Daddy's Girl

I often think back on my childhood days and I find that most of them were beautiful, and some were not so. One of the beautiful days was when John Jr., Margie and I, three stair-steps, waited at the gate in front of our house for daddy to come ambling up the hillside. Of course, none of us could tell time. I guess we could sense by the cool of the evening, or by the bees about the daisies, or maybe it was by the ebbing of the sun beneath the horizon that it was time for daddy’s legs to appear at the top of the hill. we would dash down the dirt road and straddle his shoes and he would carry us heavy laden kids all the way home. At the gate daddy would lift us high up to the sky and then back down to him, kissing each one of us before placing us on the ground. I don’t remember when it stopped, but it was a slow change that happened and he wasn’t the same anymore. He had withdrawn far into himself.

The younger kids never got to know the daddy that I knew. He was so full of love that it just went every where at once. The drinking wasn‘t so bad at first, and then as time went by it became tarnished with depression and hatred for himself. Mom hated to see his drinking buddies come around, and I hated them all, with a passion. I was sure that they were the source of all his unhappiness. He hadn’t always gone out drinking alcohol with his buddy’s, instead he had taken us on bus rides to Charleston. I loved the bus rides every weekend. Getting up on the big red bus and sitting at the window watching the trees and giant buildings go by was entertaining. It was also a time when blacks weren’t allowed to sit down inside some of the restaurants and eat, and so, we would stand outside the Diamond Store while daddy went in to buy us a hotdog and a drink.

“Stay right here till I get back.” He’d say. We wouldn’t move an inch, waiting patiently for our daddy to return, and when he did, he’d have a greasy spotted, brown, paper bag and three cups filled with soda pop. After eating the hotdogs we’d walk across the street to the peanut shop where the air was filled with the aroma of roasted nuts.

The rubber plant bus always smelled of strong gasoline and hot sweaty folk. The loud sound of the motor and closing of the automatic doors meant we were on our way home. Even when I got sick from the rumble and tumble mixed with gasoline smell I loved the bus ride. daddy learned to stop the bus driver and get off before I’d get sick. When we reached the top of the hillside leading to home, he’d pick all three of us up like baby kittens and carry us on his shoulder to the top of the hill. There was a comforting thumping where I laid my head on daddy’s chest. Nobody in the world was as strong as my daddy.

Chapter 2


“John Jr., wake up.” I teetered on my feet gazing down at my brother’s languid body stretched out on the carpeted floor. “Get up. We gotta go.” I mumbled. “They’ll be here any minute. Daddy’s worse” I pulled at my brother’s arm trying to awaken him. I didn’t want nobody to see us in this condition. Mom would lecture us about the sins of alcohol and I would be miserable knowing that she was right.

Maybe something cold to drink would help him sober up, I thought to myself, but not beer. No---- not our usual morning beer. I stumbled into the kitchen and came back with a glass half full of water. “Daddy’s real sick this time.” I said. I hesitated before turning the glass upside down. Startled, he sat straight up, water dripping from his nappy hair onto his surprised face. I stood stupefied, holding the empty glass in my hand. It was like the start of the water battles we often had when we were kids. He always managed to get me back in some kind of way. Maybe he would forgive me this time.

“Daddy”s sick” I said, “mom’s on her way ta get us.”

“What? Get er body outa here.” He slurred not noticing that everybody was already gone.

I splashed cool water on my face and pressed the cloth over both eyes until I felt somewhat lucid. I was glad that I had left Jason, my son, with my sister, Katharine. When I went back down the stairway, John was dressed, ready to go, sitting silently, absorbing what I had just told him. He looked attentively at me.

“It’s gonna be ok.” I said. John shook his head from side to side in disbelief, and then he nodded. I slumped down next to him on the sofa and continued to stare into space with him. John was twenty and I was twenty-three. He took care of me---- and I took care of him. He carried me up muddy dirt roads after weekend parties, and I supplied him money for cocaine that he always managed to pay back to me.

One day he told me, his eyes pleading, “Neely don’t you ever do it. You couldn’t handle it.” I didn’t listen to daddy when he said, “never drink liquor Neely,” but for some reason the drugs are different. I feel compelled to tell you how bad it really is.

Jason’s daddy was one of many infatuations in my life. He was Irresistible funny, I fell for him like the child that I was. Maybe it was because of the twenty-year age difference. He took me places that I had never been before and showed me things that I had never seen before. I didn’t follow any of the rules though and so I found myself pregnant at the age of eighteen. Daddy was as angry as I had ever seen him before, but after tying a rag around his head, he softened some. My son Jason seemed to be my daddy’s only real joy in life.

