Dad I Miss You

By Gerry Whitted
Senior Staff Writer

Hey Dad,

When I arrived at my house shortly after coming home from school; the words I am about to share with you have echoed in my temporal lobe, since the first time I heard them. Your father has died. How did he die I asked and quickly followed with will I see him in heaven? “He died from his stroke and yes you will see him in heaven,” my mother said. She, who had just been made a widow at the ripe old age of 32 years of age, was the messenger of this devastating news.

I was hurt and I was angry, I felt abandoned and lonely. I was all that and more. The sad part about this was I did not know how to articulate those feelings. How could I? I was 11 years old and in the sixth grade. I know we have not spoken since your death. I have been using God as an intermediary as a way to get messages to you via prayer.

I am writing you to let you know how I was affected by your sudden and all too soon demise. Every year on September 23 , the day of your birth and March 1968, I am reminded on how much I miss you. That day and year are indelibly etched in my mind and soul forever. A matter of fact that year is one most Americans will never forget. Reverend Doctor Martin Luther King and Senator Robert Kennedy were both assassinated in that year. The world lost three irreplaceable human beings, tragically and all of sudden.

Daddy! Why did you have to die? I know if you would not have died my life would have been so much easier, and it is your fault why it was not. I became closed, frightened and alone with no one or nowhere to turn. You taught me never to show fear or to be afraid of anything or anyone, God will protect me. You told to me say my prayers every night and eventually they will be answered. God loves you. Well it is hard to tell. It seems as if my prayers have fallen on deaf ears. I do not ask for a lot, matter of fact all I ask for is one thing prayer after prayer after prayer, night after night after night, week after week and year after year after year. I pray for all of this to be a dream and when I awaken you are alive. As I recall these events I begin to cry, after every word I write I wipe away the tears that are streaming down my face and at times obstructing my vision.

I can see clearly now that you and God have both abandoned me. This is not a dream this is reality. I guess I have to wait to see you in heaven as Mom said I would. I just hope my fate is different than yours. I do not want my to son to experience witnessing the effects of a stroke as I did. I found you on the floor after you had yours, and for years wondered if I could have done anything to prevent this from happening. When I went to the hospital for my one and only visit It was something I will never forget. The sight of the four inch scar on your neck attributed to the removal of the blood clot, and your inability to communicate due to your speech being reduced to that of an infant making sounds, ba ba da ta se vu. I could see the frustration on your face as I continually guessed wrong on my interpretation of your words. These images along with questions of my own mortality stagnated and curtailed my growth for some 25 years.I wondered and feared that my fate would be similar to your brief and short 32 years of life.

How could you be so selfish and cowardly to leave and never return to help and guide me through the maze of manhood. I know you taught me how to read, write, play chess, iron and fold my clothes. Also you were my basketball and baseball coach and taught me how to run, paid for swimming,tennis lessons and my Boys Scout uniform and supplies, all these things before my 10th birthday. Most of all you were a great father who showed me how much you care and loved me. The value of honesty, family, pride, hard work and education were staples that I still hold true today. It was as if you were giving me a cram course in manhood as a way to prepare me for your early death.What more could a kid ask for? Simple a father to finish what he has started and you did not do that.

Me, you and mom moved to Hollywood from Harlem after I was born. The plan was for you and your singing group to have a hit record. Being the owner of the publishing and songwriting rights you would be able to quit your job at the post office and live off the royalties. This would be a family business that I would inherit when I graduated college and passed down the same way to my kids. After you died that too died, along with life in Hollywood, California.

Mom has no family here so back to New York we went. The Flight attendants were great as we transported your body to Washington D.C. to be buried. Your mother, brother and two sisters were there to meet and greet us. I never felt so uncomfortable in my life, and being forced to go someplace I did not want to be did not help.

I was being punished for your death and I do not know why. I wanted to graduate with my friends and go to the junior high school. I have been looking forward to doing this since I was in the fourth grade. But you so selfishly died and so did my dream.

Once we were settled in New York the transition was one for the ages. It seemed as if everybody had a father except me.Those who were fatherless appeared to take the most abuse. They were picked on, laughed at for no rhyme or reason other than being fatherless. Relocating from Hollywood, California to New Rochelle, New York did not help either. I was an outsider and the new kid in the neighborhood, with that comes rights of initiation. My defense was to run home fast after school and lie about you being dead. I never talked about you and I never was asked about you. I finally graduated and gradually my problems increased and you were nowhere to be found.

I continued with the charade. I told everyone you worked at the post office as if you were still alive. Than I was given an award for being an honor student and I had to answer a questionnaire and be interviewed by my guidance counselor. It just so happened he retired from the same post office I said you were working. I was busted, there was not to many things worse than being caught in a lie .Although it was the best thing to happen to me and afterwards a burdens seemed to be lifted.

I was afraid, ashamed and missed my father and for the first time I spoke to my mother and adviser about it. They let me know that it was alright to cry and you teaching me otherwise was wrong, it was just your way to make me tough and that you meant no harm. From that point on I had no problem of saying that you were dead but that did not eliminate the burden that I still carried.

How do you kiss a girl? How do you make love? How do you ask a girl to be your girlfriend? What do you do to keep a girlfriend.? How do I know she likes me? How do I protect myself from the bullies?
What college should I go to? Should I go to white Ivy League school in the area that is recruiting me or black college in 1500 miles away in Dallas, Texas? Should I drop out of school and work? Should I get married? How do you deal with how a woman feels when she is pregnant? My wife lied to me about her fertility, I found she can not have kids what should I do? I think my wife is having affair what should I do? Our pastors niece is pregnant and I am the father. I am unhappy and lonely.

I would follow these questions with another question. What would my father do? How would my father act or say in this situation? I still was unhappy. I would not have had all of those situations if you were here. Life would have been so much easier and happiness would be a common occurrence.

I could not tell my mother because remember you told when if you died I would become the Man of the house. Well the man of the house does not come home and let his family know that he is coward, who is afraid to talk to girl and needs alcohol to have courage to even ask a girl to dance. Looking back I do not know how I got through it all and kept all that stuff a secret.

A mother can only do and have the answers for only so much. I needed my Father and you were not there, at times I wish I never met you. You made me believe that if I needed you, you would be there and you were not. You and God definitely have a few things in common. The most significant one is when I call on either of you the invisible man shows up.

Funny how things happen, about 25 years ago I met my current wife. She taught me I was only as sick as my secrets. That the past was a learning experience not a burden or weapon to inflict unnecessary harm to one's self. I could not remember ever being as happy in my life-other than the birth of my children.

I stopped blaming you and God for my transgressions and circumstances. I accepted the eleven years I had with you were eleven more than a lot of people have ever had with their Father. I understand and accepted that I created the burden and it was for me to release it. Once I did this I became a man with a positve and strong outlook upon today. But in order to make this journey complete and fulfilled, there is one more thing I must say and this cycle will be complete and that is... Good Bye.