“THESE ARE HIS ONLY KIDS!”
A few weeks ago the person on my birth certificate as my father died. I never knew him, he never reached out to me, and my attempts to reach out to him were one sided. How did he pass on? I have no idea. While I did connect with my “brothers” and “sisters,” and thought there was some understanding, never did they attempt to my knowledge a meeting between us. While they openly mourned, I stood in the shadow wanting to be respectful to them while dealing with my emotions. My valid emotions.
What I know for sure is that my Mother and he were involved in a relationship. I know when my birth certificate was created, his name was there. I know he’s never made an effort to reach out to me. It would have been easy as we both lived in Baltimore City. The closest I came to him was seeing “my brothers” one day. Ma pointed them out as they walked down a street, possibly where they lived. I suppose seeing him in a commercial for a college he ran, and connecting with “family” on Facebook. At least that part was healthy, until a couple of weeks ago.
Growing up without him was a mixed bag. Ma let me know early he wouldn’t reach out to me. And that was fine until the sixth grade and all the emotions that come with middle school development happened. For some time I felt bad not having a father. While my Mom did her absolute best, there were moments in my childhood where this subject was a horrible wound. And it’s true she carried a weight, that she never said but I recognized it as I got older, that for everything she did for me, there is a piece she wasn’t able to complete. Her struggles internally and raising me alone, Ma’s back was stronger than many “grown ass men” I’ve met.
The week after his passing I kept still. I offered condolences and all. I gave space and silence. Meanwhile I wondered if anyone would ask me how I was doing. Still, I shielded his name, family, and how he is seen in the community. More than that, I was adamant that I would and will always shield my Mother from anything. Even before her passing, I have zero problems adjusting attitudes or bones for any slighting. If pushed I will crack jaws like we crack crabs open in Baltimore.
Then I saw his granddaughter’s post a couple weeks after. The one sentence, all caps, listing all “his only kids.” That was the moment it went atomic. Granted she knew and even insisted that he’d one day talk to me and he “is really nice.” I didn’t believe it nor did I put any weight behind it. I felt tossed away, ignored, dead. Not even dead, I just didn’t exist.
That was the tipping point. That single sentence was the final straw, the final, final, final, final times a few hundred times over. The back of the camel was broken. Decades of frustration, anger, and hurt boiled over like the contents of a saucepan. The bottled emotions of the eight year old who asked his mother about his father exploded across from my phone. And since lashing out in anger is indeed a white man’s luxury, shout out to Giancarlo Esposito, I again bottled it up and sat with that anger.
What I did do was remove myself off social media. After removing all of them from my friend’s list. I took a break because I was overwhelmed and the constant barrage of “breaking news,” negativity, and AI Slop already was a stressor. I resisted the urge to “clap back” and type something slick and highly inappropriate. Like cracking jaws and crabs, I can crack hella slick and cut to past the white meat and into the bone. Each time that energy came up, I thought of my Mom and looked at her pictures. She would want me to be better than that. My Uncle Gary and Grandparents as well, all my direct Ancestors must have laid hands on my shoulders and on my Spirit.
After some time I’m not as angry as I was. I do feel like I have closure. I’m not only done with this last name, this stupid burden and ugly weight on my shoulders, I am also done with him. There was a man who had every chance in his grown ass adult life to be respectful and responsible, and didn’t. While people praise the educator and community whatever he was, I see a small man who was fragile like a baby bird recently hatched. At least the bird would eventually leave the nest and fly. He didn’t.
I hope the Ancestors greet him as warmly as he did me.