My Dad

I didn’t always consider my dad to be my dad. We had some rough patches in life, so at some point I began considering him a sperm donor; we had no real relationship. However, during the last few years of his life he made an incredibly miraculous change in how he dealt with me and my 3 younger sisters. Those were absolutely our best times with him.

My mom and dad met in middle school and dated off and on throughout high school. You couldn’t tell these two that they weren’t a match made in heaven back then.

They went to church together, later down the line got married, and life seemed like it was going to be amazing.

When my dad was younger he suffered from a disease that stunted his growth, so he ended up being the shortest one in his family; hell, his younger brother was like a giant compared to him, so he definitely dealt with insecurities because of that. At some point in his life, he also found out that his mother, my grandmother, tried to abort him with a hanger. I can only imagine what was going through his heart and mind when he first found that out. It must have been traumatizing to hear that he wasn’t wanted so much so that those drastic measures were taken. I don’t know what mental state my grandmother was in at the time because she had her own mental hurdles to overcome in life. So, I can now only feel sorrow and pity for them both in this situation. The insecurities that come with knowing this information and dealing with a physical defect haunted my dad like demons. I don’t believe he knew how to handle his feelings and emotions for a large portion of his life, which affected how he interacted with his family and probably anyone that got close to him. This of course put a huge damper on my parent’s marriage, which ended in divorce. Nevertheless before the demise of the marriage, they had a beautiful baby girl…me; but as we all know having children can’t miraculously fix problems in a relationship. They got divorced when I was only 2 years old which in turn negatively affected my mental state, and my relationship with my father.

My dad was in and out of my life for many years. He lived in Brooklyn, just like my mom and I, so he would sometimes pick me up, which was exciting to me. We would go hang out at my grandparents’ house, to see the rest of the family. That was easily one of my favorite places to go because I loved hanging with my Dad’s side. They smoked cigarettes, drank, played cards, and cursed, all while listening to R&B and old school jams. They seemed to be happy together, and had so much fun. I was always very fascinated being with them because when I was home, the most action I got was going to church. After almost every visit, my dad would take me to McDonald’s, my all time favorite place back then. In my eyes at the time, he was the best dad ever.

As I grew older, things began to change. He got remarried, had my sister, and then later moved to New Jersey. I visited him but it was weird seeing him with another woman. I tried hard not to like her, but my first stepmom is one of my favorite people to this day! Yes I said first…but we’ll get into that later.

They then had my second sister and I began to see them less because they moved to South Carolina. I don’t remember the actual moment when it happened or if he had a real conversation with me about it, but I do know in my mind it sucked and things changed drastically. I spoke to my dad on the phone but not all the time. I went out to South Carolina to visit a few times and it was fun, but I don’t think I was a fan of not being the center of my dad’s attention when I was around him. I hated sharing him because I hardly got to see him regularly. I definitely remember experiencing those feelings when he was showing my stepmom affection or tending to my sisters. I felt something on the inside that I wasn’t used to and I didn’t like it. Now granted, my mom had my younger brother when I was 5 and ½, so I wasn’t the only child for her either, but I saw them everyday, so it was a little different. With my dad I always got to have that one on one time when we were together but then that all changed, and that was a problem for me.

One day I actually looked at my dad and stepmom’s wedding album and realized I was no where to be found and they got married either the day before or after my birthday, September 3rd. I was a quiet kid who didn’t really express my feelings much at the time, so I kept my shock, confusion, and unhappiness to myself. But in my mind I was hollering. “WHERE WAS I? HOW COME I WASN’T INVITED? WHY WOULD HE GET MARRIED NEAR MY BIRTHDAY?” Anger towards my dad started forming in me at a young age, but I didn’t know how to express it, so I let it simmer in my heart, which wasn’t a good choice at all. My dad and stepmom ended in divorce as well and he relocated to Austin, TX, to where his sister, my aunt and her family lived.

When I got old enough, my mom would let me fly out to South Carolina to stay with my stepmom and sisters for the summer. My mom was big on me having a real relationship with my sisters, and I’m glad she did because now we all have a super strong bond. I’m a proud older sister and auntie. That bond hadn’t been built with my dad though, so when I visited him in Texas, it started to feel strange being around him. When I graduated from 6th grade, he and I took a long road trip from Brooklyn to Austin. We hopped in the car almost immediately after the ceremony and took the long drive. It was a cool yet odd experience at the time. Since I hadn’t stepped into my emotionally expressive stage in life, I didn’t really capitalize on our alone time during that trip the way I could’ve. There were so many questions I wish I would’ve asked, because if I had, I believe I may have been able to get an honest glimpse of who he was earlier in my life.

