Dear Daddy,
Yesterday I found myself lonely for the first time in my life. I suddenly felt alone with a swelling need inside to talk to someone. Not just anyone but someone good and I blurted out aloud: Let me call dad! and just as suddenly I knew I couldn't. You would have been the perfect one to have called. I can hear your voice now answering the call: Hi baby! And off we'd go for a two hour jaw wag. But you aren't here any longer and I don't have that luxury anymore. And for me, it was a luxury.
So I called John. I was hesitant to call him because I have not often experienced him to be deep or sympathetic in the ways that matter to me. To the chronically ill he is the type to say: Get well soon. But call him I did and I found an old friend feeling just as I do as he has just recently lost the last of his parents; his mother. And for two hours I talked and he talked and I learned that he too felt the same pangs and fears of being single and alone and having a deep hurt inside to connect. His vulnerability was palpable and I found myself easing in to him with my own vulnerabilities and what began with trepidation ended in a bonding love. He revealed to me that since her death he has learned that many people in his family did not like his parents. They were fire and brimstone Christians and I guess were quite un-Christian-like to those that didn't buy into their way of life. I pointed out to him that whoever they had been they had raised a really remarkable, sensitive man. Somewhere along the line he said to me: No, Moira you are not like others either and it all came back to me why I had loved John all those years ago, and he me. I remembered the conversations we had about finding each other and never having to explain ourselves. We were two children with parents that had been Black in ways we never had to be Black, and that for our parents, in some ways, there was a disconnect towards us children. We didn't have the same fears, concerns or respect for the life they lived through. we were Jim Crow free. And in my heart I know that, you daddy, wanted nothing more than to have children who didn't have to see the shit you saw but I am equally sure you were often befuddled by our arrogance; that we traipsed around as we pleased. It is like you gave birth to a bunch of heathens who ridiculed your life in some ways. Not directly of course, but by not internalizing the same hardships that you had undergone.
It was like that time in the elevator when we had to make a police report for your rental car having been broken in to and the four of us, the white cop, you chocolate brown, my caramel skin, and Eric with his green eyes and Afro, being asked by the suspicious cop: How are you all related? And me, in my effervescent way cheerfully introduced us all. Afterward you railed into me like I was some sort of crazy woman for being like that with a policeman. I didn't understand what the fuss was about until years later, in Kentucky, I took a wrong turn down a one-way street and got pulled over in the car with a nephew, a cousin and your ex-lovers two kids from Sweden. The policemen asked the same question: How are you all related, and I cheerfully answered. But then he asked another question which disturbed me. He asked: None of you are local? I knew the meaning of that question and I chilled, but went on in my cheerful way, proving I wasn't local, and insuring that no one was forced to step out of the car. Locals in Kentucky, coloured ones, don't address the police with such cheerfulness and glee. So dad, I do, I did understand your life but a part of my new life, living a different kind of Black navigates the old layering it with the new.
I've never seen John stuck in depression as he is now. I have seen him cry and I have seen him sentimental but never have I seen him give pause and reflect so deeply and despite his feelings of woe I felt closer to him than I have in ages. I am eternally thankful for my old friends. I have no profound words other than to say I am thankful that I can turn towards someone I love and not only get what I need but give comfort too. Nothing is sweeter.
After my call with John, Zaza called and for another two hours I talked with another old friend. And here I found comfort learning of a son who adored his father and has carried on his name ten years after his death. A few years ago he had a small bust of his father, Shalva Mchedlishvili, erected in a local park. More recently he petitioned and received the right to have the street that he lives on changed to his fathers name. His father had survived Gulag, was a doctor to the poor, a writer and poet. He reveals to me that he is writing a historical book about another village, where the family home is, and all its wonderful history with wine making and such. He loved his father. His father was his hero and since his death he has honoured him by insuring that his father is remembered.
I have never met Zaza in person though one day I hope to. I have known him for 15 years and he knows and remembers more about me than most. I have fallen in and out of love with him, and then back in, and I have watched him turn gray. I have watched his daughter grow up and once I even met his father. Zaza, not knowing the name Moira, had thought it some random American name and it was Shalva who informed him of its meaning. Zaza was with me the day Milo died. He saw me through a divorce. He travelled with me from Vermont, to New York and is with me here in Mexico. I love our friendship. He is one of my friends that gives me the most comfort. He loves to sit and talk and I find his touch, his manner, comforting. I know that should we ever meet all that comfort shall remain in place.
They say that once our parents die it is then, as orphans, we become adults. I wish I could have called you daddy, but I want you to know that I found good comfort elsewhere with people who knew what it meant to no longer return home.
