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Dear Dad,
When you were the age I am now, I was four years old.
You’d been married for 25 years, and had four other children, two of them grown with kids of their own. You’d lived through the Great Depression and through Jim Crow and through the Civil Rights movement. You were a homeowner, having purchased the house I grew up in, in 1953 with cash, in an all white neighborhood, in a time when segregation was legal and interracial marriage was not.
I wish I could have known you then.
I can’t help but wonder if your thoughts at this age we both arrived at were anything like mine.
I wonder what your ambitions were, your frustrations, your proudest achievements. You had so much going for you when you were my age: a devoted wife, a family, a successful music career, a home; I’ve none of those things.
I wonder what you’d have thought of me; if we would have been friends. If you’d taken care of that tumor, you’d be 94 today. I wish I could ask your thoughts on what’s become of the world. You didn’t live to see the first black president, but you also didn’t live to see Ferguson, or the rise of Islamophobia.
Mostly I wonder what you’d think of me.
I’m trying so hard dad, but some days it feels like no matter what I do, I just can’t get ahead. I’d like to think I work as hard as you did, but I’ll never have your unquestionable ethics. I miss the gentleness you grew into with me; I could use a bit of that today. I hope your rest, is restful.
Love,
Your youngest son.
PS. Fuck cancer.
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