Growing up all I really had was my mom, when I was three my dad got locked up. He was a stranger to me when he did come home. For some reason I always worshiped the ground he walked on. I loved my dad no matter what he did and no matter what anyone had to say about him. I was around 11 the first time I saw him. I was just beginning to understand what jail was and why people do there.

He came home May 5th. I remember because it was my mom’s birthday. I was leaving my afterschool program at the YMCA and I walked out to the car. There he was in the passenger seat. I was as happy as could be, I started crying and ran up to him and gave him a big hug. He was so tall compared to me. I stared at him for a while he had on grey sweat pants and a plain white tee with Nike slides. His facial hair and the hair on his head was half grey and half black. Then I noticed he had tears coming down his face. He always cried when I cried. They were all tears of joy.

At the time he couldn’t live with us because he was on home confinement and was registered at his mom’s address. I visited him daily. He stayed there for about two years, I wasn’t a huge fan of my grandma’s house, but I’d do anything to stay with my dad. She lived in a little two-bedroom apartment, when I stayed over me and him slept on a fold out couch. Them two years passed and he finally got to live with us.
Every day he picked me up from the bus stop after school, some days we’d go get food, then go home until my mom got off. Some days he wasn’t always able to get me, so I would have to walk home or go to a family member’s house. I began to think that he’s really trying to make up for the years that he has missed. So the past started to mean nothing to me. Long as I saw the effort being put in.

  But then he let me down again. One afternoon I was on the bus and one boy said to me “Isn’t that your dad’s truck?” Everyone began to look and whisper. I thought he was just playing, but then I saw a police car. At first glance I didn’t see any police. But then I saw a police in the truck and another one putting my dad in handcuffs. Everyone looked at me I tried not to cry, but I couldn’t help it. I was devastated. I called my mom. I was in tears, to the point where she could barely understand what I was saying.

I took a deep breath and said “They’re locking dad up.” She sent my brother to get me I refused to tell him what I just saw, I just wanted to be left alone. I didn’t want to talk to anyone but my father, I knew he was the only person that could make me happy.

I began to see no male will ever love me or understand me more than my dad. Even though the things that got him locked up was because he wanted what was best for me and my sisters. I can’t continue to let him break my heart. Something has to change. I love my father unconditionally, but eventually you get tired. Tired of the broken promises, tired of someone coming into and leaving your life, tired of the heartaches, tired of wishing he was there. Many occasions he should have been there for us, but his bad decisions hold him back from doing so. For example, he missed my sixteenth birthday, 8th grade graduation, the birth of my nieces, family member funerals, etc. We need a little love, some fatherly advice. We need to know that we’ll always have him in our corner no matter the situation. We should be able to go to him, sit and talk to him about anything. But that’s not the case. I feel lonely. Some things a woman can’t tell us, it’ll be better coming from a man, but I feel as if I don’t have a male I can talk to about anything. Some things are personal, and with him being in jail I never know who’s listening. Whenever I get some free time I always think about my father, even though I know everything he did was for the better of his family I wish things could’ve went completely different so that he could be with us today.