And When I Let You Go,

I Was Saved

            by Natalya Gibbs

 

I sit on the window seat, faced pressed up against the glass, bouncing up and down; eagerly awaiting my surprise. All my daddy has told me is that he has a surprise for me. He says it’s something I’ve never experienced before. Daddy says it will be here soon and I make up the time in my head; counting down the minutes.  Because I know that we are going to pick up my grandma and uncle from the airport, I can’t help hoping that it’s a limo…

            I am eight years old then. Then, he is daddy. He is funny and tall and he plays basketball. He doesn’t live with me and mommy. He isn’t my sister’s daddy. But then he can do no wrong. When I get mad at my mom, the idea that I can live with my daddy is more realistic to me then it will ever be in the future. Then, I haven’t realized that he does harm…

 The limo pulls up, I squeal, he smiles. We go over the bridge, me standing on the plush leather seats, my head stuck out of the top screaming with laughter because I can. We go to the airport; I hang back, hiding behind my dad. My grandma doesn’t know I’ll be here. I am her surprise…

            Time passes. My daddy is now with a woman named Monica. They’re engaged.  She has three children. As a bonding moment, all four of us go to the mall. My daddy and Monica don’t come. We get split up. I am with Ebony, never by myself, but I still get scared. When I go home, I tell my mom. She gets really mad at daddy. Tells him that I am too young to go places without an adult. On the surface level, I don’t think that I realized it was wrong. I felt like a big girl, and the reason I got scared was because we couldn’t find Gabe. Not because my daddy wasn’t there. But on a subconscious level, I must have known that it wouldn’t be ok with mommy. Because I told her. And I never sided with daddy. Daddy promised that it wouldn’t happen again. Mommy said ok and lets me see him again. She was close to not allowing me to stay all night again. But she does…

            The next time I see daddy he is tired. He has just come back from a retreat with his job. He sits on the couch and watches basketball. He tells me that I can go to the park with Ebony.

            “Are you coming too?” I ask, instantly reminded of the incident at the mall.

            He doesn’t exactly say no just, “You can go with Ebony”.

            I know that I am not supposed to. That mommy will be mad. But I also don’t want to tell him that I’m not allowed to. In some way, I guess I thought that since he promised mommy he wouldn’t do it again; it would be ok. Maybe they had worked something out. After all, he was giving me his cell phone. I also didn’t want to look bad in front of Ebony. Didn’t want to look like the little one, even though I was. And so we head off to the park.

            At the park, there isn’t much to do. There is a swing set, but I’m not very good at pumping. I ask Ebony for help, but she says no, that I can do it myself. I know I can’t and so the park becomes boring. There isn’t anything for me to do anymore. I call daddy, asking if we can go home now.

            “Why?” he asks, sounding sleepy.

            “I’m just bored here and I want to spend time with you”

            He pauses. “Let me speak to Ebony” he finally says.

            I hand the phone to her. She moves away from me and I can’t hear what she’s saying. Finally, she hands the phone back to me.

            “Ebony says you want to leave because she won’t push you on the swings”

            “No daddy. That’s not true. I just want to see you”

            “You know, Tally, if you put your mind to something you can do anything, even if it seems hard. I want you to try.”

            “But daddy, that’s not why. Can we please just go home now?”

            “You’ll leave when Ebony’s ready” he says, hanging up the phone.

            When we get back home, daddy is asleep on the couch. I know that there will not be enough time left for him to actually spend time with me.  I go into my room and call my mom. She doesn’t answer. Neither does my grandma. I resort to calling my great-grandma; leaving long messages on all of their machines…

            “…And I’m ready to come home because dad is just sleeping…”

            Before I can correct myself, the word is already out of my mouth. Dad. Not daddy. In this moment, he has ceased to be the one who can do no wrong. He wouldn’t spend time with me. He let me down. In this moment, I have also grown up.  No longer do I need to call him daddy, its’ connotation is nurturing; something he is not. When he finally wakes up and comes into my room, it is to ask if my stuff is all together and if I’m ready.

