One Day I'll Make Him Proud

I can still see him lying there, gaunt, open-mouthed, and dead. It was about eight in the morning, and I sat there staring at him. I could not cry. All I could do, after tying his mouth shut with the belt of his bathrobe, was stare. This empty body was not my father. It was not the man dried my tears and later edited my writing assignments. My father was gone. I had spent the past month by his side, only leaving, to briefly try to sleep. The three and a half weeks I spent watching my father lose his battle with cancer gave me time to reminisce about the time I spent with him and how he struggled to mold me into the woman I have finally started to become. I felt guilty about all of the times I disappointed him: the lies I told when he would have accepted the truth and how before he died, I had not lived up to his expectations of me.

My father was a good thing in a small package. He stood only 5’5”, but no one ever seemed to notice until they stood close to him. He was chubby in a way that added to the warmth of his aura. Although he always wore suits, he never gave the impression of being unapproachable. He was always honest, loved unconditionally, and believed in second, third, and sometimes even fourth chances.

I was his first born child and only daughter. Everyone thought I looked just like him, with my crooked smile and almond shaped eyes. I was the quintessential “daddy’s girl.” It amazed and frustrated me that he seemed to know me better than I knew myself. As I got older, I found that I shared his short temper and tenacity.

Raised by a single mother in the South, my father believed that a black woman should be strong and independent. Ever since I can remember, college was considered an essential part of my education. I was raised with the notion that as a black woman, I had to be twice as smart as my white counterparts to receive equal recognition. When I pierced my nose with a gold hoop, surprisingly, he didn’t make me take it out. Instead, he constantly reminded me that no matter how smart I am, people will still judge me on my appearance, and once a first impression is made, you cannot change it.

Upon entering high school, I went from being a loving daughter to a rebellious hellion. I could do nothing right in my father’s eyes. My skirts were too short and my tops were too tight. I stayed out too late and I dated the wrong guys. Our similar personalities turned a doting father-daughter relationship into one of frustration (him) and resentment (me). This constant battle of wills that was my teenage years left me anxiously anticipating attending an out of state college.

What I perceived as an overprotective father trying to squelch his daughter’s independence, I now realize was my father’s attempt to stop me, in whom he saw so much potential, from making mistakes I would one day regret. I was too stubborn and caught up in my own life to see how his heart broke a little bit every time I defiantly went down the wrong path.

I was still struggling with that same issue of his guidance versus my freedom on that brisk April morning when he died. It took several years of battling grief and anger for me to be able to take an objective look at our relationship and what he had hoped I would gain from it. The lessons he taught me; hard work, honesty and integrity, are clearer now, more than they ever were when he was alive to teach them to me. I wish he were still here so I could tell him that I finally get it and I’m sorry it didn’t sink in sooner. I use the energy from the guilt that I feel as fuel to turn myself into the woman he always believed I could be. I know one day I will make him proud.