In trying to create snapshots of time my daughter, I recall the memories my father has forgotten

The most important thing a father can leave to his child is the collection of memories they remind them how special they are

The routine is the routine. I drop our three-year-old off in the a.m., and my wife picks her up. 

Every morning is the semi struggle because the three of us almost always stay up too late, even when we try to sleep. Long gone are days when my wife and I patted ourselves on the back for being the only parents on the planet that successfully trained their infant to sleep, in her own bed, by 8 p.m. on the dot every night, all the way up to 9 a.m. the next day, with no interruptions. Baby girl rips and runs with us now, staying up until 2 or 3 a.m. and then trying to sleep in like a college kid with a hangover. 

So, a few weeks ago, I wake our sleeping beauty up around 8 a.m. to get her ready for her early learning daycare program, which we all affectionally call “school.” It’s not an actual school; however, she has classmates in her age group, a great teacher, and it’s on the schedule. All of this will prepare her for the real thing in a few years. 

“Leave me alone, Daddy,” she yelps in the cutest squeal. “I’m soooooo so sleepy!” 

“Well, baby,” I laugh, pulling her out of her tiny bed. “This is why you need to rest and go to bed when your mom and I tell you to. Now you gotta get up.” 

I take a warm wash cloth and wipe it across her face – she pulls away, swings at the air, connecting with nothing before landing in a hug. Telling me again and again how sleepy she is. I rock her, as if she was three months instead of her actual age, three years, while making my way to her closet. There, I recommend three dresses, and she rejects all three, lifting her head from slumber only to tell me that she wants the sleeveless multicolored one with the big ruffles. 

The dress wakes her, we brush her teeth, and she twirls and giggles and skips downstairs to breakfast where mom has already prepared her food – yogurt, sliced fruit and toasted croissant. She sips the strawberry bottle of kiddie yogurt, ignores the fruit, and only takes one bite of the croissant. After picking out her shoes, we are out the door and load into the family truck, where she chooses the music. On this day, it’s the soundtrack to Disney’s “Coco.” My daughter cheerfully screams, “Sing daddy sing!” every time Senior De La Cruz belts out, “Reeeeeeeemember meeeee!!!!” 

And, of course, I oblige. Then my daughter shuts me up when the film’s star, Miguel, advances to center stage so she can sing “Un Poco Loco.”

I think about singing “We Are the World” with my dad, way back in the ‘80s. Dad used to perform like 10,000 people were watching, hitting every high note as I tried to do the same. But I never gave him direction; as a matter of fact, he treated me as backup singer, just as my daughter does now. When I see my father, I try to remind him of these moments, but he had a stroke a few years back, and all of those sweet unforgettable memories from the ’80s and ’90s have been erased, like a wiped hard drive, whose contents are almost impossible to recover. 

Only my mind holds the dozens of times we ran the shoe store scam, swapping our old beaten Nikes for new Jordans, by tipping the salesman, putting the new shoes on our feet, placing our old shoes in the box and rushing out of the store as clerk stuck the box in the back. The cheese pizzas and hoagies we’d split from Mamma Lucia’s on Greenmount and how we’d never finish. Renting horror flicks from Blockbuster like “Fright Night” and “Tales from the Crypt.” Or hitting the movies, buying tickets for one film and hanging around for three. And the deep conversations on love, addiction, relationships and purpose, the conversations that made me –– are all gone. 

My daughter and I pull up to her school. I pop her out of the car seat, and like every other day that the sun shines, she’s fascinated by the size of our shadows that follow us to the entrance. 

“Daddy, you have a big shadow,” she laughs hysterically with closed eyes. “Mines is a little-little shadow.” 

I used to say the same thing to my Dad, pointing at our shadows, amazed when they overlapped, making us one when I walked too close. Funny how I don’t remember teaching her about shadows; she just knows. 

“Daddy and daughter shadows,” I say as we enter the building and reach her classroom. She rushes to put her lunch away while I store her backpack in the classroom cubby. I poke my head into her class to say that final goodbye, and she rushes to me, screaming, “I want my hug!”

We embrace. I say, “I love you,” and she echoes in her tiny voice that is loud enough for her class and a few teachers to hear. The adults swoon, and then we part. 

I sit in the parking lot of my daughter’s school for a minute, looking at the building before I drive off, pull over to an adjacent parking lot and burst into tears. Sloppy wet tears. 

I cry and cry and cry – red wet slits stare back at me in the rearview. I wipe them and they quickly fill again. People walk past, and I hide my face beneath my hoodie as if a they can see through my tinted windows and send all of my incoming calls to voicemail. After 10 minutes of this, I gather myself and start crying again. A more ugly cry than the first time, equipped with snot bubbles and saliva and coughs. 