I hung with my aunt, uncle, and cousins alot during the times I visited Texas. My dad wasn’t the same man I grew up knowing; he was sadder and kept to himself a lot, almost like a recluse. I could tell he tried to be a “dad” sometimes, but then other times I couldn’t understand why he didn’t want to be around me. Little did I know, he was battling emotionally with far greater things than I could even comprehend at the time. He later moved to his own place in Texas and started another family. Yet again, he got married without me knowing. Now that I think of it, he shut me out of what seemed like most of the important moments in his life and I wonder why!

Well stepmom #2 was also super sweet, so I had to love her as well. The summer I visited them is when I found out about her and my soon to be little sister #3. I was almost 16 at the time. The trip started out pretty cool! I liked my new stepmom and she had a son who was a few years older than me, so I figured it would be cool to have an “older brother” figure. My dad and I had one disagreement during my time there because I wanted to hang out with my new step brother and his friends, but my dad said no. I got mad, then he got mad, and said some crazy things to me, which I can’t remember now. To make matters worst, he gave me the silent treatment. It made me feel terrible, and I couldn’t believe someone who was in and out of my life for so long had now decided this was the time to play “over protective father.” That whole experience messed up the entire trip for me, so I called my mom and told her I wanted to leave early. She made my dad book me on the next flight home. He let me get on the plane without saying goodbye to me and right then I knew life would never be the same.

I was a growing teenager and originally that summer visit was going to determine if I would opt to go live with my dad, because I felt like my mom and I kept bumping heads. Needless to say, we know who I ended up living with after that. From then on, the relationship between my dad and I was more than rocky, but he finally met the real me; the person who no longer felt the need to always hold her feelings in. For Father’s Day that next year I bought him an extremely nice card and filled it with all of my feelings and emotions; front, back, and inside. I was holding those feelings in for many years, so I began to vomit them all out onto that elaborately decorated cardboard, with no real filter. I wrote so much on that card that it was hard to see the preprinted words that originally came on it. I didn’t hear back from him for awhile after that, so I knew it stung. I had been pretty quiet with my Dad, and only expressed my real feelings to my mom, so how I expressed myself that time may have come as a shock to him. I then started to speak up more when necessary and when my dad did deal with me, he began approaching me in a different way. He began to show me a level of respect I don’t think he had for me prior.

Him and my 2nd stepmom ended in divorce as well, and years later he got remarried. By the time he married wife #4, I had a family of my own. I was married, helping to raise my stepson, and had an almost 1 year old daughter. I met the new wife when he brought her to New York to celebrate Christmas with the family. Yet again, I wasn’t notified about the nuptials until the two were already married, or a few days before. Even though she tried to come off nice, I sensed there was something off about wife #4. Back then I hadn’t yet tapped into understanding people’s energy like I do now, so I couldn’t quite put my finger on what I felt was wrong with her. I chalked it up to her just being nervous to meet his family. As the years went on, my father tried to build a relationship with my sisters and I. At that time, I had still never met my youngest sister in person, but only seen pictures and spoke to her over the phone.

My second youngest sister went to stay with him and wife #4 for a while since he was on his “Relationship Rekindling World Tour,” and that ended in disaster. It wasn’t so much what he did, but how his wife treated my sister. And if anyone really knows me, they know I don’t play about my siblings, so I addressed him about the situation. He ended up in the hospital during the time my sister was there, so he didn’t get to physically witness all of the mistreatment. I expressed my disdain for his wife’s behavior, and that didn’t go over well. By this time I was pregnant with my 2nd daughter, which was the worst pregnancy for me physically, so I was already not a happy camper. I let him verbally have it on behalf of his wife and he tried his best to stick up for her. That enraged me even more, and pushed me further away from him.

