He’s been dead since I was about 12 years old. I was not fortunate enough to get to know him. What I did know about him, I learned from collateral sources, that is, from people other than my mother, or other family members whom, at one point or another, had some semblance of a personal relationship with him. I had no idea what to think or how to feel when I had received the news of his death. I knew that I loved him, despite the fact that I only had one memory of him, and, in spite of the fact that I would later learn, just before his funeral, that he had totally moved on with his life and created a whole other family, complete with a wife, a daughter and a son, whom he actually named after himself, leaving me (his eldest boy) with some foreign name that I would not know or overstand until I was about 30 years old because someone, who was a stranger to me, but knew my father, had decided that it was important for me to know.
My mother never spoke of my father, except to chastise me whenever life was rearing its ugly head and she caught me doing or saying something that would remind her of him. It would be about 34 years before she would eventually tell me that she loved my father and thought that he was a good man. But I don’t blame her. Through my own adult experiences, I’ve come to know and overstand that unfulfilled love often results in scars, and, as black folk, we make the mistake of disregarding, overlooking, and/or trying to ignore that hurt and pain or, even when we’ve acknowledged its existence, choose to try to triumph over it by and through ineffective devices of our own making.
The result of that is unintentional lashing out and abuse of the people closest to us. So, I grew up with no knowledge of who my father was. Not knowing who he was left loose, and in some cases, I think, missing bricks in the foundation of who I could potentially become, of whom I desired to be. Without his guidance, in conjunction with the knowledge of his struggles through life, something I fiercely desired, I had no idea how to even commence the journey to get there! So, I did the best I could with what I had and tried to piece it all together from a plethora of different sources and experiences.
Some of the roads I took into becoming a man, I must admit, were not so savory, due to the lack of a father. Amongst other things, I sold drugs, and I was a gang member, because I was convinced that it was the only way to survive. Other roads were not so logical, i.e., books, movies, porn, etc., etc. In the end, I just turned out to be someone who made a lot of mistakes/bad choices growing up, who never learned how to get out of his own way, and in spite of my desire to be a good person and finally get things right, only succeeded in walking back into the things that I did accomplish because I allowed the desire for hope and redemption and the fear of failure to overwhelm me to the point that I reverted back to making rash, impulsive decisions in the name of self-preservation. In other words, I just didn’t want the hole that I somehow seemed to find myself continuing to dig, to continue to get deeper. Now, I find myself incarcerated for yet another series of bad decisions, regardless of my guilt or innocence, and all I ever wanted to be was a “dad”! I wanted to teach my children all that my dad had failed to teach me! Perhaps, even more than that, it was my hope that my child or children would know from whom they came – their paternal foundation – half of their eventual perception and perspective on life, gained from the knowledge and experience that could only come from their father.
I dreamed the dream of dreams that my children would learn and know their father so that they might become “aware” and know the essential parts of themselves, and not just within that knowledge find a source of pride and strength, but fill them with information that would allow their journey to becoming whom they will ultimately be that much easier, because life is confusing, unpredictable and at times, unspeakably harsh. There is no guidebook on how to live, not just exist.
My incarceration has made this inability to fulfil my duty to be my biggest regret. How do you reach out properly to influence and direct your children when you are imprisoned and virtually helpless? How do I help to alleviate some of that hardship from their mother from prison? I imagine that it’s like being given advice and direction from a ghost, right? But then I realized something – after all of these years …
Yes, my father is dead.
But he is not, for I am his blood, his spirit, his legacy.
For me, that means as long as there is tomorrow, there is hope.
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