My Father Was My Hero by Akili Kumasi

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My Father Was My Hero
by Akili Kumasi

He was scoring points like Michael Jordan and Wilt Chamberlin combined. I remember that day in the park when I was about five years old. My father played basketball with his buddies and I played in the children's area on the swings - then I moved to the big slide.

It was a really B-I-G slide and I was a little scared to climb all the way up that giant ladder. But, I took the challenge anyway and slowly climbed up - step-by-step - maintaining a tight grip on the guardrail and keeping my eye on my father.

When I reached the apex of the slide I carefully began to move from the ladder side to the slide side. But, that's all I remember of that scene because when I woke up I was in my father's arms. He was running down the street to get me home.

It was the late-1950's. My father was a big man, one of the best athletes around. He was a cop, a policeman. Everybody respected him. The whole neighbor looked up to him. He was a handsome, intelligent, and personable man, good at everything he did and he had an intelligent and pretty wife.

I imagine that after I fell from the top of the slide, my father checked me. He found that I was unconscious. He scooped me up and started taking me home to my mother who was a nurse. He was frightened. I had fallen about 10 to 15 feet from the top of the slide. When I woke up - about half the way home, I was not surprised to be in my father's arms as he completed the five blocks back to our house.

I will always cherish that memory. Because of that day and the trips to the barbershop where all the men seemed to straighten up when my father walked in, I'll always remember that in childhood, my father was my hero. He was there for me.

A Date With Divorce

That was a crushing day. It was one that I will never forget and one that I would eventually repeat myself. The pain, anger and helplessness of that moment are etched in my memory to stay. I was eight and my sister was nine.

My mother called us into the living room. She and my father sat far apart. She told us that we were going to move and that my father would not be moving with us.

My father said nothing. My hero was silent. He was there, but not there. I assumed that his inability to move with us had something to do with the fact that he was a police officer and he had important work to do.

We all cried, just as my sons, their mother and I did on that fateful day 33 years later when I had to break the same kind of news to my own two sons.

But on that day, the earth seemed to stand still as the scene was frozen in the minds of those it hurt.

Beforehand, my mother must have anguished over how she would tell us and how we would react. As the ominous day approached she probably reasoned in her own mind - searching for a way to avoid the evitable.

My father might have wondered how he would look to us, if he would lose our love and what it would be like to be single again.

We left that last family meeting somehow. I have no idea what we did next. Did we eat dinner, watch television or go back to play in our rooms? Whatever we did, my life was not the same again. My family was broken. My heart was broken and I would soon begin to reap the consequences of the seeds that were sown that day.

I did everything I could to get time with my father, visit his mother - my grandmother, in the hope that he would come by. I'd call him on the telephone and of course I'd be ready when he was supposed to pick me up on Saturdays. Whatever I tried, my hero always seemed to be just out of my reach, ever so elusive. Never quiet there - even when he was there.

I still loved him, but that never seemed to be enough - especially when I turned nine and he decided to move - from a few blocks away - to Los Angeles - 400 miles away.

That day when my mother told me that my father was moving to a place where I knew I would not see him was more painful than when we were told that my parents were separating. I knew I would miss my father and I would miss my hero even more because he would no longer be there for me.

At the end of the letters that I wrote to him I drew special signs in triangles that meant that I loved him. He followed my lead and did the same in his letters. That's why I used to look for him in the mailbox because that's all the communication I had with him except for an extremely rare telephone call. I still remember what his triangle looked like. I thank God that my father kept up communication, but that was no substitute for him being there. When I fell, when I needed to learn how to fight or play third base, I was alone. He was not there to pick me up.

A few years later when he moved back to our neighborhood in Berkeley I experienced a great sense of relief. He was there, where I could find him, see him and talk to him. My hero was back, but still elusive, there, but not there.

On occasion he would help me with my paper route in the wee hours on Sunday morning by driving me around to make deliveries. I thought that was what fathers were supposed to do. But, he was ever so reluctant. In a tense moment he threatened to

Author's Biography:

Akili Kumasi (Contact: info@rfathers.org, www.rfathers.org), father of four, founder of RECONCILED FATHERS - helping separated father reconcile with their children, author of four fatherhood books, Fun Meals for Fathers and Sons (co-authored with his two sons), On the Outside Looking In: Hope for Separated Fathers Who Want To Be Good Fathers, Bible Word Search, Volume III: Fathers in the Bible, Fatherhood Principles of Joseph the Carpenter.

Posted on: August 8,2008

Email: info@rfathers.org
Website: http://www.rfathers.org/art_hero.shtml