Raíces: Rooted in Faith, Familia, and Friendship

It was Father’s Day recently.  I won’t say that it is a sad day for me.  I married my husband, Luis, who is an amazing father to our two children.  We have a good time celebrating him, feeding him, and ultimately kicking back for the day.  It’s definitely a time to reflect and count our many blessings.

This year a few days before Father’s Day, I came across a photo of my stepfather.  As I have done in the 30 years since his passing, I thought about how much I miss the man that I call my dad.  He never had children of his own and he would have absolutely adored being a grandfather.

Growing up, my biological father failed his children in every way possible.  He was a narcissist and an alcoholic. My memories of my early childhood are dark and tumultuous.  They were filled with a father who, while fun at times and an excellent cook, thrived on violence and abuse. Literally. I can remember expressions of glee on his face while each of us four children were struck with fear about whatever was unfolding at the moment.  He loved chaos.

After my mother found the strength to leave him, which itself is its own harrowing tale, she eventually fell in love with my stepfather.  Isaac was a strong but silent type when hard times came.  However, in the moments of calm that eventually reigned, he had a loud and boisterous laugh.  He loved to dance, sing and watch comedic movies.  He was content in his loving relationship with my mother, it seemed.  He was more than kind in his new role as a father.

If he were alive, I would ask him at which point did he know that he loved us as his kids.  I know that I felt protected for the first time in my life when he was around.  He would take my younger brother and I to the sites around the city just for something to do. I never felt like asking to go to the park was putting him out.  He encouraged schooling and he rewarded our efforts. 

I remember the first time I got a nice dress for an event.  He told my mom, “She gets good grades and stays out of trouble.  She deserves it.”  The only time I considered the sentiment “deserve” up until that point were times in my tiny mind when I wondered if I had done something wrong that was causing my bio-father to act out in the ways he did. But deserving of a good thing because I did what was expected of me?  This was a foreign concept.

I can recall many times when he would have his arm around me after coming from work, and I would count the new grays in his beard and say, “Boy, there are a lot more than last time!”  He would chuckle and smooth over my eyebrows, making me sleepy.  I remember doing that to my own children when they were getting ready for naps and smiling to myself of my memory of such a sweet gesture.

There was the one time I was being picked on in school.  Though I grew up in poverty and in the 1980s NYC projects, I did not hang out in the streets.  I was not a fighter.  I think I had my fill of violence in the early years and did all I could to keep people happy.  Still, the situation grew with confrontation inevitable and at maybe 9 years old, my dad Isaac was showing me how to throw a punch.  I eventually had to use my new skills and I ran home to tell him that I stood up for myself.  We scrapped a bit, my bully and I, but the “fight” in the lunchroom was short-lived.  He beamed with pride of my retelling and said I did the right thing not taking someone’s BS.  When that bully never bothered me again, it was a lesson I wouldn’t soon forget.

Isaac had lived a hard life before coming into our story and it’s not something I could have fully appreciated until I became an adult.  He never showed signs of the addiction he battled in the streets of Brooklyn.  He never bowed under the weight, that I could see, of being raised by a mentally ill mother and his own harsh father.  These things I learned about him after he was gone.  He came in a strong and confident ray of pure sunshine and my life has been better for it. 

I saw in him for the first time what it is to be a real man.  To work hard and be proud of your efforts, even if they were modest.  To love and cherish your wife, keeping peace and making space when conversations were heated.  To take insults and accusations in stride because at the end of the day, he was secure in his understanding of himself.  To cultivate friendships with men, praying for them and sometimes giving them a whooping on the basketball court. To love the children given to you in a way that is nurturing and fulfilling.  We were given to him, and he was given to us.  Thank God.

When he was diagnosed with Hodgkin’s lymphoma the summer of his almost 36^th year, I had no capacity in my 15-year-old brain that he would succumb to it by January the following year.  I had faith in God that healing was coming.  I do believe God is able to do it but this time, it wasn’t for us to see here on earth.  I did not know that at the same time he received his cancer diagnosis, he was also told that he had AIDS.  A by-product of his youth and his former addiction. Still, he underwent chemo and weakened with each round.  Hospitalized in December and gone in January of 1994, that time of my life is a blur of grief and loss.

My mom and I were talking fairly recently, and I shared with her some of the things I still carry with me because of the 7 years I spent with my dad.  She said that perhaps for the first time in a while, she was appreciating his impact as a father.  That if he did all that for me then there really was a reason that he came even if his leaving was so soon to follow.  It brought her a measure of closure I think, and it certainly did for me, too. 

I cannot overstate the good that he brought to me and the great I became of it.  Daddy, I hope you enjoyed your day and if you’re looking down on us, I sure do miss counting your grays.