Defining Fatherhood: A Tribute

I didn't meet my father until I was 17. Sure I heard about a man with similar coloring, the same prominent nose and identical sense of humor, but I didn't know him. I remember being at a local shopping center with my aunt. I was about 9 years old and quite impressionable. We had gone into a shoe store and upon our exit, a slim, handsome man stopped my aunt and they chatted. She tried to encourage me to speak to him, but an unfamiliar shyness took over me and I hid (inexplicably) behind her. I would later find out that that man was my father. Even though I saw him, I never considered that "meeting" him until we were formally introduced almost nine years later. Can you imagine? Being formally introduced to your father? It defies all logic.

Despite my father's absence, I grew up with a loving father figure in my house--Frank Mitchell, my grandfather. He was an old, old man from the South. He had limited education, but what he lacked in traditional schooling, he made up for with his mastery of carpentry. He also had a sharp fashion sense. Monday through Friday, he wore his uniform of tattered dungarees with a variety of holes and stains. He would have an old cap on his head, weathered boots and a red and black square carpenter's pencil tucked behind one ear. But on the weekends? He was sharp as a tack, clean as a whistle. He would get out his old fashioned shaving kit (with the soap brush and straight razor) and proceed to groom his thin mustache to perfection. He always smelled so good and his suits? They fit him to a tee. He would put on the socks that had to be held up with sock garters; his pants even had suspenders!! Well dressed, indeed. He would put on a jaunty hat and some well polished shoes and he would look more elegant than gentlemen half his age. In fact, he taught me how to tie a tie when it was in fashion for women to wear them. He scoffed when I said that I could just buy a clip on. I'm smiling now thinking of the memory.

He had one brown eye and one blue one...how that happened I never knew. He did odd jobs and carpentry work for many people in our neighborhood and beyond. I loved those odd jobs because he would always bring me little treasures: a doll, some books, etc. These weren't old things; they were new things that someone had given to him. They knew he had a granddaughter and so they gave him things for me. Another thing I remember about him is that he LOVED baseball. I mean, loved it!! He would take his old black and white portable television and sit in our enclosed side patio watching hours of games at a time. He loved to laugh and would throw his head back to reveal some empty spaces where teeth used to be. He also loved the blues. In fact, I was the only child I knew who sang blues songs like nursery rhymes. He was a flawed man (who isn't), but he never wavered in his love for me. Never. And he was a constant figure in my life. I could always count on him up until his death when I was 18. I even eulogized him at his funeral. My family still laughs about that funeral. It was wild and crazy, just like him. Just like his life.

I don't have any memories of my father. He never came to see about me or to check on me. He didn't know if I was being treated well or if I was being misused. He never came to any of my activities and never influenced me in any way. We've tried to build a relationship over the years, but we can't seem to connect in the ways that matter. I must say that he's a phenomenal father to his other children. But with me? We are like familiar strangers who struggle to find the words to say at the right times. I know it's because I hold his feet to the fire and make him accountable for his words. He resents that, but I'm grown now. I don't need him like I used to and I won't allow him to lie to me like I don't know any better. We've talked; he's promised and sadly, he's fallen short. So this year I decided to cut him out of my life for good. It's a self-preservation tactic that is my last resort to save my heart from further damage. Sad, but necessary. I don't wish him any ill and I don't harbor too much anger about his lack of presence in my life. It took me awhile to come to this decision and I really don't regret it. You know why? Because the truth is, my real father died when I was 18.

