Fathered, 2nd Edition

Fathered, 2nd Edition

(or, What I Wish I Thought I Knew)

Sometimes what we think we know is really just what we wish we knew.

Skeletal memories are filled in with daydreams and fantasies, and whatever's left over is topped off with a little logic.  "Hmm...It must have been like this because, surely, this makes the most sense.

For this reason, writing about my father is easy. He is forever memorialized by his untimely death, and I get to hear stories, stories, stories.  They echo in my mind-  from my mother, from my aunts, from his mother.  Few speak ill of the dead.

He was "a real Samoan boy" (not Samoan, but born in Apia and looked the part) or, "Philip the Beautiful," the two names with which he'd christened himself.  My grandmother has told me that he was her brightest child out of six smarties, but with that intelligence comes hard stuff.  They say he felt things in a big way.  Empathy haunted him- for animals, for humans, for the world.  The family's default illustration is the time he gave his new and hard-earned shoes to a man on the bus.  The stories sound tender, but listen to this 19-year-old voice that I read in his missionary calendar:

        What the hell am I doing in Japan teaching housewives to speak English so that they will have  

        something to do in their spare time when children are starving to death in southeast Asia and

        Africa?  My stupid government pays farmers not to grow grain on certain land so the price will

        stay up and in the mean time people starve to death...Yes, I am shaken, and yes, I want to get out

        of this country.

Ultimately, he did get out. But too early, just like his death.

But, then, he squeezed in time to love my mother, with her barricades and all. 

I love him for loving her. 

"This I know, that he loved your mother."

"At least we know he was crazy about Karen."

"I know that he loved me...in his way."

He took the time to tell her goodbye.  Arms around her while she slept, and a pre- and post-apology, "I'm sorry, Karen," whispered in her REM-filtered ears.  And she knew when he left. But she kept her young eyes closed against the possibility and hurt.

But what about my pre- and post-apology?  I was there too.  Was it collective?  I think I know I heard it. 

Like an eavesdrop.

But was he sorry to me?  So...

I wonder what he thought of me.

I wonder what it would have been like if I had been loved by him.

I wonder what role he plays in my life now.

I am like him, I think.  I have been told this from a myriad of sources, but I also feel it.
I am like him, but if he didn't like himself, would he like me?

*I wear his gray track sweatshirt with the red #22.  It's worn to white at the writs and elbows from too many times trying to put him on.*

His feelings got too big, so he atoned for the world, my grandmother said. If only he understood. If only he knew, she says.

Sometimes, when I run and it gets hard, I know he's with me. Or maybe I just wish I knew it.  

I tell him stuff and imagine what he might say by filling in skeletal memories with daydreams, fantasies, and a dollop of logic.

Mia, todo Mia

I began a blog for my daughters called The Strong Models Series after being inspired by several articles I have read over the years about transracial parenting.  I have come to terms with the fact that I (and the other wonderful women in her life-  grandmas, aunts, teachers, etc.) will not be enough to build a healthy sense of self and the identity she will need to be successful.  No matter how skilled we are at loving, mentoring, and teaching her, she will always be a black woman in a white world which is something with which I cannot identify no matter how much I wish I could for her sake.  So, to try and make up for the lack of black women in her life and community (we have a couple, but not enough...most of the black women she knows personally are from her birth family and, treading carefully here..., they aren't necessarily the mentor/models that I would encourage her to mimic), I am going to pull from wherever I can to show her mentors and models of note.  My goal is to introduce her to at least one woman per week through a series of blog posts I write to her (with the help of google images, wikipedia, and youtube!).

Here is my introduction letter to her that turned into a poem.  Because this topic that is near to my heart and difficult for me to work out, poetic form comes easier, I've found.  

*Note*  I also have another, younger daughter who is black. I have begun this blog with only my oldest in mind for some reason-  whether because she's the first, her stage of life, or because of personality differences.

Mia, todo mia

You are my first baby love
miracle
maker of my identity.

You made my dreams reality
and let me learn how at your expense.

You make me proud
to bursting at the seams with
love, and admiration, and hope.

You are my quasi-creation,
and because of this,


you are a reflection of me.
Me.
Mine.
You.
Yours.
You are you.

I must remember.

You are you.

You are (lean in so I can whisper this in your ear) beautiful...
a beautiful being.  I hesitate to tell it to you first, as if your appearance is the foundation of identity, but
I cannot deny the loveliness that you are.

Industrious.
You were appropriately named.
Your drive is unbeatable.
And girl, you can work.  Hard.

Your mind goes!
 Observing, hyper-aware, processing, synapses and electrodes firing and wiring in chaos,
but wired well.

"Focus. Focus. Amelia, FOCUS."

And when you do, that energy becomes a power to behold.

You are kind.
You are tender-hearted.
You are a healer, a fixer, a doer.

You are brown-skin-chocolate.
You are brown-skin-chocolate in a world of white.

You belong here.
You belong here, but you are not us.
You belong here, but. you. are. not. me. (I can hardly type the words)
Because, you see, in addition to all that you are, you are brown.  And I am not.  And I will never be.
I will never be you.

So, it is what it is.

And although you are named after my model of a German grandmother and Dad's model of a Swedish grandmother, two who have gone before us and you, you are not them.  

You are, alone, a pioneer in this world of white.  I will be here, we all will, be right here, but you must do it alone because of who you are.

So, look to me, and grandmothers, and aunts, and sister.  But, also, look to them.  These women who I will shop for and show to you.  You, who I hope will, then, say,

Yes, I am yours.  I am these things.  But I am also brown, like them.  And I am Amelia Alice who is loved by many and spanning the divide between them all and strong enough to hold. 

*This piece is pretty raw.  I think I need to work on word choice and more interesting phrases.*