Snapshot/Backwould Story

SNAPSHOT/BACKWOULD STORY

In  a wide open country city metropolis where

Lay alligator carcasses on dirt roads that align the streets

In a working class but struggling town dominated by

Football parades and country buffet diners,

I tried to find my place with a  man called my father.

Travelled miles to see him. 

Had wanted to meet him since the day I was born.

Word has it that he knew about me but had a family that needed him more.

So at the age of 26 after research and prayer,

My mom helped me find him.

Fortunately this is not a poem about a deadbeat father and a young woman with abandonment issues.

Its about a dance between two adults from different sides of the universe.

I, an urban girl from sunny California. A weird dreadhead with a valley girl accent.

He, a hardworking factory laborer with 8 ids and a wife that kept him in check.

Me, trying to fit myself in during smoke breaks and commercials.

Instead, I found myself passing the time by having awkard conversations with these people who were my sisters and brothers and nieces and cousins and all…..Family.

A pre-established family much different from the one I’d grown accustomed to.

I was an outsider and it was clear.

Many dates with  my father cancelled because his wife told him he had other priorities. Many promises broken because she was afraid I was trying to milk him for back child support.

I never needed a father, rest assure, to take care of me, and I don’t need one now, I proclaimed.  It just would have been nice for him to…

…it doesn’t matter now.

After three months of second hand smoke, crunk, and hearty meals, I took my happy ass back to the real world.  To Cali.  To the only family I’d ever known.  The friends who had my back. But something stayed with me; this tendancy to chase after unavailable, emotionally detached men.  The way I chased after my father.

Three years and such later, I got an email that he was on his death bead.  I flew back to this slow moving town, where on Saturday nights, teens and 20-somethings dressed in their Sunday best to congregate in a Wal-Mart parking lot.  I know.  I was there.

My father looked so small and frail but had a smile on his face like he had no regrets. Graceful during his transition but not transitioning without telling me, “Danetta (he had a hard time with my name), I’m proud of the woman your mama raised. You’re a good person and I love you.”

Love.

Me?

Someone he didn’t even know?

Funny, I loved him too.  Funny, although  I didn’t meet him until 26, we had a lot of the same personality quirks and habits. Like biting our knuckles while pensive, or laughing for no reason, or always showing our best face no matter what the inner struggle.

I said goodbye to him without much than a teardrop.  Closed this chapter in my life.

And although he is gone, his spirit is kept alive on Facebook by his kids-my brother and sisters who friended me.

This is not a poem about a deadbeat father and a woman with abandonment issues.

This is moreso, a snapshot of a life all too common among black folks.

And a little back-story about why I may come off as one of those women who doesn’t need a man.

Understand, it is not arrogance that makes me this way.  Its living proof that’s made me this way.