It wasn’t until 2016, during the beginning of one of the worst times in my life, when my family relocated to California, that I felt like a change needed to take place when it came to my relationship with my dad. It was actually Charlie, my husband at the time who told me I needed to forgive him, because he had been reaching out to me. Charlie hadn’t seen his father since he was 3 years old and would have loved the opportunity to reconnect. He reminded me that not everyone gets a second chance with these types of relationships, and encouraged me to take it. After much contemplation, I conceded and gave my dad another chance. Until this day, I hold that as one of the best decisions of my life.

Getting to know my father again was amazing. He was a completely different individual from who I grew up knowing all of those years prior. During this time I was struggling to be a wife, while also being a mom to a teenage stepson and 2 adolescent daughters. I had a lot on my plate, and never wanted my dad to come into my family’s lives if he was not going to have a consistent, loving relationship with them. But to my surprise, when he got his opportunity, he ran with it.

He flew me out to Dallas so that he and I could attend my youngest sister’s High School graduation, while surprising her with Me, because we’d still never met in person. That was an epic moment and I couldn’t believe he orchestrated it.

Later that year, he flew out to meet my kids for my oldest daughter’s 10th birthday. The very next summer he flew out to North Carolina for her first Junior Olympics Track Competition. During the Junior Olympics, my 2 middle sisters drove from South Carolina to see us and brought my niece and 2 nephews. My dad was overjoyed to have 3 out of his 4 daughters and 4 out of his 5 grandchildren together at one time. By this time his body had undergone surgeries and he had developed sarcoidosis, so his breathing was wheezy and he moved a little slower than he would have liked, but he enjoyed every minute with us. My sisters and I had all decided prior to that moment that it was time to forgive him, so this was a perfect reunion, minus a few.

In 2019 he flew back out to California to surprise my oldest daughter for her 5th grade graduation, along with my mom and my brother. Although my parents had been divorced for years, at this point, they were pretty cool with each other. During this visit, he spoke openly to me about the struggles he had in life and apologized again for not being there for me growing up. He finally revealed the horrific truth about his past, that had plagued him and affected his relationships with others. I couldn’t even imagine what life was like for him mentally. My dad opening up to me that day helped me learn a tremendous amount about him and I began to understand why he had difficulties being a father. That was the last time I saw him alive in person, but I spoke to him on the phone regularly. He took these same types of trips to see my sisters, niece, and nephews as well.

His heart condition and the sarcoidosis kept getting worst, even though he would say he was doing ok. He expressed to me that he wasn’t ready to die, but was at peace with knowing he did his job building relationships with his children. I didn’t find out until after he passed that he was actually in the hospital during our last phone conversation. Apparently, he didn’t want any of us to know, and his wife never bothered to reach out to me or my sisters. When she finally did try contacting us, it was to tell us he had passed away. She didn’t have my phone number so she tried reaching out to me on Facebook. I didn’t see the message because I was actually driving Lyft the night it happened. I had a passenger in the car and my mom kept calling me. I didn’t like to take calls when I had passengers in the car, so I let it go to voicemail. His wife had to reach out to my aunt in order to get the information to me. After I dropped the passenger off, Charlie called me and told me to pull over. I was so confused and kept asking why. I found a big parking lot to pull into and he broke the news to me. It was so surreal because I didn’t even know he had gone back into the hospital. When we spoke, his breathing issue sounded a bit worst, but he told me he just had a cold, but was doing ok. I was in shock and still had to drive 20 minutes to get back home. I sat in that lot for a while. Of course as the oldest child and the first one of us to find out, I had to reach out to my sisters to break the devastating news to them. Even writing this now gives me chills because he was only 59 years old, and to make matters worst, he died the day before my youngest daughter’s birthday! So I still had to perk up to celebrate her life the next day. It was one of the worst times in my life. I miss him so much and wish we could still have our regular chats. I realized after his passing that he truly made the most of his final years with his family and did a complete turnaround when it came to our relationships with him.

During meditation recently, my dad and maternal grandmother came to see me and that brought me a great deal of comfort. He didn’t say too much, but what he did say was super important and enough. We had trips planned to learn more about our heritage and our family’s origin, but the universe had other plans. I hate that he’s not here, but I have great memories to cherish and hold on to. My dad’s change regarding life and his relationship with me and my siblings is a true redemption story. The thought of his life helps me understand that it’s ok to forgive others who truly show positive change, because I now know that legitimate positive change is possible.