But this isn't a sad testament to Father's Day. Because of my vastly different experiences with "fathers", I want to acknowledge the father of my children, my husband. So here is an open letter to him on the day that we celebrate the fathers in our lives:

Happy Father's Day. I want to thank you for all that you have poured into our children. I love that you push them beyond the boundaries of the expectations they have for themselves. I love that you encourage artistic expressions and intellectual pursuits with equal fervor. Thank you for showing them that being there isn't enough--sharing yourself with them fully is the only way that you parent. I appreciate that you have taken my nephew into our fold and that you treat him like one of your own. And no one can tell the difference. I thank you for showing your true self (flaws and all) to our sons so they can have a model for manhood. I appreciate that you talk with our daughter about what she should expect from future suitors. I love that you enjoy these kids with everything you have, calling them "your crew" as you run rampant around the city with them in tow. I laugh just thinking about the numbers of people who say they've seen you at (insert event or location) with the kids and that you looked like you were having fun. Overall, I want to thank you for not allowing your own absentee father to turn you into a bitter, distant man who abandoned his own children. You are a man beyond measure, a father extraordinaire. Thank you for blessing our family with your love.

I want to wish a Happy Father's Day to all of the men who are fathers to their children or someone else's. May you enjoy all of the best that the universe has to offer. Your love and guidance will impact your children in ways that cannot be defined. Peace.

"Be a Father to Your Child" by Ed O.G. and the Bulldogs

Repost: Our Love

Update: Below is the original post in its entirety. I would just like to acknowledge my husband on our anniversary. Here's to life, love and US!!!

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In my quest to bring the love back, I have promised to post about love: being loved and giving love. In my quest to celebrate the connections between people, I have committed myself to blog about how love appears in my own life as well. One of the most present ways that I am able to experience love is through my relationship with my husband. From the day that we became a couple, it has been us against the world. We are the law abiding Bonnie and Clyde, the younger, less wealthy (but no less rich) Cliff and Claire Huxtable...basically, we are a united front.

When I first met him, I knew that we were connected in ways that extended beyond this world. In fact, we both felt it and would make references to us being from the same "soul neighborhood" where kindred spirits lived. As we moved closer in our connection, we admitted that we were, in fact, soul mates. And I don't mean in the hot and heavy, breathless, "do me baby, I gotta have you" way that shapes most new relationships. Of course we desired each other, but our connection spoke of past lives and intertwined spirits that reunited through different life times until they emerged in our current forms...deep, right? But we meant it and lived out our connection with every fiber of our beings.

We spent time getting to know each other before we decided to be exclusive. Yup, he courted me. And I reciprocated in kind. We sent puzzle pieces with coded messages to each other, wrote letters that included excerpts from stories we enjoyed and we talked...yes, we talked. We listened, we felt, we acknowledged and then we would do it all over again daily. I knew his likes, his dislikes, his passions, his desires, his hopes, his dreams and he reciprocated in kind. And guess what? We didn't have sex on the first date (yup, we went on real dates) and we didn't become a couple after that date either. We let us marinate. We waited and discovered that being together was the only option because neither one of us could imagine being without the other. And then we began building...

So this post is an open love letter to my husband because I want to speak to the ways that he has shown me love and has made me want to be a better person. If you know me in real life, then you may have seen us together. If so, you know that our connection is bona fide...We are connected in unspeakable ways that make strangers come up to us and tell us that they love us together even though they've just met us at that moment. We are bonded in ways that defy explanation, but never defy logic. Of course, we're together as a couple, because when you see us together, even you couldn't imagine us apart.

My husband is, as Toni Morrison writes in Beloved, "a friend of my mind." In fact, "[He] gather me, man. The pieces I am, [he] gather them and give them back to me in all the right order. It's good, you know, when you got a [man] who is a friend of your mind." I make no apologies about loving my husband or the fact that he loves me. I have had enough hardship to last 20 lifetimes and I am blessed to have a man who loves me in all ways, always. And I reciprocate in kind.

Here are a few of our favorite songs:

"Anniversary" by Tony Toni Tone (I think it's obvious why)



"If This World Were Mine" Remake by Luther Vandross and Cheryl Lynn (This was our wedding song)



"A Song for You" by Donny Hathaway (Because he always sang this to me when we first started dating)



"Kissing You" by Faith Evans (First song we kissed to)



"Where Would I Be?" by Kindred the Family Soul (Because, um, well...where would we be if we didn't have each other?)