            “Yes, dad, I’m all packed…”

            When we get to my house, mommy asks to speak to dad. I know it’s because he left me alone. Again. He lied to her. He promised. This, to mommy, was the last straw. I was no longer allowed to go over to his house in Hayward. He would have to come to me, in El Cerrito, and spend time with me at my house. That way my mommy would be near by. Previously, my dad’s stance on communication was that it goes both ways. No matter, if I was two, four, five; he still believed that I could call him as well. And so, after he left I wrote him a letter telling him how I felt. How he upset me, but how I also hoped that he wouldn’t stop seeing me altogether…

            The next time that I remember having the opportunity to see my dad, was when my grandma flew in from Chicago for his wedding. She would be staying at a hotel and I would stay with her. My dad called wanting to talk to me. I don’t know why, but I didn’t want to. I didn’t want him to stop by the hotel either. Eventually, my grandma gave me the phone. And I sat there, on the bed, listening to him talk. He kept saying that communication goes both ways. That’s all I remember. Except for how hard my tears fell down my face and how hard I tried not to let him know. But when I tried to talk, it was obvious. And so my grandma took the phone from me and talked to him. I don’t remember what she said either. I remember him coming over, though, and the two of us setting up a “plan” for communication. That’s what it was about in those days. He would make it crystal clear that I was at fault as well. And me being so young, believed him. So I kept trying. Kept making it work to the best of my ability. And slowly, he began to gain back the trust of my mother.

 It was about two years before I was allowed to go back to his house. I remember going to a carnival and winning stuffed animals. And walking down to the corner store to get gum and CarMax. The happy moments were there, but once again he showed his true colors…

The driveway was gravely, unpaved. He wanted me to ride this bike. I was older, around eleven, and had been riding bikes without training wheels for quite some time now. But this bike was different. It was bigger and the ground was far from stable. I was scared. The more I resisted, the angrier he got. Yes, he was right there holding the bike; but it was the moment when he would let go that I would freak out. I would put my feet down and stop, refusing to pedal any further. This upset him.

“You know, Tally, if you put your mind to something you can do anything, even if it seems hard. I want you to try.”

 I resisted the urge to roll my eyes. It was this phrase that he loved most. This speech that he gave me all the time. I wanted to do well for him, be able to ride the bike down the driveway; but fear took over my body and I literally couldn’t. Once he realized that he wasn’t succeeding, he sat me down and began to talk.

I don’t remember exactly what was said. I do remember sitting on the driveway, the hot sun beating down on me; staring up at him. My small suitcase was off to the left, and my teddy bear and blanket to my right. He kept talking, and I started to cry. He was giving me a life speech. Making me feel like if I didn’t ride this bike then I wouldn’t succeed at anything.  I now realize that he was using the bike as a larger metaphor, but then he was just the big, scary man standing over me; yelling at me. Finally, he was finished and I stood up to follow him into the house to say good-bye to Monica. She was in their room sitting on the bed and I went and joined her. I gave her a hug and said, “Bye, Monica.”

She replied with, “Bye sweetie, see you soon.”

I stand to leave and notice my dad blocking the doorway with a strange expression on his face.

 “Aren’t you going to tell Monica you love her?”

I look from Monica to my dad, and back to Monica again. I’m trying to figure out how to say no without hurting her feelings. I don’t know her very well, certainly not enough to say I love you.

He repeats himself, “Tell Monica you love her”

“But, I… dad… I don’t really…” I don’t finish my sentence. I am trapped, unsure of how to communicate myself to him when he is already mad.

“Fine,” he says, brushing past me to get to Monica.

“Go to the car, I’ll be there in a minute.”

I do as I am told. When my dad comes outside he looks angry. He begins to talk to me, no talk at me; about how I have upset him. Once again, I am sitting, he is standing; pacing. This time I grab my teddy bear and clutch him to my chest. His words, my swirl of emotions get jumbled up in my mind. I don’t remember how long we were outside; but when we got into the car the sun wasn’t so hot anymore. I sit in the car, my face pressed up against the glass; eagerly awaiting the moment when the tears will cease to fall. And this time, I am counting down the minutes until I am home…

 

As I get older, I start to deal with the moments when my dad upsets me a lot better. I don’t cry over him anymore. I have realized that it is not worth it. I could get angry at the fact that he says he was “saved” when I was born. It is so far from the truth, so hypocritical; that I could easily be pissed off about it. But there are more pressing matters in the world, like genocide, for me to waste my time being angry at him. I even hesitated to write about him, afraid that I would be giving him satisfaction in some way. But instead I look to the humorous side of his statement of being “saved”. If he was so saved when I was born then why would he spend diaper money on basketball shoes? Why do I have a brother who is exactly the same age as me, but has a different mother? I thought adultery was one of those ten commandment thingies…

