Should've been there, but I let you down
-DMX feat. Usher & Brian King Joseph, “Letter To My Son (Call Your Father)”
End of the day, no excuse for how you played your part Told myself when I became a father, I'ma raise the bar
-Joyner Lucas feat. Elijah James, “Like A River”
Ghost is a noun. Ghost is a verb.
Over the course of my life, my dad has embodied both meanings of the word. No, my dad is not dead. At over 70 years of age, he is very much alive and well, in both good health and good spirits. However, reflecting on my over 40 years of living, his presence in my life has often been more of an apparition, a specter—a phantasm.
Before I turned two years old, my parents divorced. More accurately, my dad blindsided my mom with his request for a divorce. At the time, my dad had already immigrated to the United States in pursuit of an accounting degree, leaving behind my mom, my three older brothers, and me in our island homeland in the West Indies. A few years later, as a family (including my mom) we spent some time on vacation with my dad in Washington D.C., where he was attending a historically black university. I have faint and fleeting memories of from this trip. Climbing over “The Awakening” sculpture at night. Watching the giraffes at the Smithsonian’s National Zoo. Seeing my dad kissing a woman—a woman who wasn’t my mom. I had to have been around 4 years old.
A few years after our trip to D.C., along with two of my older brothers, I immigrated to the United States. (My oldest brother had already immigrated to the U.S. a couple of years before us, and was living with our dad, who by had moved by then to the Midwest.) Instead of being thousands of miles apart, we were now just hundreds of miles apart. Yet still a shorter distance between us did not lead to a deeper relationship.
There were summers when my father would make the drive to Brooklyn to pick my brothers and me. I remember his burgundy late 1980s Oldsmobile, with matching suede interior, as we drove across the country. But in all of the summer vacations that I spent at my dad’s house, in all of the times he came to visit us, I didn’t learn much more about who my dad was as a person. Even when was in a position to be present, overall, he still remained absent. My father loved—and still loves—golf. He along with his golfing buddies would spend hours at the golf course. Which golf course? I don’t know. In all that time, I don’t recall him ever inviting me or taking me along with him.
Father is a noun. Father is a verb.
Beyond the golf course, my dad missed countless other opportunities to connect with his kids—all seven of us. I have a younger brother and younger sister from my dad’s second marriage, both of whom I love dearly. And through our own efforts, it was only some years ago that the six of us learned that not only did we have another brother, but also would be able to connect with him. In all of our conversations and group chats about our dad, in our own way, we all tell similar stories. Our stories are marked not only with our dad’s physical absence, but also our dad’s emotional absence, both of which have had far-reaching impacts and long-term effects on our lives.
On May 9, 1994, The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air aired an episode (“Papa's Got a Brand New Excuse”) that featured what is arguably the series' most memorable and most powerful scene. In the final scene of the episode, Will’s long estranged dad (played by Ben Vereen) who had popped up earlier in the episode and spent some meaningful time with Will, returns and breaks a promise to take him on the road with him. Among the things Will says, he says the following:
“No, you know what, Uncle Phil? I'ma get through college without him, I'ma get a great job without him, I'ma marry me a beautiful honey, and I'ma have me a whole bunch of kids. I'll be a better father than he ever was, and I sure as hell don't need him for that, 'cause ain't a damn thing he could ever teach me about how to love my kids! . . . How come he don't want me, man?”
I was 12 years old at the time. I can’t recall whether I first saw the episode when it premiered or on a rerun, but I have since seen it countless times . To this day, that scene still moves me deeply. Will’s emotional response was so visceral that one can easily overlook Uncle Phil’s response: “Will, it's all right to be angry.” In those few words, Uncle Phil (played by the late great James Avery) provided his nephew with something he desperately needed: emotional validation.
Dr. Jonice Webb, a psychologist and author of Running on Empty: Overcome Your Childhood Emotional Neglect, writes in an article for Psychology Today:
“The one failure of the emotionally neglectful family is emotional. There may be enough hugs. There may be enough money. There may be enough food and clothing. But this family does not manage to provide enough emotional awareness, validation, compassion, or emotional care to the children. . . . The members of an emotionally neglectful family do suffer. They suffer from what goes unsaid, unshared, undiscussed, unnoticed, and unvalidated."
From my dad, I didn’t receive “enough hugs” and “enough money.” Nor did he provide the necessary financial support to my mom to ensure that there was “enough food and clothing.” However, as a father to my own kids, beyond meeting their material needs, I am determined to father them by providing for and nurturing their emotional needs. As Dr. Webb writes:
“Talk about meaningful things, fight against feeling guilty for your feelings, focus on self-care when with your family, talk about difficult problems, express your affection and warmth toward others in words and face your negative emotions. You don’t have to do it perfectly. You only need to do it enough.”
I am not perfect father. (Ask my wife or my kids!) But I don’t have to be a perfect father. In a recent Facebook post, pastor and author Rich Villodas expounded on one of his Twitter posts in which he had written, “Integrity is not about living something perfectly, but wrestling with something faithfully.” In his Facebook post, Villodas goes on to say, “Integrity is about honest and compassionate self-confrontation. . . . It’s not a perfect life we are called to (no one can live that), but one that wrestles faithfully with the things that require wholeness and healing. That’s integrity too.”
I am a good father, in part, because I am committed to faithfully wrestling with what it means to be a father, as well as pursuing the wholeness and healing that I need. And as Dr. Webb writes: “You cannot fix your family, and you do not need to try. But you can start changing yourself.” I don’t know well the dynamics of the home in which my father grew up. I suspect strongly that he too experienced emotional neglect in his own family of origin. And while I strongly support and encourage my siblings to pursue their own wholeness and healing (both for their own benefit and the benefit of their relationships) I can’t make them pursue either one.
What I do know for certain is that I don’t want to be a dad who is seen but not truly felt. A dad who is heard but not truly known. I want my kids to learn and know what it means to be truly loved and valued, as well as what it means to be a good person (whether or not they ever become parents). I want them to learn and know these things from my embodied presence in their lives, rather than from any way in which I may ever fail to show up for them. From who I am rather than who I am not. From what I do rather than what I don’t. To put it succinctly, I don’t want to be ghost of a dad to my kids.
Commentaires