This is an opinion column.

Rickey Smiley and I are singin’—well, talk-singin’ mostly (and he knows the lyrics way better than I).

Step right up, hurry, hurry
Before the show begins, my friends
Stand in line, get your tickets
I hope you will attend
It’ll only cost you fifty cents to see
What life has done to those like you and me

You don’t have to be of a certain age to know the song. To know its melodic opening strain. To feel it.

See the man with the broken heart
You’ll see that he is sad
He hurts so bad (So bad, so bad)
See the girl who has lost
The only love she ever had
There’s got to be no sadder show to see
No doubt about it, satisfaction’s guaranteed

Now, I’m all in.

So let the sideshow begin
Hurry, hurry, step right on in
Can’t afford to pass it by
Guaranteed to make you cry
Let the sideshow begin, hurry, hurry
(Hurry, hurry, step right on in)
Can’t afford to pass it by
Guaranteed to make you cry

Smiley and I are loud and laughing—in that way when the tears have long been shed. When laughter is but a cloak casting shadows over wounds that just won’t heal. When loud and laughing are almost all you have.

Because your child is gone.

It’ll soon be two years since the comedian and nationally syndicated morning radio host who calls Birmingham home was “inducted into a social club no one wants to be in,” since “everything changed.”

Since his oldest son, Brandon, at 32, lost his life to drug addiction, dying of an overdose on January 29, 2023.

Smiley dropped those thoughts in the gripping first chapter of his memoir—he’d rather readers receive it as a “conversation” or better even, a “testimony.” The book is called Sideshow: Living with Loss and Moving Forward with Faith (W Publishing Group, imprint of Thomas Nelson), scheduled to be released on September 17th. It’s a vivid, unfiltered account of Smiley’s journey through grief and guilt with God—a trek that began when his father, Calvin Huntley Smiley, lost his life, also to drug addiction. When Rickey was six years old.

The title, of course, honors the 1974 Blue Magic hit that’s long been on the soundtrack of Smiley’s life.

It’s now on repeat.

See the man with the broken heart
You’ll see that he is sad

Watch Blue Magic perform “Sideshow” here.

“It’s real deep,” Smiley is saying as our song ends. “I just remember that song way back from even when my dad passed away. That song always stuck with me. Then being a musician and a lover of music, just realizing what that song really means—like, wow. I thought it was the perfect title for the book.”

It’s a recent mid-morning, not long after the popular comedian and nationally syndicated radio host has signed off. He’s been awake since 4 a.m. and is full form. Of a sort. “I’m having a rough day today,” he shares, “though it doesn’t look like it.”

Music has always been Smiley’s salve, except when it isn’t sometimes now. Always been a welcomed companion, except when it hits where it hurts. Where it’s still healing.

“I got triggered this morning,” he says. “That ‘Wildflower’ song Tyrese redid just took me all the way back to the loss of my father, which ties to the death of my son, and so with all the similarities, I’m just kind of day to day.”

Writing the book was a bit of a catharsis for Smiley, a release after diving into parent mode on the day of Brandon’s death and not allowing his grief to give forth for weeks.

“Like when funeral directors say: When the calls stop coming, the flowers have withered, and all of that stuff goes away—man, you’re sitting in the house by yourself and you’ve gotta process all of that stuff.

“It’s like you just went through a bad car accident and weeks later you still hear the cars colliding. You just hear boom every five minutes. Then boom every 10 minutes. Then every month until it returns every 15 minutes. Boom. Just the trauma, everything you went through, you can still feel the hardcore hit of it all in your stomach. You can hear the screams, the sobbing, the everything, the trauma is real.”

Smiley’s faith is strong. Yet he had no qualms undergoing therapy for the first time in his life following Brandon’s death. “Because I was about to lose my mind,” he said. “I don’t care how strong you think you are grief is nothing to play with, especially when you lost a child. He was 32 years old, but as a child, he would come get in my bed and sleep with me when it was thundering and lightning scared. Burying your son like that, it’s sad, traumatizing, everything.

“You could preach all day. You can read every single Bible scripture from Genesis to Revelation,” he said. “I don’t see nobody pull out a Bible when they hurt their knee. Well, your brain is a muscle and God created counselors and therapists to help us with our brain. You have to go and get help so you can learn how to properly process your feelings and won’t go crazy. Because if you go crazy, it’s going to start having an effect on other parts of your body, high blood pressure, hypertension, etcetera.

“Some people don’t survive their kid’s death. Funeral directors tell me, man, people go up to the casket, see the body, sit on the front row, and pass away right then, right there. Or at the cemetery. Get rid of the stigma, Black folks, especially Black men. Get the help.”

After a time, Smiley stopped going to therapy until he found the need to begin again in the weeks leading up to the book’s release. “Doing all the interviews and talking about it is definitely triggering,” he shared. “I had to get back into therapy. You think you’re healed but because you’re bringing out all this stuff again it gets tough.”

