She got a name, then he walked away...

Every Father's Day, without fail, someone posts to some social media in the internets, the following question (in varying syntax and leveling degrees of mastery of said syntax), All these songs about mothers…where are the songs about fathers?

One year I replied with this one. Mostly because poor grammar upsets me, and my unconscious ability to be petty amuses others. AND any father worth their fathering is not somewhere looking for a song.

He’s looking for the remote. Or a kid to bring it to him.

I digress.

But, I love this song. Before I loved it, my father had to help me. Remember that time my Daddie did that awful thing? When he left me in Westwood all by myself (yes, I’m this dramatic, still) to go make a life and be great or whatever it was? Yea, that. He left me with roommates. A caucasian and mexican girl. And because I like my mexican people from my neighborhood in the bay area (who are the southern californians anyway? they smell like avocado – not that this is a bad thing or I know what that is at this point in my life). HOW CAN YOU LEAVE ME WITH STRANGERS?!

…anyway, because caucasion people listen to different music, my roommate worships the devil.

Daddie…I think my roommate worships the devil? Will I go to hell because I live with her? It’s not like I picked her. What? What are you talking about? She listens to weird music. I think it’s on MTV. These white guys are like bouncing around and making strange sounds with instruments and whatnot. I am not sure what this is, and I don’t want my soul to burn in that place *because even though we’re preacher’s kids, we don’t use that h-word…around him* I’m sure it’s not that. Well, what are the people saying in the song? They’re saying…well, he’s talking about…Daddie their hair is like these weird colors!!!!! Baby, just relax. You’re going to have to give different things a try. I don’t think she worships the devil. If she did, I think you would be more certain of it. Just relax. If you don’t like it, don’t listen to it. But I don’t think you even know what it is…

Daddie – A Gazillion; Me – like maybe 5 or 6. I mean, I’m not a complete idiot…sometimes I got a W. But I certainly took waaaayyy more L’s, like not listening to the song.

So I took his advice. I listened. It was awful. Until I listened long enough to hear what they were talking about. Oh…this is about his father; he must have been a great guy. Oh, he left you? Uh…my bad. You were scared? Uh….okay, not exactly devil worship, but it’s not that bad.

 

Our fathers are nothing alike, but I love this song. There's this one part..., ♫♪ …daddy gave me a name, my daddy gave me a name…then he walked away… ♫♪

Same thing happened to me. Only, it happened much faster for him. His dad gave him a name, he closed his eyes, his world disappeared, and his daddy was gone. My Daddie gave me a name, then 18 of the best years a daughter could have, took me to Westwood and walked away…to the parking lot, to drive back to the Bay Area.

My Daddie gave me a name. On that day, when the one who (earthly) made me provided me that protection, he also shared the story of my name. And everything it means.

At Wheaty’s graduation taco party, we were all making introductions. As such, I extended my hand and told a man my name. I was sitting next to my Daddie. He looked up from his taco and made that eye contact that feels like a finger is being pointed at you and said proudy-matter-of-fact(ly), I named her. That’s my baby.

…and like a few of the other people here at this party, but yes Daddie, I’m your baby.

He says that he and my mother (before she became a turncoat) were talking to each other one of the nights they were anticipating my arrival. He loved the sound of names that sound like mine, but he wanted the “na” because, lucky for me, that's what he liked. And he even decided the middle name. But mother wanted the extra “e” in my middle name…so he signed off on it.

Mother needed his approval for my name. He had to sign off on it, or it wasn’t going to happen. The name had to please him. It had to be the name that he liked. Loved.

Being the first born third, I have always felt some kind of way about my gender. I’m a girl. I was born female. I’m a woman, because that’s the adult version of girl, but Daddie called me his baby, and you read these blogs, so you’re thinking what I’m thinking – she’s technically got "lady parts", but beyond that, the jury is out.

