Four, Thirteen, Fifty

 Four, Thirteen, Fifty

By LaShawn Baker

I was only four years old when my father appeared from behind the tattered screen door of my aunt's home. I remember calling to my aunt that there was a strange man at the door. But in my young mind I had  to make sure the tall man was my family, my daddy my saviour. I knew who he was in my heart. Yes I knew, but I wanted to make sure:running as fast as my four year olds as legs could carry me to my room in the back of the old house. I retrieved the borrowed photo from under my pillow. I couldn’t believe it, he came, God answered my prayers  and he was there to take me home. Returning to my position by the front door,   

For as long as I can remember the only image I held of my father came from his sister, my Aunt Martha’s photo album. I was placed with my aunt for some unknown reason and I spent my days, nights, and years wondering, wishing, and praying to go with one of my biological parents. My mother and her new husband lived in a small town called Coweta. 

My father, well the only thing I knew of him was from his family.  My aunt had so many stories and photos that I gleaned from. I remember pretending that he was some kind of grand prince, and I would spend my time making up stories of him rescuing me and taking me with him to his castle in California. I laugh now at the naivety of a child living in her own dreams. Yet in those dreams he appeared to me as tall as a tree in his white suit and hat. He was my hope, my daddy and a prince in a white suit.. 

I smiled, showing what teeth I had remaining  in my small mouth.  I did not know him but I felt hopeful when he raised me in his arms pulling me in a hug that melted my four year old heart. I vividly remember butterflies in my stomach. Seeing him for the first time was like getting an ice cream sandwich from the corner store, “priceless”. For three days my four year old dream came true. I was with my father. On the evening of the third day, I was awakened from my dream to his voice telling me that he was leaving but he would return by the end of the day to pick me up. “I am taking you with me baby.” His slow drawal was soothing and I believed him. 

I worshiped him and my four year old heart felt for the first time my once broken heart was smiling and filled with joy. 

My father wanted me, the smile on my four year old face began to fade by sunset. I had packed all my belongings and was sitting on the fake grass porch ready to go. The clock continued to tick and time continued to pass and my prince, of a father, did not return to pick me up.

By the time of my sixth birthday my Mother and her new husband brought me home to be with   them and my other four siblings. My emotional state was complicated to say the least. I did not really know my siblings, mother and my new stepfather. I watched my mother move quickly instructing me on my new position as the newest family member. In a few days it would be Thanksgiving and we had dinner to prepare. I was excited and nervous all at the same time. I was in my thirtieth year, when everything that was happening to a girl of my age was already underway and my fear of trying to fit in with my mom and siblings was taking a toll on my joy. The call I waited for as a child came to my mother. My father wanted to spend thanksgiving dinner with his five children. 

Mom gave us the options to go or stay. My siblings chose to stay mostly out of anger they held for him. However, that did not stop me. I felt like I was still the four year old girl being tossed in the air. I needed to see him, and I wanted to attend the dinner thinking it would be a chance for me to move in with him. 

Looking back I should have stayed home with my mother and family. Upon my arrival I found the shocking truth of why he had been absent from my life, from holidays, and birthdays. He had a new family, A new wife, with six children of her own also the ages of my siblings. 

As I recall the event that Thanksgiving gave me a distant father and new step-mother that later in life became my friend and bonus mom. The step siblings weren't anything like my own, they seemed angry and was calling my dad by his last name.  I wanted to protect my father from them. My anger at them and him was divided. The feeling of being lost was over whelming. I clung to the pillar in the dining room trying to save my tears. My step mother was very inviting and made me feel somewhat better about the situation. Her warm hug and kiss on the cheek made me feel as if my stepmother was going to be my mother. And by the end of her life she was just that often protecting me from his anger and contempt for me

I started to relax, I kinda thought that she would be the one to advocate for me. But in my world moments of joy are often short lived. 

What you are about to read is comical and I promise not to mislead you. Yeah,  My once soothed butterflies had returned when he called me to the kitchen. My father proudly pulled a coon out of the oven covered in barbecue sauce. I was first sickened by the meal choice and declined to eat it. The feeling quickly changed between him and I. My dream had faded and in his place was a man that held no love in his eyes, no he was not tall my prince he was their Poppa and my dad was fading.  He was different in all ways that I dreamt of. His voice was different. Gone was the loving tone of a father talking to his daughter. He looked at me as if I was a problem that  interrupted  this new life, his new family. I recall him asking me for my brothers and sister and why they did not come. The disappointment of his voice and eyes seem to echo in mine. All I could do was scream in my head, he doesn’t want me here. 

By the end of dinner, I was embarrassed by his mannerisms, it spoke volumes, we were strangers. no longer tied to each other by love and blood. There was something else between us with No name. I was no longer the hopeful four year old looking at the prince in the photo. He had changed and I struggled to find his face. I struggled with finding any part of the memories that I clung to as a child.

 That little girl inside of me was now buried in sadness  and  nursing a broken heart.  I was thirteen and I knew nothing about the man I called father. His new family was nothing like mine, the dinner was anything but traditional and as much as I tried to fit into their life in one day I was rejected by his action and his piercing eyes that looked like mine.

As Thanksgiving came and my father returned me to my mother the tension in the car felt as heavy as my heart. His disappointment in my presence was clear in the set of his jaw. He had no loving words for me, no loving caresses or warm hugs. I felt lost and the tears I held back was burning my eyes. 

I could hear the conversation between him and my mother. It was some oh really, really? My name came in a bellowing I came into the living room with my head down. Her voice was not loving and soothing but questioning and I could tell she believed whatever he said. Apparently I was disrespectful and rude to my step mother by refusing to eat the coon. Thankfully, my mom did not punish me for not eating the coon. 

Sadly enough between the ages of four to thirteen reality happens and love changes.  I never spent another Holiday with my biological father until my 50th year. Sadly we never recovered our relationship and with his death we never will.