“You bet’ not do it a’gin. I’ll kill you both.” He said. Daddy put the fear in me that day, and I knew that he meant it.

“Why would I wanna do that.” I mumbled.
“Wha’d you say?”
“Nothing.” I hung my head and humbly left the room. Daddy and I were never close after that. Jason’s daddy didn’t want to have anything to do with me and him. He moved to another state and we never heard from him again. Daddy and mom took care of Jason while I went back to school.

My sister Margie’s rapping at the door brought John and I instantly to our feet. Eleven months apart, you would have thought that I was the level headed one however, Margie was the one with sound thinking. Always making the right decisions. She was perfect. I figured if God would give me my daddy back again, the one that I knew before the alcohol that I would become the perfect daughter.

Crisp, cool, early -morning air was deceptive, by noon it would be a sweltering hot day. Mom sat on the passengers side of the car while John and I jumped into the back seat. I wondered if mom or Margie noticed that John and I were exceptionally quiet. If we kept our mouths closed, they may not guess what had transpired the night before. You know, smoke from the long twisted gray-blue pipe that was passed around the room, nothing mattered except the gray-blue pipe.

The road was a winding hill encamped by trees that looked like marching men and sprays of multicolored flowers until we reached the interstate leading to Clarksburg Veterans Hospital. The closer we got to our destination, I realized that nobody was talking, not even my mother. No one cared about our drunken stupor that night. Our daddy was sick, and that‘s all that mattered now. Mom had said that she chose the three of us kids to go with her because we were the oldest.

After a night of drinking with his buddy’s, daddy would come home cursing and messing up everybody’s night. The next day he couldn’t say, I love you, enough. He wanted to convey to us how sorry he really was, and so, he would get mom to play the big black piano in the dinning room grandpa Maize had brought for grandma. Daddy would have her play that song, “What a friend we have in Jesus,” and we all would sing along, even daddy. Mom said his drinking so much these days was because he felt hopeless without God in his life. He couldn’t give his children the things that they needed. It was worse after he had a slight stroke with hardening of the arteries in his head. We were all old enough to know that it had to be more than just hardening of the arteries and alcohol.

We didn’t know that we were poor. Poor was a word for other folk, not us. We didn’t notice not going to the department store to buy clothes for school. Mom made them. We didn’t realize that we were not the majority that went to pick up commodities each month. We just knew that we were a family are supposed to be happy.

We had a dog named Rusty and two cats, Madeline and fat cat. Rusty was an old stray dog with a rusty brown coat and a patch of black on his right ear. Mom always said that Rusty must be kin to us, for real, because he didn’t let anything ruffle his feathers. Even when a gang of dogs jumped on him one day, he just licked his wounds and went on, however he did walk with a limp after that. Madeline was somebody’s lost Siamese cat. She could turn the doorknob leading to the back porch and go out and come back when she got ready. One day she left and just never did come back. All of us missed that cat. Daddy said some wild animal may have killed her. I would rather think that she found her way back to her old home where they missed and loved her as much as we did. Fat cat never left us. She was dedicated and committed to a life with the Wilkerson‘s. Daddy would feed all the stray dogs and cats that came around. Mom would always say, “John, stop feeding those dogs, they’ll just keep coming back for more.” But daddy never stopped.

Mom didn’t allow dogs inside the house, but daddy would open the screen door and let all Rusty’s friends come in out of the snow where they lay on blankets that he put down for them. Mom would frown, but we often wondered who placed the bowel of water and left over food there for them during the night.

“Look in all the cabinets.” Mom would say. “Get all the knives and hide them.” My heart would race faster than my feet could go. I knew that we were in for a hell of a night when she said that. Even when we prayed that daddy would come home and go straight to sleep, he very seldom did. Mom would take all the knives from us and hide them behind the counter. I would slide into bed under the covers with only my eyes peeping out. Anticipating, I would hear the screen door slam with a loud bang. Rusty, our dog, barking----daddy’s voice yelling, “Get the hell outta the way.” I’d pull the covers up higher over my head----higher until I felt like a worm safe in its cocoon.