What in the f**k am I doing, I ask myself, repeatedly. 

What the f**k is wrong with me? I think as I tried to breathe. Maybe it’s because my shadow would never overlap my dad’s again. After all, he’s constantly on bed rest. Or perhaps it’s because his memory is choppy – and the most essential years we spent together are gone. Maybe I’ll follow in his footsteps – have a stroke and lose the same memories, along with the memories I have with my daughter, the memoires I cherish so much. How can I protect her if I can’t remember anything? How crushed would she be if I forget her in the same way my dad had forgotten me? 

I wipe off my face, ball up the damp napkin, tuck it into my coffee cup and dial my dad’s number. The phone goes straight to voicemail. 

How can he forget me? For starters, he told me that I was his favorite multiple times. And my beautiful mother documented our childhood at a high level; she was truly ahead of her time – the way in which she captured every party, every holiday, and every trip to whatever amusement park, normally Six Flags or Kings Dominion, mirrors the tens of thousands of pictures ordinary people have in their phones today. Mom could fill up a public library with her photo albums. So many of those forgotten memories are available to Dad, right in Mom’s books – but it doesn’t matter because they are not strong enough to help him remember me.

What’s even more painful is that he doesn’t fully remember himself. His dance moves, loud-a** jokes, wild fashion sense and the joy he brought to every block party or street gathering is gone. When I visit him, I try extremely hard to not talk about the past. My father’s disconnected answers, wayward responses, and confusion depressed me. It depresses me so much that I often feel guilty for not visiting him enough, and that depresses me too. Sure, I can hide behind my work, my marriage, and my three-year-old’s demanding schedule, but deep inside, I know I can do more. 

My dad calls me back. 

“Heyyyyy boy,” he says. “Heyyyyyy.”

“What’s up, Dad” I respond. “I didn’t want anything, just saying hey.” 

“Ya muva making me lunch,” he responds. “I laying down, I laying down the rest of the day.” 

It’s only 9:30 a.m., and I know that unless he has a doctor appointment, he won’t get up. I wanted to talk about what I’m feeling or maybe how he’s feeling, and maybe even invite him out to take a ride, hit a food spot, talk trash, make fun of ourselves, our relationships, our families, society and everything else. But I know the answer is no or not today, so I settle. 

“Do you need anything?” I ask. 

“A winning lottery number,” he says. My dad has forgotten many things but will always remember the lottery. I spend the rest of the time talking to him about my daughter, making plans for her to see him over the weekend before we hang up. 

“Make sure you play my lottery lotto number,” he says. “Bye.” 

After reflecting, still in my car, I realize that my sadness and depression are directly connected to time. I feel like I did not have enough time with my father and will not have enough time with my daughter, and possibly, there’s no way to change that. 

Even if I quit my jobs, which would be impossible, the window for seeing her throughout most of the year would be between whatever time she got out of school up until her bedtime, plus weekends. Once you add alone time with her mom, visits with other family members in her age group and extracurricular activities – at the moment, she’s enrolled in music, dance, and rotating between soccer and gymnastics – then you are basically cut down to a few hours a week. This is normal, so why do I feel like time is running out? 

Is that enough time for her to truly learn my backstory, her mom’s backstory? Will she know me well enough to get my sense of humor, identify the root of my trust issues, and pick my friend’s brains about those back-in-the-day stories involving me? I was 39 years old when she was born, and only one out of four of my grandparents made it to their 60s, which cuts it close to me being able to see her graduate from high school, college and having that first drink. Will I even be around for this? I’d like to, but it’s a good chance that I won’t. Look at what has been happening to young, middle-aged Black men. They’ve all died way before their time.

The rapper Coolio was 59, my homie the legendary Craig Grant better known as the poet Mums was 52, the rapper Craig Mack at 47, hip-hop legend Heavy D at 44, the rapper DMX was 50, actor Lance Reddick was 60, rapper Shock G AKA  Humpty was 57, Biz Markie only 57, Michael K. Williams was 54, and Black Rob was only 52. 

Knowing this makes holidays like Father’s Day, Mother’s Day, birthdays and holidays seem less important. I can’t only wait for holidays to celebrate my wife and daughter, and hopefully they won’t need their holiday to celebrate me. I value all of those memories with my father, memories that seemed to solely belong to me now, but if I can go back in time, I would have used any and every opportunity available to give him his flowers — because he deserves them. In a time when fathers were scarce he tried his best and is the main reason why being a good father is important to me. The love he passed down to me is the win, regardless of how much time we spent together. 

My job is to pass that love down to my child, so even if I do check out early, she will be left with those feelings needed to make her feel complete, the feelings I rely on to make it through days drench with uncontrollable pain. I will forever thank my dad for those feelings. 

Happy Father’s Day.