My father is the first son. Because of that, he carries the name of a great man. Exactly that man’s name…with a Jr attached. Because Papa was the original, and Daddie was that fire remix. My father’s brothers? Just about all have a fire remix walking around here. One got a sample outchea somewhere on someone’s playground. I have always wondered, would he have felt differently, better-differently if I were that remix. If I could carry three stacks behind my name, be a remix of Daddie – a sample of Papa. Be the legacy in title and task.

I have felt less because of this thing. Even more so in thinking about meeting someone and loving someone, and wanting to do that forever thing with them, and my name changing. I don’t carry his first name, and if married, I might not even carry his last name. It would be forever lost.

So I did what any guilt ridden daughter would do. Spent my entire life leaving things at Daddie’s altar (the night stand by his bed) to purchase his non-existent grief about this. Awards. Perfect grades. Complementary reports. Certificates. Good behavior. Recognition. I wouldn’t even ditch school on Senior Ditch Day – nobody anticipates you to be there, and it’s kind of weird for the teachers when you show up. Remember when I told you spent part of the 8^th grade in CST? I got a Computer Literacy certificate. My Daddie had it in a folder near his bed. Without a scratch or blemish. If I can’t carry your name Daddie, I am going to make sure I do right by this one I got. This was how I “fixed it”.

Daddie, though, being smarter and having sight beyond sight knew that this might happen (maybe). So he did something better than pass on a great name. He created one. One that every time he heard would fill him up with so much pride, that every time he heard it, the world would stop. Like my High School graduation. The story? It was hot as a bih on the Menlo-Atherton High School football field. So Daddie and his other Daddie homeys were standing under the bleachers doing Daddie things. When they called the name of the child represented by the Daddie group, they would come from under the bleachers, listen to the speech, or clap at the awarding of the degree, and go back under the bleachers. Because, we love kids, but shade too.

He probably said the same thing at my high school graduation. When I made my approach to the stage, and gave my stunning and inspiring speech, using my inspiration at the time – Tupac, because #HellaResist. I named her. That’s my baby.

This is all postulate though. How can I be sure of these things now, anyway? Much like Everclear, ♫♪ …I never understood you then, and I guess I never will… ♫♪

Oh…and if you’re looking for a song about fathers, check this one out. 

I promise, it’s a winner. 

She was loved yall...

I recently submitted an SA Speaks for our regional student affairs conference. What’s that? Well it’s a like a 10 minute speech/conversation/talk that offers presenters and participants an innovative look at important topics and a means  to spread ideas about how we can change the student affairs profession and transform learning in higher education…because professional development. I’m still waiting to hear back about it.

What’s the topic? Glad you wondered. It’s about my last day as a student affairs professional. I know what you’re thinking, you quit? Nah, I haven’t. But I have thought it over, and over, and over…but there is no other way I could imagine my professional life – at this point at least.

When I first decided, intentionally, that I would become a Student Affairs Professional, I had all the hope in the world. All of it. I mean, before Barack Obama was like a thing we all terribly miss now, I believed it would be me who would inspire a man/woman like him. That something I did, via all this housing and residence life work, would help some young person (of color) achieve something so great that it would be a first…like the first black president. I told myself that I would be a difference maker in the ways that people like Pops made a difference for me. Crazy, right?

My first words were words of hope. They were dreams for the generation to come. My words these days? I hope you do come into this office talkin’ crazy, I *hand clap* Hope *hand clap* You *hand clap* Do... Because all hope is gone. Why have you forsaken us Lord? After 10+ years, I have almost perfected the what I’m gonna say on my last day, so much so, I’ve submitted an SA Speaks.

My last words are hopeful. But not in the ways my first words were.

A few months ago my Daddie called me. Out of the blue. Well, out of love, but you know what I mean. Probably one of the most random calls I have gotten accustomed to getting because my Daddie was awesome about calling just because. He had a mission though. He wanted to tell me about my life.