I wondered why mom didn’t just take us kids and leave? Maybe it was too many of us for her to carry, I thought or maybe she just didn‘t know where to go. If I could have lifted my siblings through the small window in my bedroom, I would have climbed out, placing each one onto the ground before running off with them----forever. One night when the snow was coming down by the bushels, and daddy was still out drinking, mom gathered us kids out to the back porch. The white snow glistened covering the ground. She told us to form a circle and hold hands. We would pray that daddy would get home safely that night. I remember a feeling, just a tinge of disappointment. I had this idea of mom leaving a note telling daddy that we would not be back until the drinking stopped. In the midst of praying, we heard the door slam and Rusty’s yelp. Daddy was home safe.

The large waiting area was empty at three a.m. in the morning. It was so empty that if I would scream, there may have been an echo heard throughout the whole hospital. We sat on one side of the room on cushioned benches against the wall, Mom clutching her purse close to her. Margie, John and I sat mummified. After the doctor had explained to us that daddy was stabilized, mom called uncle Albert. He was the youngest of three children on my daddy’s side, uncle Ralph, aunt Dot and my daddy, John. Daddy was stabilized the doctor had said. That meant that there was a chance of recovery. I sat back on the bench letting the tears stay put inside where they were. Completely sober now, I prayed, oh God, please don’t let my daddy die, I want a chance to tell him that I do love him.

Uncle Albert walked into the room and stood in front of us, irrepressible fear radiating from his eyes. For some reason he didn’t seem as tall as he use to be. His hair was more gray than black, and the wrinkles in his forehead were a road map of years. He searched one face, and then another, looking for some kind of sign. I looked down.

“Is he ok?” He looked back to mom.

“He’s stabilized.” She said. There that word was again. I took a deep breath and let it permeate slowly into the air. John and Margie were still sitting with there hands tightly clasped on their laps. Margie uncrossed her legs and re-crossed them.

We had spent summer vacations at uncle Albert’s when he was married to Aunt June. Their two girls were the same age as Margie and me and they had a son name Jeffrey who was going to be a doctor. Willa Mae, and Cadarice were our favorite cousins. Visiting uncle Albert’s home in Clarksburg West Virginia had been the highlight of most of our summers. He took us places that we had never been before, the movie theaters, swimming pools and shopping stores, and when he would come to visit us, it was with gifts and smiles.

Daddy had been pacing the house like somebody in a cage when Uncle Albert decided to pay us one of his unexpected visits.

“Look like uncle Albet’s car.” My little sister Katharine exclaimed in glee. John and I ran to the window and peered out. It was him all right. I couldn’t take my eyes off his hands that were full of glad tidings and John Jr. couldn’t take his gaze away from the big shinny Cadillac that he drove.

“Hey guys.” I brought you some chocolate covered pretzels from my work place. He loaded box after box of candy onto the dinning room table. We gathered around him.

“How long you staying?” Mom asked.

“Just over night.” He sighed. Daddy pulled out the dinning room chair and placed it before him as if he were king for a day. Daddy’s forehead seemed to loose some of it’s wrinkle and his eyes seemed to twinkle, however it could have been from the light of the living room lamp.

“Sis,” daddy called me, “fix Uncle Al and me a cup of coffee.” I started towards the kitchen.

“Just bout this much sugar in mine.” Uncle Albert held thumb and finger up for me to measure.

I sat the kettle on the top burner. When it whistled I poured the steaming water into two cups of black coffee. Daddy let his cool while Uncle Albert put his cup to his thick lips.

“Mmm, just right.” He smiled and winked at me.

We kids often pretended to be busy doing other things while listening to adult conversation. I sat in the next room cutting a dress pattern that had already been cut. The material I had chosen for my new shift dress was cotton with black and white flowers. It was the fashion that originated from London where the singing group, the Beetles, were from. Everybody was singing the Beetles songs, and wearing bowl cut hair styles. Mom and I would always have a fight when it came to fashion. I’d put a hem in my dresses and take up the sides on the sewing machine. Mom would pull the thread out and I would put it back. “Yo hips are to big for tight short dresses.“ She would say. It was a fight for the fashion. Daddy would just tied that rag around his head and went out back. My ears perked up when I heard uncle Albert say that Aunt June and the kids were gone.

“She took them in the middle of the night.” I heard silence and then mom suggested they pray. When she was done praying uncle Albert said. “I have a song I want you to hear, you’ll like it.” The mole on his nose danced up and down when he smiled.

“John Jr. get the record player out.” daddy said. The music blared loudly, “Lean on me when you need a friend.” Uncle Albert played it over and over again until daddy finally got up and tied his rag around his head and walked to the back of the house, off the porch, and down to the garden where he sat and looked at the sky.

