my dad died two days before trump was sworn in for the second time. i’m not sure i ever saw myself in his face but i thought I’d at least recognize the pieces of me that came from him. etched somewhere against the life he’d lived and the things he saw. maybe side by side id be able to ware down the hardness of his eyes and see them in my own. I’m still a child, his child, one that has not known much else but ease, and ease looks different, it feels different. ease to me is, never being limited. I think your hardness came from the potential for so much more. the things you didn’t get to live and the things you didn’t get to see.

our bodies are made up of this complex weaving and harmony of tissues, organs, and blood. our souls are made up of a combination of beliefs, hopes, and love. now that i know what you looked like, i wonder what you believed in. i wonder what you hoped your life would look like, if this was it, abandoning a child, and dying at 51. it’s the parent’s job to aspire for their children. work hard to make sure their dreams are achievable, that their lives are easier than those that came before.

i had bigger aspirations for you than death while your daughter’s only 30. i would have worked hard, if given the chance, to show you what limitless feels like. without knowing it you gave me the gift of never questioning. my childhood was filled with this innate sense of purpose, confidence, and direction. it was the love of my mother and my grandparents that watered me and placed me in direct sunlight. I grew so much that I had love to spare. I could have shared that with you. shown you that black people can glitter gold in spite of the stereotypes set out to make us exactly who they want.

It wasn’t until I was older that I noticed I wasn’t whole, that I didn’t know where I came from. a different kind of puberty, where our brain starts realizing things we never paid much attention to. like why I count all the Black people when I’m in a store, and if there’s none but me, which happens more than you think, I feel this unease. As though something could happen to me and the truth wouldn’t be told. i felt this empty sense of solidarity and sometimes I just wanted to come home to someone who looked like me.

You must know that I was never angry, not until now. Not until the curtain closed and I thought there were a few more scenes to be had. I thought eventually you would call, that you’d tell me why, and that I would get this sense of being seen. Mom has gotten good at saying “I could never understand what you’re going through” which is powerful and wise. You could have been the parent that completely understood what I was going through, made me feel less insane, quieted my own internal struggle of gaslighting an experience and talking myself out of its racist undertones.

The world is so scary, and no daughter ever feels too old to want her dad.

– Alexis Raymond