He said one day, he was leaving the house. I, just figuring out how to run in my little legs chased after him to the door. He told me that I couldn’t go with him, because my hair wasn’t combed and I wasn’t dressed. Because, clearly as a child I didn’t understand stay ready so you don’t have to get ready…Lord bless me in my ignorance. At that point, I eagerly went over to my mother so she could do my hair and dress me up. She hooked a playa up. New fit. New hair. I was outchea in these streets shining. Yeah.

Only, this was their clever plot to distract me while he left to the store. How could you leave me Daddie? And your accomplice? I should have known that I couldn’t trust her. Because, birth! I was fine in her uterus, but she persisted and pushed.

Anyway, payback is a BIH because I cried the entire time. At the door. Looking for him. He said I wailed something awful because, well, he heard it when he returned.

It broke his heart. So he made me a promise, before God, the Angels, and that turncoat I call a mother… I’ll never be the reason you cry again. I will never make you cry again.

Daddie pretty much kept his word. The next time he left me somewhere was UCLA in 1990 and 8. I thought the world ended when he told me he wasn’t staying in the triple room with me and my roommates in Hedrick Hall. HOW CAN YOU LEAVE ME LIKE THIS?! DON’T YOU LOVE ME?! I’m so dramatic. I have lived my life in his footsteps. In 1990 and 3 he was moving back to Texas for reasons I never care to know or understand. It was shortly after a major surgery. He told me that he was leaving. I replied,  I’m coming with you. I left every earthly thing I kid could leave. I never thought twice about it. Daddie had to purchase my plane ticket at the airport counter in San Francisco. Remember when that was a thing? The summer before the 8^th grade, I moved to CST.

I started to tear up on the other side of the phone, PST. I almost lost all composure. He knew it was more than I could handle – because he knows my silence, so he quickly got off the phone, as he would expertly do. I love you, I’m out. I called my best friend. My best friend told me to go see my father.  

While those weren’t his first words to me, they carried the sentiment of his very first words to me. He attempted to explain just how much he loved me, the second he saw me, he says. We were in a hospital. Those were also his first words to the township of Hooks, Texas at the time of my birth. Yall, the man drove around the town announcing it. Aside from the fact it’s a small country town, we are literally related to like half the people – everybody pretty much already knew…but announcement. I’m not exaggerating. This actually happened. In real life.   

Daddie’s first words to me were his very last words. The man is so detailed he even had the nerve to speak them from a hospital. He was always particular and specific that way. Daddie told me that I would never understand just how much he loved me. And because the man is like waaaayyy smarter than me and knows soooo much more than me, he is absolutely right. It was a Friday night. I had a plane ticket to CST that Sunday evening *red eye*… We had daddie/daughter shenanigans planned for that Tuesday.

I’ll see you in Fort Worth! You darn right! Is Mommie coming with you? Nah, I told her I was babysitting the granddaughter. She ain’t gonna wanna come for that. I’ll see the baby on Monday, and come on Tuesday. Wait, so you just gonna leave Mommie? You seriously told her that? *laughing hysterically* You darn right…if I can get away with it!

I can’t fathom how, in almost 4 decades, he feels the exact same way he felt on that first day. I can’t figure it out. I’ve been in a profession I love for more than 10 years and I got some feelings I don’t think they would understand. They’re hopeful feelings too…but not exactly in the same way they first were. And I actually do love the work I do. But, feelings yo…the feels.

I wonder what it must have been like… To live a life, where the happiest you thought you could be, the loveliest ways you thought you could feel, would be the exact happy and lovely you would feel at the end of it. This is what I am talking about! I honestly believed it was improbable and impossible to be loved this way. After all, I’ve been told I was loved, but that changed. Every. Single. Time.

Save, one. Daddie was genius, yall.

If you will allow me to pray for you, I will pray exactly this thing. That a person will love you something like the one perfect way I was loved. Because it was complete. The beginning and ending of it was perfect, though the man was not.