We were the only ones in the hospital room now except for a young woman with a small boy who might have been her seven or eight year old son. He sat with dark wide eyes and his arms wrapped around the woman’s waist. I wondered what kind of misfortune had beset these folk, a sick relative, a dying husband or something. Seems like hours went by before a doctor came out again to talk to mom. We all sat, starring out into space, not sharing in thoughts or feelings, just patiently waiting.

“You can see your husband now, but no one else can go back there.” The doctor said. Mom in her cotton smock, black strapped shoes and cinnamon colored stockings, marched confidently behind the doctor, and disappeared into the operating room. When she came out a few minutes later, we listened to what she had to say.

“There is a chance that yo daddy might make it.” Mom said.

“What happened to daddy?” I asked.
“A bleeding ulcer. They think they got it though. Yo daddy would never go to the doctor like I told him to,” Mom almost showed expression now. “That’s why he here today. He said he‘ll never smoke another cigarette or drink another drink, if God’ll just give him one more chance.” she said and then she sat down.


The house we grew up in had belonged to my grandpa and grandma Maize. Grandpa had come to West Virginia in a horse and carriage from Buckingham Virginia, along with his wife, Ella Mae and five kids. My mom, Elmira, was the youngest. I was told they came here to raise four boys in the country were they could be safe; it was getting too dangerous for them in the city. Mom said that four hard headed boys could only stay in trouble in the big city. First thing they did when they got here was to buy some land and build a house on a hillside in West Dunbar. When Grandpa and grandma Maize had both past away, they left the house to mom and daddy. After the third baby was born, the rooms seemed to shrink, so daddy started making some changes to the house.

A side walk and four cinder-block steps led up to the front porch and door of our house. On the right was a wooden swing and on the left, a green ivy vine that covered the banisters for shade. Inside the house was a large living room with a somewhat slanting floor and a fire place. To the right of the fireplace was the bed room that my parents slept in. On the left side was a set of French doors that led to a sizeable room were company often visited. Sometimes dead bodies in caskets were kept there also, until one day daddy tied a rag around his head and began breaking down the doors with a large hammer. He changed it into what became the master bedroom. There were two more bedrooms in the house and an attic. Before grandpa died, he built an indoors bathroom with a tub. Toward the back of the house was a large dinning room that led off from a small kitchen to a porch. That’s where mom did all her canning each year.

The back yard extended so many acres from the house, and the grounds took in rows of yellow and white kernel corn. There were small poles that were heavy laden with red tomatoes hanging from them and tall ones with green beans. He planted white potatoes, yams, greens, radishes and cabbage plants. Surrounding the garden was a peach tree that produced small hard peaches but next to it was the golden delicious apples that made the cobblers we had all summer long. On one side of the fence was a strawberry patch and a peanut patch that belonged to the man next door, but we owned the grape vine that mom made her famous grape jam from, and daddy, his sweet wine. Mom would make our neighbor pies in exchange for strawberries and peanuts. The best of all was down over the hillside next to the cellar house, the luscious red cherry tree.

Mom was not a gardener. The front yard was frugal with flowers and such. There were hedges that grandpa had planted, and I do remember the prolific yellow dandelions. I liked them best when they were soft white cotton that I could blow into the air. Mom said they were a nuisance if anything, but to me they were magnificent. Looking up at the one sunflower we had in the yard was a wonder. It helped me to see how small we really were compared to this great big world of Gods. Pointing upward I asked mom did God live way up past the sun and moon.

“He lives everywhere baby, even in your heart if you let him.” I felt around where I thought my heart was supposed to be until I could feel the thump, thump, thumping. Maybe God had been there all the time and I just hadn‘t noticed it.

Daddy‘s drinking was getting worse. It seems the more he held his stomach, the more he drank, and the more he drank, the more he became unbalanced in his thoughts.

“Why don’t you go see a doctor?” mom urged. Daddy just pushed her aside, put on his gray hat, grabbed the garden hoe and went out back to dig in the garden. Mom shook her head and continued folding clothes. Suddenly one day she dropped the sheet that she held in her hand and followed him across the back yard to where he sat holding his head. It wasn’t long before we saw daddy with the hatchet from the shed. He dashed over to the cherry tree and began chopping away at it, perspiration stained his white sleeveless shirt. Daddy didn’t stop until the tree fell---- to the ground. A part of my childhood was gone with a whack of an ax.

