My father Louis Sr. was like life, hard but most times fair. His reputation preceded him and afforded me currency in spaces I had not yet earned. He was serious most times but loved to laugh and had a wry sense of humor that could cut if you caught it by the blade. He had a sweet tooth and loved to dance to calypso, if only in the kitchen with my mother. He kept his wallet, pen, handkerchief, and pocket knife in the same spot on the dresser so consistently that the finish in that corner was worn. He was dependable in a way most people are not, and you could not ask him what he thought if you did not want to know the truth about a thing. Some twenty-five years after I officially left New York I, unfortunately, returned for the funeral of a dear childhood brother. (RIP Jeff) When I made my way inside of the church a neighborhood friend exclaimed from a pew “Boy, Mr. Lord was no joke!” Then he said hello. Hard but most times fair.
Those traits were not given but rather earned. My paternal grandfather immigrated to the U.S. from Guyana in 1917. My grandmother Ruby made her advent from (meh likkle island) Jamaica around the same time. My father was a man in a boy’s body during the Great Depression. After my grandfather completed medical school he separated from my grandmother, a decision she was not initially privy to, and my father was left to look over his mother and siblings in Harlem well before gentrification. Pre-teen Louis worked for the local drugstore, sold vegetables from a pushcart, and delivered the home-cooked meals and cakes my grandmother made from scratch and memory from her Harlem kitchen. When talking to my high school or college friends decades later, my then well-aged father would always impart “a man should always have an honest hustle.” I see so much of him in my son.
Those of you who have lost a parent know how the instances periodically play back like movie scenes. I sometimes think of an experience I had as a boy that left my father’s imprint on me. There are many, but this one always comes to attention like a soldier that heard a command no one gave. I was in elementary school, and up until that night, I don’t ever recall being sick to my stomach. This night something took hold of me and this very foreign feeling woke me from my sleep. As hard as I tried I did not make it to the bathroom. My father was a notoriously light sleeper and the commotion I caused in my failed attempt found me bent over in the hallway looking at his bedroom shoes, holding my hands over my mouth when that ship had so very obviously sailed. I remember feeling helpless and scared, and for some reason I started apologizing. I was standing in the narrow hallway holding soiled hands in the air whimpering “I’m sorry...I’m sorry…” By then my mother was on scene but my father waved her off. “I got it, you go back to bed.” Just like that he rubbed my back and patted in sequence- rub, rub, rub-pat, pat, pat. Before he helped me to the restroom he stood me up and said “Don’t you ever apologize, it’s my job to take care of you.” I watched him get on his hands and knees and clean up after me. He washed my face and helped me change my clothes. He helped me back to bed and reminded me of his charge in a louder tone to make sure I understood. “It’s my job…”
********************************************************************************************************************Every meal I have ever made my son is wrapped in that moment. Every school trip I chaperoned, every time I dropped him off but doubled back to make sure. Every older schoolmate I stared down just because. Every golf ball I drop in the fairway when we can’t find his(or mine!) and say “Found it!” All of it influenced by a middle-of-the-night wretch session in a cramped hallway.
Happy Father’s Day brothers!!! A prayer for those of us robbing Peter to pay Paul to make it happen, and those of us blessed to not have to do so. A special intention for those of us who have lost our way. May you find your way back on task in time to speak into ears and hearts willing to listen. Fatherhood is our job. It’s hard but most times fair.
