. It had
     to be difficult for my Aunt Christine, who’d lost both her brothers, and for Big Mama King and Granddaddy, Daddy King, M.
     L. King, Sr., who had lost both of their sons.
    I don’t remember Aunt Naomi’s reaction when she was told of Uncle A.D.’s death. That was kept away from us. I only remember
     swimming in the ocean with Uncle A.D.; little lizards, like geckos, running around where we were staying, then running around
     inside me, it seemed. Little things crawling all over the place. Then people scurrying. Then the word Uncle A.D. was dead.
    Isaac said his mom totally lost it when she found out. I hurt for her. Both her brothers dead in a year: Daddy, now my Uncle
     A.D. But the manner in which Aunt Christine had lost it scared Isaac. I never saw Aunt Christine or my mother lose it emotionally
     when they’d gone through this with my father just the year before, then… Aunt Christine found out at 234 Sunset. She