The comings and goings at the hospital had picked up some. People swarmed into the waiting room. Uncle Albert said that we could stay at his house until daddy was better. I had hoped that wouldn’t have been necessary. As far as I was concerned , uncle Albert and I were not really kin folk any more. He had two faces and I wasn’t sure who he was any more.

It was mid morning and the sun started it’s daily task of warming things up. Margie rolled the windows up in the car and turned the air conditioner on. John rode with Uncle Albert in his car, and so, I was sure he hadn’t wasted any time in lighting up a cigarette. Normally, I would have rode where I could feel free to smoke. Only I would have to be close to Uncle Albert.

“You look good in that dress.” he had said that day. I caught my breath and continued dusting the figurines.

“What can I say to you to convince you that it’s ok? They did it all the time back in the bible days, in the old testament.” He said.

“I don’t care. It’s wrong.” I said.

“You need money, don’t you, here.” He waved the money in the air. I turned away and left the room. It was insulting and demeaning but most of all it was betrayal. I could never tell daddy. Not even mom would know.

Bob Marley was singing that song on the radio, no woman no worry, no woman no cry, when I heard mom and grandma talking in the kitchen. “Al’s different.” Grandma Wilkerson said. “Every since he had that operation. Joan had almost died having that last baby, you know, and so Al agreed to have that vase…vas…what ever, he‘s different. I thought to myself, he must have loved Aunt Joan more than the sun loves light.

Uncle Albert was ate up with jealousy. Sometimes I think that’s what killed him. I remember one day Aunt Joan had a doctors appointment and we went with her. She drove every back road she could trying to loose him on the way home.

“There he is.” she said under her breath and made a sharp turn off onto a dirt road. I wondered to myself what kind of adult games we would be playing today as we bounced and rolled in the car.

“He’s crazy.” She exclaimed. Aunt Joan usually laughed at Uncle Albert but now she was obviously not amused with his antics. I entertained myself with some yellow daisies that I had pulled from their yard. How do I love thee, I thought to myself, well lets see, let me count the ways. He loves me, he loves me not. Sniffing each petal before I tossed them, one by one, out of the window. The wind picked them softly up and gently to the ground. We turned down street after street until Aunt Joan finally came to a stop in front of the house, with Uncle Albert trailing close behind her.

“She had to hide the gun?” Mom was talking to someone on the phone.
“And you say she went to her mom‘s house in Michigan?”
“My Looooord.” Mom said. “He’s gonna eventually kill that poor girl.”

That morning when we got to uncle Albert’s house, Margie and I slept in our cousins bedroom and mom in the master bedroom. John and uncle Albert slept in the den. The room was the same as it was when we were teenagers. Pink pillow cases to match pink ruffled curtains. The dresser faced a large white bed with high post on each side. The top of the walls were wallpapered with pink and white dolls. A small pink lamp sat on the bedside table. It all made me feel so da sha foo sad. For some reason I knew that Aunt Joan and the girls had left for some good reason.

Mom was up and dressed.

“Wake up. Get ya’lls clothes on. We gotta go.”

“What’s wrong?” Margie asked rubbing her eyes.

“The hospital called for us to come, let‘s go.” She said. We all sat in the living room, waiting for uncle Albert to get ready. We watched him pick up a pillow and place it on the sofa, turn around and put it back on the chair, and then he had to use the bathroom.

“Why is he taking so long?“ I asked mom. She shook her head and patiently folded her hands.
Uncle Albert came out of the bathroom.

“Are we ready?” he asked in a somber voice. We got to the door before he held up his hand.

“Hold up, just a min…” He dashed back into the bedroom and came out with a jacket and umbrella.
“It might rain.” He said handing mom the umbrella. John glanced at his watch, and then we left the house.

How do you tell a person how much you love them when they never give you the opportunity to do so? When daddy gets home I’ll tell him how much I love him; I promise you Lord, if you just let him live.

My apartment had been just right for me and Jason although he very seldom slept in his own bedroom. When ever I would try to bring him home with me, daddy would hold his head and say, “Leave him, Sis.” and I would. Later on during the week mom would bring him to me. It was a humid, rainy day when I looked up from the mystery book that I was reading. It was daddy at the door. What could be wrong? I thought. He had never once, since I moved from home, visited me.

“Hi daddy.” I didn’t know what to say. How awkward for a daughter and her daddy. He sat on the sofa and I sat across from him in the big flowered chair that didn‘t match anything.

“You do’n ok, Sis?”

“Yeah, you daddy?”