Yesterday I found myself lonely for the first time in my life. I suddenly felt alone with a swelling need inside to talk to someone. Not just anyone but someone good and I blurted out aloud: Let me call dad! and just as suddenly I knew I couldn't. You would have been the perfect one to have called. I can hear your voice now answering the call: Hi baby! And off we'd go for a two hour jaw wag. But you aren't here any longer and I don't have that luxury anymore. And for me, it was a luxury.
So I called John. I was hesitant to call him because I have not often experienced him to be deep or sympathetic in the ways that matter to me. To the chronically ill he is the type to say: Get well soon. But call him I did and I found an old friend feeling just as I do as he has just recently lost the last of his parents; his mother. And for two hours I talked and he talked and I learned that he too felt the same pangs and fears of being single and alone and having a deep hurt inside to connect. His vulnerability was palpable and I found myself easing in to him with my own vulnerabilities and what began with trepidation ended in a bonding love. He revealed to me that since her death he has learned that many people in his family did not like his parents. They were fire and brimstone Christians and I guess were quite un-Christian-like to those that didn't buy into their way of life. I pointed out to him that whoever they had been they had raised a really remarkable, sensitive man. Somewhere along the line he said to me: No, Moira you are not like others either and it all came back to me why I had loved John all those years ago, and he me. I remembered the conversations we had about finding each other and never having to explain ourselves. We were two children with parents that had been Black in ways we never had to be Black, and that for our parents, in some ways, there was a disconnect towards us children. We didn't have the same fears, concerns or respect for the life they lived through. we were Jim Crow free. And in my heart I know that, you daddy, wanted nothing more than to have children who didn't have to see the shit you saw but I am equally sure you were often befuddled by our arrogance; that we traipsed around as we pleased. It is like you gave birth to a bunch of heathens who ridiculed your life in some ways. Not directly of course, but by not internalizing the same hardships that you had undergone.
It was like that time in the elevator when we had to make a police report for your rental car having been broken in to and the four of us, the white cop, you chocolate brown, my caramel skin, and Eric with his green eyes and Afro, being asked by the suspicious cop: How are you all related? And me, in my effervescent way cheerfully introduced us all. Afterward you railed into me like I was some sort of crazy woman for being like that with a policeman. I didn't understand what the fuss was about until years later, in Kentucky, I took a wrong turn down a one-way street and got pulled over in the car with a nephew, a cousin and your ex-lovers two kids from Sweden. The policemen asked the same question: How are you all related, and I cheerfully answered. But then he asked another question which disturbed me. He asked: None of you are local? I knew the meaning of that question and I chilled, but went on in my cheerful way, proving I wasn't local, and insuring that no one was forced to step out of the car. Locals in Kentucky, coloured ones, don't address the police with such cheerfulness and glee. So dad, I do, I did understand your life but a part of my new life, living a different kind of Black navigates the old layering it with the new.
I've never seen John stuck in depression as he is now. I have seen him cry and I have seen him sentimental but never have I seen him give pause and reflect so deeply and despite his feelings of woe I felt closer to him than I have in ages. I am eternally thankful for my old friends. I have no profound words other than to say I am thankful that I can turn towards someone I love and not only get what I need but give comfort too. Nothing is sweeter.
After my call with John, Zaza called and for another two hours I talked with another old friend. And here I found comfort learning of a son who adored his father and has carried on his name ten years after his death. A few years ago he had a small bust of his father, Shalva Mchedlishvili, erected in a local park. More recently he petitioned and received the right to have the street that he lives on changed to his fathers name. His father had survived Gulag, was a doctor to the poor, a writer and poet. He reveals to me that he is writing a historical book about another village, where the family home is, and all its wonderful history with wine making and such. He loved his father. His father was his hero and since his death he has honoured him by insuring that his father is remembered.
I have never met Zaza in person though one day I hope to. I have known him for 15 years and he knows and remembers more about me than most. I have fallen in and out of love with him, and then back in, and I have watched him turn gray. I have watched his daughter grow up and once I even met his father. Zaza, not knowing the name Moira, had thought it some random American name and it was Shalva who informed him of its meaning. Zaza was with me the day Milo died. He saw me through a divorce. He travelled with me from Vermont, to New York and is with me here in Mexico. I love our friendship. He is one of my friends that gives me the most comfort. He loves to sit and talk and I find his touch, his manner, comforting. I know that should we ever meet all that comfort shall remain in place.
They say that once our parents die it is then, as orphans, we become adults. I wish I could have called you daddy, but I want you to know that I found good comfort elsewhere with people who knew what it meant to no longer return home.
Comments