He seemed it though. #perfect

She Has Fake Degrees... #ShowMeTheSealSoWeKnowItsItsReal

Have you been to my office? If you have then you know there is a large paper medal on the wall because I got the MVP of Student Staff Training #Spring2015…and what else? A bunch of thank you cards and other pieces of celebratory paper. The piece(s) of paper(s) you expect to see aren’t there.

Yup. There are no degrees on my wall in my office. And in the span of my full-time professional career, they’ve never been on my wall because…

…them joints is fake, yo.

Let me explain *in my Kevin hart voice* …

In 2000 and 3 I graduated from the University of California at Los Angeles. Just in time to NOT have the terminator’s name on my degree #BlessGodInThisBuildingSaints. It was an exciting time. Let’s go back to Ackerman…

I was so happy! I called home. Well, prior to the exciting call home, I made a huge scene in Ackerman buying the diploma frame. Yea, I want that one at the top. Very top. Yes, the best one you got. I just graduated homey…you better believe this piece of paper is hanging in style. Hello…this is me? I need better than your best.

Then he rang it up. I didn’t have money for three weeks. Daddie actually had to send money from Texas for California groceries…because hungry. I was embarrassed that I even needed money for food – until that time, I was able to take care of all my financial needs that financial aid didn’t cover #BraidingHair.

Anyway, as I wasn’t saying, I called him. Mom answered. She was sooo happy for me. So much so, that she stated that I should Go to Kinko’s… Yeah, Make a copy… Yeah, Then send the original… *ummm…where is this going* …to her in Texas. That, if I ever wanted to come home ever again, I would need to do this. I obeyed. But she got the coldest side eye ever given in the game though…through the phone. Because I wanted to go home, because fried cabbage yall. Both degrees are on the wall in their home. And a whole heap of other awards and such. I know because this past week (or so) I hung them there #TheyMoved.

Have you seen the color copy version of your degree/seal on your degree from Kinkos? It's orange... It's not even the same orange all over the seal. Because the photocopier, and the lights, and physics! Bro, this joint is as believable as the current sitting united states president. Like, we know it’s real, but it looks fake AF. Exactly.

Why would I put this on my wall at work? So I haven’t. It’s just not a thing. And, of course, this is all my mother’s fault. What does she want with it anyway?

But, as time deals with most things I made my peace with it. As a new professional, I began to realize that though I work with many people, some of which have many degrees, they are quite dumb. AF, homey…dumb AF. I started to take solace in the empty walls. My brain isn’t empty, and I use coherent sentences. I have the innate ability to swirl the king’s English with slang and contemporary vernacular, that honestly…the degree didn’t teach me to do. My intellect is more than what that piece of paper says I know. So…I’m good.

But I wasn’t. At a student leadership retreat, I had to share a piece of me…because vulnerability can be an important part of your leadership. Yes, all those aforementioned reasons are the reasons why my degrees are on bookshelf in my office. I know that I am smart, but I don’t always occupy that space. I am sometimes very insecure about what I know, to the point that I probably give the appearance that I don’t know anything. Like this guy last week told me how the Plan B pill works. Aside from the fact that this is something as a woman I would probably know because vagina, I was a Physiological Sciences major. Though I don’t work in my major, I LOVE science, because three swirls, remember? But nobody would know that was my major, because bookshelf.

I regularly get the feeling that I didn’t earn my degrees. Because, Daddie. Dude is smart as heaven…and a little hell – he ever tell you what he did to that cat? He would be an awesome person to have on a trivia team because he knows about the oddest, craziest things, usually from personal experience. He remembers dates like you wouldn’t believe. Why do I know that I was born at 10:16pm on a Tuesday? One year he called me at exactly my birthday. To the minute, yall. He even factored in the time zones because that was CST that I was born in, but it was PST he was calling to...so he called...twice, so it was 8:16pm PST, then again at 10:16pm PST. Everything I know is because of him. What he didn’t teach me, he prepared me to learn. And every bit of knowledge I engaged him in, he expanded upon – for my good – for my name to be on those pieces of paper. How can I take credit for everything that HE did. Doesn’t really seem fair at all.

