No Sad Letters: Until the wheels fall off

"No sad letters." He repeated after me as we were ending our call. "I like that! Love ya." Those were the last words my father said to me after I'd shared pieces of a letter I'd just received from his son; my brother. The letter was funny as usual. Only a natural born fighter can still find humor behind bars with a 40+ yrs sentence. At any rate daddy and I laughed and he was shocked at the lighthearted course of the letter. That's when I said, "Well, daddy we don't write sad letters."

I never knew those would be my last words to the man who went half on my creation; but folks let me tell you how profound they are now. At the end of the day my soul yelped for my daddy. Thirty five years of anger for his absence in my life found it's way out of me. Where was it? How did it get tucked away so deep that it rushed through my veins and leaped through my soul like a desperate prey moments away from the edge of life and death. How did my vocal cords know to expand to accommodate the sudden eruption of emotions that exploded into a cry of a fatherless child? How did my husband know the exact way to hold me as the demons marched out of body and into the night? How had I smiled and claimed to have loved with my whole heart with that kind of pain? I cried for the love I didn't acknowledge; the lack of understanding that the love I got was all he had to give. I cried for the Budweiser we'll never drink together again. I cried for the end of the random bump ins we'd have at the Jet Food Store in my little town when I visited. I cried for my brother behind bars, his wife, my mother and other sisters and brothers from his many lovers. I cried for my daughter never meeting her grandfather. I cried for the memory of the high speed chase by police when I was twelve. I cried for the only father I'll ever get and it felt good y'all.

Last year I became a mother and oh what a revelation. I got right with my daddy and he saw me happy. He was happy for me. But that happiness stemmed from the closure he gave me in the middle of a summers night sitting in his jeep with both us over tipsy about two years prior, when I was on my spiritual journey. He answered twenty one questions with one answer. "Baby, I love you. I've always loved you. It's just that I was a casanova and shit got way out of control." Well dam! Who can't understand that. He should have said that twenty years ago. Because I know first hand pimpin ain't easy.

Though I was mad for a long time; my Bella was proof in the pudding that there is no place in a healthy life for anger. It's never to late y'all and it really does matter. Imagine if my last words remembered were full of hatred; then imagine a life where you get to decide how you want to feel. Imagine you taking all the necessary steps to mend a broken heart and as you put the last glob of glue of the wound the wind sweeps the whole thing away in one peace; it would hurt like hell to see a million little pieces scattered about uglying up the world.