Daddy Deserves A Headstone:
My father could sing “My Way,” by Frank Sinatra with so much emotion that people gave him standing ovations. Unfortunately, for us, his children, “The record shows I took the blows and did it my way,” applied to the way he lived his life.
My dad, or Daddy as we called him, was the epitome of tall, dark and handsome. What I didn’t understand so many years ago is that dark didn’t necessarily mean the color of his skin.
My dad was incredibly strong, stronger than most men. My brother told us that one day, while under the vehicle he was working on, the jack slipped. It crushed his chest, and he struggled to breathe, but eventually lifted it, stood up, dusted himself off, and continued fixing it as if nothing had happened.
People feared him. He was quick-tempered, and if hurting you with words wasn’t a dissuader, then his fists would follow. He worked in the construction industry, specializing in roofing. I heard he fell from the roof a few times. He proudly told me he gave me a hiding when I was seven months old because I would not stop crying.
He said I was his favorite child and loved me, but I feared him- we all did.
Daddy, as he was known to us (he wasn’t in our lives long enough to progress to the Dad phase), was a skirt-chasing Lothario. He married my then-17-year-old mom because she fell pregnant. He was 21 at the time. Marital vows, however, did not change him. He was faithful only to his wants and needs. He needed food cause he had a big appetite and wanted good times with women and the men he hung around with. He had a resonating, deep voice that either sent shivers down your spine in fear or ecstasy. The former was what we, his children, had come to know too often.
As a child, my relationship with Daddy was like being on an out-of-control see-saw. I never knew when it would be up or down, but I yearned for the good times my cousins gloated about. I often heard what a great uncle he was, and that made me long to be his niece, not his daughter.
Hidings were in abundance, and love and hugs were scarce.
Too often, my sister and I, while walking home from school, would slow down and pray that he wouldn’t be home when we got there.
As children huddled around a radio (our only source of entertainment indoors), we had to be quiet, so we learned to whisper when he was around. When he was in a good mood, he would demand to know why we were whispering. And much like you asked to smile when someone takes a photo, our louder voices, like the “forced smile” for the camera, were unnatural.
My mother changed the locks, and he had to move out after yet another indiscretion knocked on the door of our home. This time, the lady claimed she was pregnant. My mom stood in shock because how do you hide a baby? So no, magical sweeping under the carpet. The lady was surprised to discover that he was a married father of four.
Not long after that, I heard she lost the baby.
He went to live about 4 miles from us with a divorced woman who had two boys. I heard he was a great stepfather. The family court ordered him to pay weekly maintenance for us, and every week, we would walk with empty stomachs to collect the money. Each week, for an entire year, barring two weeks where he gave money, he would send nasty messages sans the money via us to our mom. My brothers, who were 10 and 9, were required to clean that woman’s yard. Daddy would order them to do it while her children stood and laughed at them. My sister and I had to wait outside until the boys completed the cleaning. We were not allowed inside lest we steal or break something.
The forced labor stopped when my 10-year-old brother cried and told my mom we would no longer go to our dad. Not to visit nor to ask for money.
It stopped!
During the years that followed, I saw my dad once or twice. He would have what I think would be a sudden attack of conscience or melancholy and take us out for the day. Those times were precious to me as he was pleasant once he finished criticizing how broken our clothes or shoes were or how untidy our hair was. I overlooked the criticism because I enjoyed the carefree moments at the beach or on the mountain.
Moments I could be a child.
When I was 17 years old, I started singing, and word must have reached my dad because he demanded entry into our house to talk to me. My cousin had told him she saw me with a much older man in a club. She neglected to let him know the older man was a band member, and my mom or older brother accompanied me.
Daddy then decided to lecture me on promiscuity. As a mouthy, “Know-It-All” teenager, I laughed at him and then not so gently reminded him about his past behavior. He looked angry, as if he wanted to hit me, and I stared defiantly, daring him to. I no longer feared him and told him he needed help and would never find happiness. By then, he was married, and his wife (not the same woman he lived with) was pregnant. He had also found God.
I heard his wife lost the baby.
At 17 years old, I figured God would not bless him with a child when he had four whom he had neglected and abused.
I began to visit him when I turned 18 and created a tentative, albeit awkward, father-and-daughter relationship between us. I told him I forgave him and would keep in touch. His second wife had passed away, and he was now married to a woman who disliked me on sight.
The feeling was mutual.
At 21 years old, I relocated to a city more than a thousand miles from home to start my singing career.
The years went by, and my daughter was 9- months- old when my sister called to say he had a stroke and a heart attack and was in hospital. Being so far away, I couldn’t visit him, but when my grandfather passed on, my siblings and I went to see him. My sister cautioned me that he did not look the same as I remembered.
I don’t know what I expected, but I did not recognize him.
He was bedridden, had lost the use of the right side of his body, was incontinent, and had slurred speech. To describe him as a shadow of his former self was being polite. Daddy, as I knew him all those years ago, was gone, buried under the devastating effects of illness. The tears silently rolled down his cheeks as he painstakingly thanked the four of us for coming. He motioned with his left arm and asked to place his sleeping granddaughter in the crook of it. While awkwardly holding her, Daddy gazed lovingly down at her and whispered my name.
The tears streamed freely down my face, and in that instant, all the anger and sometimes hate flowed out of me. We stayed for a while, and during that time, he kept saying he was sorry and loved us. Several times, he haltingly begged for forgiveness.
Daddy passed away peacefully one year later.
My aunt, his sister, held him in his dying moments. His third wife had long since fled, along with the money he made from a successful business and anything else of value.
The funeral service was somber and packed with splendid eulogies from my cousins, his remaining siblings and the Minister of the church he belonged to. They all looked at us, silently admonishing our failure to weep and display our pain.
My eyes remained dry!
I held it together for 12 months until Christmas lunch. We had invited family and friends over, and I was doing the dishes when I suddenly broke down. I sobbed uncontrollably, ignoring the questions in people’s eyes. My husband held me and seemed relieved that it had finally happened.
Life continued, and I spoke about him often to my daughter and son. My daughter had his unusual color eyes, and my son had his strength. Because of the change in us both, I knew he would have been a patient, loving grandfather to them.
A few years later, I decided to visit his grave. I took my children with me and looked for his name among the many headstones at the cemetery. I could not find his grave and asked the assistant for assistance.
We followed where she walked, occasionally reading the beautiful inscriptions on the headstones and admiring the flowers. Suddenly, the assistant gestured to a piece of pavement with a number painted. I knelt, praying and crying and felt an immense sadness well up in me.
My dad may not have been a good father figure, but he was more than a number hastily scribbled on a pavement block. He had a name, and it was only fitting to immortalize his life by placing a headstone on his grave. Before I left, I silently promised him to buy a headstone with his name inscribed on it.
Daddy was not a number but a man who played a role in my being on earth.
I exist because he did.