As we were driving around in my Daddie’s truck, I was talking to that lady about degrees hanging from the wall. How I sent the originals, but all my sisters punked out and sent copies. But why they get to come home when you told me I couldn’t? Sure, I get the wealthiest portion of the fried cabbage, but nothing else for my obedience!!!!!

She said, your Father wanted that degree. I just passed the message. Then she looked at me and shrugged like, so you mad or nah? I leaned over the driver’s seat in amazement. All of these years those degrees have been on the wall, he never revealed this. And because, although hard-headed, she is a good wife, she kept his secret. She kept it until I needed to know it.

Today, this very day, there are two odd looking degrees on the wall in my office. I am more proud of them than you could imagine.

I have exactly what I earned on my wall.

...and Daddie has exactly what he earned on his.

She doesn't do funerals...

I don’t do funerals.

It sort of sounds like the way people say they don’t do clubs. Or tofu. Or turkey bacon. You should never do turkey bacon. Mostly because it’s not a thing. But I digress…

I don’t do funerals. Which means I don’t do death. I have never known how to grieve. The first funeral I attended, that I can remember, I was 16 or 17 and it wasn’t even for someone I knew. Next time I heard about a death was my maternal grandmother. I was soon to earn my first college degree. And the first funeral I attended for a loved one was for a young man, though unrelated, tore a hole into my womb. I felt the place he was connected to me inside from which he did not gestate. I was a degree holding adult by then.

Every funeral after that? I had a set of car keys. I maybe lasted 10 to 20 minutes. Ain’t nobody got time for that.

I said I don’t do funerals.

The whole thing is effed up if you ask me. After being born, I feel like you’ve paid all there is to be paid. But no, there’s more! You know it cost $300 to get the hole to put the casket in. Not dig the hole. Or pay the man to dig the hole. Or by the equipment to excavate the land. Bruh…$300 to have the rights to a hole…to pay for all those other things.

And if the hole cost that much, you can just imagine the full price tag. I see why Phaedra was trying to get in the funeral business. If I did funerals the way I do these races or shoe sales, I might maybe have a lucrative career. Seriously, this could be a thing if I could stomach it.

The whole pomp considering these circumstances is for the birds, yo. You walk the grieving family into the crowded (if people liked them) venue. You sit and listen to people talk about all the wonderful things that person did (if they did them) – that literally none of you will ever experience again. You realize all the things you maybe did/didn’t say or do. Everyone wants to touch you. Hug you. Console you. Be there for you when you fall out. Because everyone is waiting for you to lose your sh*t because hello – someone is dead. And you could be the lucky person to be there for them. #Season2Episode17 #WillAndGrace #KarenPlayedThem

Did I mention that when all this is happening there is a not-alive body in the same room? Because we need to have their remains in the room while we’re all breathing…because there’s enough air to have a something in there that no longer needs it. What else shall I render unto you Lord??

And the muther-effing-flowers. They are everywhere. And they are the dreary things. These un-alive things. These soon to be dead things. Just like the person in the front of the room. Who comes up with this stuff?? I promise I will haunt you for the remainder of you sad, pitiful, and tawdry life if you ever do any of this in my name. I. WILL. HAUNT. YOU. Even in your afterlife. You won’t even rest in ghostly peace. Because, yes…I am that petty.

Look, do me like Prince. When the purple one retreated back to the stars from whence he came, we didn’t even know. We were like, You know Prince passed away? Yea, girl, they buried him yesterday. How they get the body from one side of the country to the other that fast. I don’t know, but the headstone already up. Pictures from the Memorial on Spike Lee’s IG page, soooo? #WeFinishedAndWeDone How, sway? And it takes them like 3 to 5 business days to credit things back to my bank account? #ThisIsNotSiliconValley

Remember that? By the time we were able to process his passing, his earthly shell was literally already over all of us.