Although I don’t believe that my dad was religious when I was born, I do recognize that there came a point in his life when he started going to church regularly; ultimately becoming a minister. I think that this change came about when Monica came into his life. Regardless of when it started, I have always told him that I don’t know if I believe in God; nor what religion suited me. And while he has always said that he won’t impose his beliefs on me, there was this one time when I said,

“For all I know, I could be a Buddhist.”

We were driving in the car, ironically in front of a church. I happened to say that just as we were going over a speed bump. He slammed on the brakes, surprised at my statement, and my body went flying back into the seat. He quickly recovered, and pressed on the gas; causing us to go flying over the bump. I looked over at him, a smile on my face as I watched him struggle with the words, “Whatever makes you happy.”

Slowly, my dad and I began to mainly communicate through e-mails. The last time I saw him in person was when he took me to dinner at Sizzler’s. I know, fine dining. We were sitting there and he was talking, as usual, about a conversation he had recently.

“And, yeah Tally, he said if I just stick with it, then everything will be all right. He said he knows that times are hard right now, but that soon it would all get better. He said that he knew that I could do it, that I was the type of person who could really make it work. He said that he had watched others fail because they had given up, but that he knew I wouldn’t be like that. That he would be watching, and would be there if I needed to talk.”

As I sat there listening to him talk, I was impressed by the fact that someone could actually listen to my dad. He goes on and on so much and yet never offers to listen to anyone else.

“Yeah, Tally, and then I checked psalm…”

Hold on, did he say psalm?!

“Psalm?” I repeat, shakily.

“Yeah, Tally. It says it right there. Right there in the Bible…”

Holy crap! He was talking about God the entire time! There is no miracle person who can stand to actually listen to him for very long…

“Oh, well that’s good that He was…able to…help you…” I say, before shoving a handful of french fries into my mouth…

My dad also never seemed to get the hint that I didn’t want him to e-mail me about God. Not only would he send me “Jesus forwards” normal forwards that would end with “send this on to five people and God will bless you” or something like that. But one time he sent me this e-mail:

So, it's good news about your Great-Grandma-----------I'm so happy for her and I have a concern but I don't know how to approach her with it.I don't know if she believes in heaven but I surely do and I would love to see her there one day but the only way to go to heaven is to believe in Jesus, God's son and I always didn't go to church there was a time in my life where I didn't know what I know now. But personal experience taught me there is most definately a heaven.

            While this provided my great-grandma and I with a lot of laughs, it really confirmed my belief that he didn’t care what I thought or how I was feeling. Because I had repeatedly told him not to e-mail me on that subject! And if he really did care then he would not ask me for help on approaching my atheist great-grandma with the subject of being saved!!

 

            It has now been ten months since I have had any contact with my dad. Somewhere along the way, I became completely at peace with the fact that he wasn’t in my life. I didn’t want the turbulence; I just wanted him to be all the way there or not at all. And since I knew that he would never be fully committed to me and my life, I was not upset that he wasn’t contacting me.    If I wasn’t ok with that, I would have contacted him. After all, communication goes both ways!

            The most frustrating part of all of this is although I’ve come to terms with him not being apart of my life, he still has power over me in the sense that his lack of presence created my distrust in guys. I feel as if I should come with an instruction manual or a blinking red light.  Something that shouts, “Beware! I’m not going to trust you!” I’m going to push you away only because I don’t want you to push me away. I’m going to say things that may hurt you, so that you can’t hurt me first. I may talk to you one day, and completely ignore you the next. And if you say, like Roger did, “They say if u put ur mind to something u can do anything” I may not be so nice. Because all I’m going to hear is my dad’s voice, telling me the same thing; over and over again. 

I’m going to try my hardest to not let you in. So if you really want to go there, don’t give up on me. Keep trying. It is one thing to acknowledge your flaws, and another to make a conscious decision to change. But I’m trying. I’ve got my mommy, grandma, and sister to help with that. And my very much still an atheist, great-grandma.