“Grief is love that has no place to go.”

Just over a year before Brandon lost his life to addiction, Ian Alexander King, Jr., son of acclaimed actress Regina King, lost his life to suicide. In its wake, the Oscar winner told ABC’s Robin Roberts: “Grief is a journey, you know? I understand that grief is love that has no place to go.”

Smiley cited the quote after I shared with him that, after reading “Sidebar,” two words stood out as bookends for the emotions he conveyed: presence and absence.

He paused for a few moments. “The absence is definitely hurtful, the grief,” he began, “just like Regina King said: ‘…is love with no place to go.’ The presence is that I enjoyed him for 32 years. Looking from the perspective of mothers who have lost kids at 16, 17, 18. I feel like [God gave] me extra years, I just couldn’t imagine how I would have felt had something happened to him at the age of 15 or 16. That’s a child child.

“I had an opportunity to see Brandon into his manhood. But that’s still your child. The childhood memories keep you going with the present and he’s gonna always be with you in spirit, but the absence is definitely hard. That’s the grieving.”

Smiley still has a job to do, perhaps among the toughest for someone who endured — is still enduring—the pain of losing a child: He must make people laugh.

There’s got to be no sadder show to see
No doubt about it, satisfaction’s guaranteed

“I have to focus a lot more because grief is so sneaky,” he says. “Grief will sneak up right before you go on stage. You could be on stage telling a joke and feel the anxiety, the butterflies in your stomach, like something is wrong, something just happened. How did this happen? Why did this happen? I got to get off stage. I need to go somewhere where I can think.

“Regardless of how you feel, people pay money to come out and see you perform, so you have to give it to them,” he adds, “Then you have to understand that they may have suffered a loss, as well. It’s not just about you and your loss. Some people come to enjoy themselves so they can get away from some of their pain. So, you really have to have to zoom in and just focus a lot harder.”

Infused in that challenge is that Brandon was also pursuing his father’s path into comedy.

“It’s still like we’re going on stage together,” the father says. “I remember certain jokes he used to laugh at and would tell me when we would do shows together that he really, really liked. It’s awful. It never goes away. It’s gonna be with you for the rest of your life. You just kind of learn how to live with it.

“I did my absolute best.”

In the memoir, Smiley recounts the “privilege” and the “fear” of parenting, especially in an age when the scourge of fentanyl has made even casual drug usage deadly, even more so for those struggling with addiction.

“I was telling one of my nieces that you have to be really careful because everything that we had fun doing your generation is dying from it,” he said to me. “There is no perfect parent, and parenting does not come with a handbook. You can’t even be trained properly for parenting because you don’t know what you’re gonna get. All children are different. Even if they have the same mom and dad, they are totally different in their perspective, their attitude, their behavior, their habits, everything is totally different. So, parenting is really, really tough.”

Not surprisingly, for a time following Brandon’s death, Smiley struggled with guilt, until he found peace in his faith.

“I did my absolute best,” he said. “As a dad, I probably stretched myself a little too thin. Of course, as parents, we all have our regrets because we’re not perfect parents. I’m not even sure what the outcome would have been had I done anything different. I thought about that. These are things I used to lay in bed and think about until I came to a peace with myself. God has given me peace — a peace that surpasses all understanding. That peace right there will allow you to sleep at night, knowing you did the best that you could.”

After appearances, after making people laugh, comedians typically mingle with fans outside the venue—sometimes to sell and sign books, T-shirts, or other branded goods. Sometimes simply to share a smile. Or a tear.

Smiley recalls sharing a moment with a woman in the parking lot of the Stardome in Birmingham. She told him her son died, too, from an overdose just a week after Brandon passed on. “She told me he smoked and went straight back,” he said. “And that was the end of that. I’ll never forget it. I remember how I felt. It was a terrible conversation.”

See the girl who has lost
The only love she ever had
There’s got to be no sadder show to see

Smiley will go on, he says, in his studio and on stage. Go on through the absence and presence of his lost son, while helping others with a laugh that may, for a moment, pause someone’s grief.

“I have to use my platform to talk about it,” he said. “My mom would say: some have to die so others could live.”

Can’t afford to pass it by
Guaranteed to make you cry

Note: Smiley will host the “SIDESHOW” book release and signing on Tuesday, September 17th, from 6:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m., at The 600 Building (Rooftop Concierge Suite), 600 19th St. N, Birmingham, AL 35203. Doors open at 5:30 p.m.

I was raised by good people who encouraged me to be a good man and surround myself with good people. If I did, they said, good things would happen. I am a member of the National Association of Black Journalists’ Hall of Fame, an Edward R. Murrow Award winner, and a Pulitzer Prize finalist for commentary. My column appears on AL.com, and digital editions of The Birmingham News, Huntsville Times, and Mobile Press-Register. Tell me what you think at [email protected], and follow me at twitter.com/roysj, or on Instagram @roysj.