Give me this kind of love, if you say you love me. Actions. I feel like, there might be a funeral because some members of my family are hard-headed (ie: My mother). But at the funeral, yall should all be texting each other like, Yo, what time the party jumpin off? Do I have time to go change? They frying fish, right? And when it’s over, you should go up to my mother and say Mrs Marilyn, um, we gotta go change, but we’ll be over to the spot ready to turn up. Can you fry some pork-chops and make some cornbread and cabbage? Even if you don’t eat it, order it. Because, it’s a party and that’s what I would ask of her.

I don’t deserve a funeral. And not just because I don’t want one. But this is me people. ME. How many times have I done things that you were like, normal humans would be dead, but she’s one of the X-men, so I get it but not really? How. Many. Times?

Many, the times.

Aqui's is this great place that makes these drinks called swirls. They suggest that you have two only, because strong. Here’s the thing…they are absolutely correct in their assessment of the drinks that they make and serve daily. But here I am, a scientist and ish. I have had three swirls, on multiple occasions. The last time I had three, I had to dump the contents of my purse to figure out what the eff happened after the three swirls. This is not the life of a person who values or is attached to their said life. But here’s the thing…it’s not like people had to help me in and out of the car, or I was throwing up all over the place. I woke up in my home, in my bed, in my pajamas. All of my things were exactly where they should be. What were the contents of my purse you ask? ONE grain of rice, cookie crumbs, and a lip gloss from MAC. This is not normal. Also, that was not the last time I had three swirls.

I flew to Hawaii to run a Ragnar Relay Race (200 mile relay race) with 11 people I met in a Facebook group and on conference calls. I didn’t realize that this is a less than safe thing to do until I knocked on the door of the hotel room of all the strangers that are now my friends. My Angelica Rollerskates had to scare me into not running on my local creek trail because a felon escaped custody in my city. That news alone didn’t deter me from getting my daily run. I sampled (gulped) Hangar One vodka for the first time the night before the Pleasanton Double (10k – break – 5k). Every single state I have moved to, I did so, driving, alone. I have lived in Los Angeles, Conway (Arkansas), Murfreesboro (Tennessee), Hamilton (New York), and Norfolk (Virginia). Like Sandra Bland could not have been me. #ImBlessedYall #RealTalk

Is this the life of someone you should be crying about in a church? Seriously…put me in that $300 hole in Cedar Spring Cemetery as near to my Daddie as you can get me and turn the eff up. I expect nothing less than a spectacular event. Shut the township of Hooks, Texas down…then roll out to Dallas and do it all over again. Like at The Daiquiri Shoppe. You’re welcome.

You have to. Because, I’m no grief profiteer.

What’s a grief profiteer? Glad you wondered. Quite simply, it’s a person that seems to be there for you when you’re grieving and no other time. Because they are seen as being super supportive and helpful. They want to report to the world (social media) that they checked in with you, and that you’re doing however it is you’re doing and pass messages on behalf of you. It’s also the person that expounds upon their awful circumstances for the attention and whatever comes with it, because grief is now profitable, in a really horrific way. The problem? When you’re grieving, you can’t differentiate between the actual people who are human and the soul-less profiteers.

I won’t do either. Mostly because I don’t know how to do grief. I haven’t had anything to grieve, save my broken (for other reasons) heart, until these days. If I didn’t ask you to come to the court and help me run these drills, I’m definitely not about to call you when I lose the ‘ship. Cause Draymond has no chill and that Quickie shirt makes a bad hairline worse. #iWantOne #TheShirt #NotAbadHairline #GodSaveMyEdges

I don’t know how to do any of this because I never had to do this. When I began to perform some of my first born third duties, I realized I was way in over my head. I was speaking with my Auntie on that dirt road that got paved, and she said this family has been blessed with so many healthy years. But then we started dropping like flies…. #LordBlessUs

I realized she was right. I know, for certain, that having a mother and father who have loved every bit of my reckless life is blessing alone. Some people don’t know their parents, or siblings. To have every single Uncle and Aunt provide the same extension of love is abundance. My cousins are the brothers and sisters I never knew I needed. To have gone so long without wearing a black dress and ruffle socks to the church on days other than Sunday worship, bible study, or vacation bible school is overflow.