“I been feeling kinda under the weather.” He held his stomach. His eyes where dark and smooth as glass.

“What’s wrong?”

“It’s my stomach.”

“Do you want some water daddy?”

“Na. I’ll probably go to the veteran’s hospital next week, if it don’t stop by then.”

“I’ll bring you some juices and stuff so you can build your strength up.” I said.

“Ok, Sis, I’m gonna go now. See you soon.” I opened the door for daddy.

“I’ll come by the house tomorrow and see how you are.” I yelled after him. He waved.

The ride back to the hospital mimicked the first time. Single filed we walked into the cool interior of the building. Two nurses sat juxtaposed at the nurses station. Uncle Albert was the one that did the talking this time. Mom stood next to John while Margie, and I quietly stood behind them.

“We got a call from the hospital.” He said to the busy nurse.
“What family member are you?” she asked without looking up.

“Wilkerson. John Wilkerson.” Uncle Albert said. “Follow me.” The nurse said. We marched behind her like baby ducklings to the same waiting room that we had been in the day before. She told mom to follow her to a different room. A few minutes later mom came out again, long enough to let us know that daddy was hemorrhaging again.

“Daddy’s in surgery now. He started bleeding again and it’s in more than one place now. They stopped some of the bleeding before but can’t find where it’s still coming from.” mom said. She sat down and held her head. Dazed, I flopped down on the bench next to her.

“Let’s pray.” Mom said. We automatically stood up and formed a circle, and even uncle Albert joined in. Mom prayed while people stopped to glance with curiosity as they walked by. I prayed like I never prayed before. My body was tight and my chest, numb. I prayed and prayed and then prayed some more, begging God for my daddy to live. Finally my body went limp. My prayer changed to, Lord let him live, but if you have other plans, please let him be with you in heaven. I sometimes wonder if I gave up too soon, my faith and all. Some one beaconed mom to the operating room again. Before he could close the door again, I moved towards the door.

“Stop, don’t go in there.” Mom pushed me away, but not before I saw his eyes. Why didn’t I listen and not go there. Mom pushed me again and I stumbled backwards. The color of red----everywhere, and my daddy’s eyes would forever be embedded in my mind.

How do I love thee, let me count the ways. I thought the doctor had said the word----stabilized. I thought that it had meant that everything would be all right. Margie couldn’t stop crying, and John’s tears were sliding down his face. I sat next to mom, bewildered and dazed. Uncle Albert drove his car. He lit a cigarette as if he were alone in his anguish. It was a long ride home. I watched the trees fly by while we stood still in our thoughts. When we arrived at moms, we each went into our own refuges of grief.

Everything happened fast after that. We sat in folding chairs at the funeral home. No one talked, no one cried, no one shared. I looked back and saw a couple of daddy’s drinking buddies. They had swollen red eyes that were sober now, and some how I felt love for them. A kind of sorrowful love.

Love doesn’t have to explain why. It really doesn’t. it just is----unconditional. It was one month later that I sat on my mothers bed while she placed daddy’s clothes in bags and suitcases, but not his tattered gray hat. No, not daddy’s hat. It hung lopsided on the hook of the closet where we kept it for many more months. I thought of him working hard, in the garden, before sun down. He never said a word, just tied that old rag around his head. Mom sat down on the bed next to me.

“Go ahead and cry, baby girl.” She held me close to her.
“I didn’t get to tell him that I loved him. I said, looking up at her.

“You didn’t have to tell him, Neely. He knew it.” She caressed my shoulder.

“But…but…but…”

“You know, you and him was so much alike. That’s why you couldn’t get along. When you were born he was the happest father in the whole wide world. Brother Clay said, just look at that, a little John. Yo’ daddy loved you so much.” Mom brushed my hair with her hand. “And you know, he spoiled you.” She laughed. I felt as much comfort in moms words as I did in her touch. And then I thought.

“But…. I brought him juice. That wasn‘t good for his stomach.” I choked trying to stop the hurt.

“Neelly, you didn’t know. How could you have known. Don’t you worry, yo’ daddy loved you more than anything, and he knew that you loved him too, without you even hav’n to say it. It was the alcohol, baby, that‘s all…it was the alcohol,”

I hoped with all my heart and every fiber of my being, that mom was right.

We went on with our lives after that. The up’s and down’s were there. Now that I’m a senoir citizen, I look back and smile. It was those days that made me a stronger person. The love that my family have for each other never has to be explained. It just is.

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Publication Date: 08-23-2009

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