I did nothing to deserve such grace. Yet I got it anyway.

Looking at things that way, it seems kind of selfish of me to drown in sorrow, right? I have had soooooo much. Daddie would send me postcards in college from his school bus trips. Just to tell me that he loved me. Sent me text messages just the same – in Spanish. My friends were soooo jeals. How can I not thank God even in these things? Considering all these things?

Easy. Because I never had to. So I will need to learn from some of you. Like, how to talk about my feelings #ThatWasntNewsThough #YouKnowMyLife. Or accept the kindnesses many of you have attempted to bestow upon me. Or be vulnerable in ways that I can receive more blessing, abundance, and overflow. Because vulnerability? Yea, that’s kinda not a thing. At all. Ever. But sometimes on ice skates.

Last Wednesday, I had to reveal to someone this news. In my poorly thought out attempt to “return to my life” like none of this happened, it came up. Why? Because humans talk about their lives, especially if they’ve been away from home, not answering email, (receiving) or returning text messages for almost three weeks #UCLAandUCAmightWannaReThinkThosePapersTheyGaveMe #iAintGotItAll. Someone, not a best friend or a confident, but a normal-caring-present-human attempted to be there for me. After I spent most of the day and evening being there for him. And what did I do? Lose all of my sh*t #BecauseThreeSwirls #DoNotDoThis

When I figure out how to adult, I’m gonna be something special. When I figure out how to grieve, I will…probably…not tell you because I still would not have figured out how to talk about my feelings.

You laughed. But you agreed with me. Because, the truth makes you smile. #ThisIsMe #YouExpectThis

She Got A Temper Though #HelpMe

You don’t have it? Okay, well take this sheet of paper and write it down here. Okay. …and so I began writing, in the neatest handwriting, on unlined paper. Just like Daddie.

I’m so over this whole entire thing. What more can I tell you about this man? I have filled out soooo many pieces of paper. But, I am who I am…sometimes, a writer…so let me get this done and we will be done with it. As I’m writing…

You’re 37? I will be eventually. You’re not married? No. You don’t have kids? No. So you’re not married and you don’t have kids… *was that a question?* No. Why aren’t you married? Because nobody asked me. What’s wrong with you? *these mf’in questions are what’s wrong with me* You mean or something? No, I’m not a mean person. You sure? *well, now that you mention it, I might be mistaken*

At this point, I have only written two sentences. They’re hella neat though. I look across from my mother who is exactly no help at all with this ridiculous line of questioning. Mom, this is over, you do it. I’m not writing this.

But maybe I should have kept writing because I think that made him feel like he could continue. You must be mean or something. I look over at my mother, the woman whose womb I occupied for 9 months…the easiest of the 7 births she endured. Help. Me. Mama…HELP. ME. HELP. ME.  Well, she’s not mean, but she got a temper though. She does have a nice personality. *mom, what in the ENTIRE F are you saying right now*

Seriously? I don’t like her.

He looks back to me like he’s got confirmation of something he knew. Anyone who’s been victim of my temper has earned it. This is the only part of the conversation my mother confirmed. She’s worthless. Okay, so let’s say you’re going out on a date. He wants to go to Outback, but you want to go Chili’s *I actually never want to go to either of these places, but hell, it’s not like my mother is going to help me out* …are you one of those types that gets mad when you can’t go to the place you want to go? I don’t get mad about things I don’t spend my money on. This is a non-issue. Well, you know some women are like that. See, me, I can find something to eat anywhere, but sometimes you want what you want.

Well, isn’t that lovely for you. Do you want to know what I want right now?

Sometimes I feel like my mother doesn’t love me. She does, but you are sitting across from me. You know me. You know my life. AND you obviously know my temper. And you’re just gonna let this ride? Under these circumstances? I don’t even want to be in this place. But, here I am, the oldest born 3^rd, so I have to be in this place.

This place = Funeral home.

Writing = My Father’s Obituary.

Guy = Funeral Director.

My Mother = Doesn’t Want Me To Be Great.

Yep. Daddie ain’t here no more. When I told Ernie the news he gave me two immediate pieces of advice. Don’t order any drinks (from the restaurant airport I was at…he actually said give it back but well, me) and write. I took none of his advice. When I write things, they become real…and this is something that could have remained fake news and alternative facts a few decades longer. And I ain’t wasting no alcohol, ever. But it was what I needed to hear. So much so, I would not let him call me. Text only. Because if you say something like that to me, I might come undone. And the way my life is now set up, there is no time for that.

I told him because of all the people in the world, he knew exactly what I was going through. Not because his daddie had passed. But his person had passed, just months ago. For some of us in the world, there is a person that connects us to it. Just one. They are your link to Earth. The only person in the world, with the sound of their eyes…the only person that can collect you, snatch your edges, give you the go ahead to pop off (Daddie was very, extremely, selective about this one…but sometimes I got a chance at greatness), encourage your dreams...

My father is the reason I am good – if you believe me to be good. The reason I am a writer –if you believe me to be so.  The reason I am a good friend – if you believe me to be your friend. The reason I am smart – if you believe UCLA and UCA were right about those pieces of paper they gave me…which hang on my parent’s wall today. And most importantly, the reason, the actual, specific, Earthly reason I love – if you believe that I love and or love you, in whatever ways love is meant. My father, my Daddie is my person. And he’s not here anymore. And that’s worse, much worse than the terrible awful. I am the child of a great man. I am the child of the greatest man.

The next day, because the gravity of this hasn’t quite set in, because grief…I think? My mom and I are at lunch. It starts to come back to me.

Mom, that was kinda weird yesterday? What was weird? The funeral home guy. Those questions. You think he was trying to hit on me or something? What’s wrong with that? *besides the freaking obvious?* MOM! Dad’s there…Like Daddie is literally there!!!! I can’t…I Can’t Do This With You! I think if you lived here in Texas he would have asked you out. Mom, that’s insane. There’s no way I would do that. Like ever. Why not? He has a job.

Does anyone need a mother? I have one. She’s not all there, but she’ll be super supportive of your quest for a partner in life. Because, Outback and Chili’s.

I think about that day at the Funeral Home (and the next one with my mother) because it’s the epitome of my relationship with my parents. If the roles were reversed, and we were making arrangements for my mother (not something I really want to think about, but…) there is no way that conversation would have gone that far. Daddie actually would have been pretty pissed. Which makes it funny. It’s almost comical just thinking about it because I know what my Daddie would have said and done. Because I got the chance to experience it, just weeks prior.

We were at my younger sister’s graduation party (Welcome to the Master’s Wheaty!) and someone asked when I was having a child. My other younger sister has just recently had a beautiful baby girl. Before I could come up with my see what had happened was… my father, my Daddie gave the most chilling, the most supportive, the most direct facial expression that the conversation literally ended. He said, without saying, that having a child is not the definition of her life. Should she have a child, it will be the most perfect child that ever lived. And if she chooses to not have children, she will still be perfect. Just like she is, right now. He cut his eyes so quickly and sharply, I felt like I needed to confirm that I wasn’t pregnant… This is the first time in my life that I didn’t have to explain myself. And the last time that he could protect me from it.

 

It is said, that Sigmund Freud once said, that there is possibly no greater need in childhood than a father’s protection. I would have to agree with him. I would venture to speculate that this need remains well into adulthood.

Especially if your mother is anything like mine. HELP. ME. N!**@!!!