News
My Father?s Daughter by Dawn Gale Prince
Published: Jun 20, 2004 - 06:12 PM
It is a single memory. He, with 60?s afro, a slighter version of himself?walks with sure steps. He is holding skinny, three-year-old dangling legs with those long beautiful hands. She sits upon his shoulders, pigtails flopping in the wind with his every step along the sea wall. She has those big wooly braids just like his mother?the grandmother she doesn?t remember meeting. They walk in comfortable, familiar silence?without the need for words. It is their morning constitution?these quiet walks along the Atlantic Ocean.
This is the single most precious memory that I have of my father and me. The older I get, I am not sure if the memory is real, but I am afraid to ask lest I shatter the belief that we shared those morning walks. I write about the memory as if to protect it from my fading memory. Isn?t it funny how the mind can create what we want to believe? I want to believe this because it is the only picture that I have of us in my head. I want to believe that we shared something more tangible than personality traits.
He is older now, beaten by life and cardboard dreams blown over in the wind. He is tired and worn out from the weight of sickness?eyes tired with dreams unfilled. Sometimes, I think I see glimpses of regret in those deeper than the ocean light gray eyes. I still see those solid hands when they used to be beautiful?when they used to hold onto my legs ever so securely; when he used to carve with those sure solid hands?carving out storyboards of the life in his head. He would carve African kings and queens out of ordinary pieces of wood. He made his people majestic. Those hands?when they were capable, they could create magic.
Time and sickness have stolen those hands and threaten to erase this single memory of me and my father seeking solitude. But for all of their effort, they cannot erase the fact that I am more like my father than I care to admit. They cannot erase the uncanny likeness of our beings. There is no mistaking the Dizzy Gillespie cheeks. There is no mistaking where I get my love of the ocean and long solitary walks. There is no mistaking where I get the creative energy that threatens to burst from me at times. There is no mistaking that despite all of our differences over the years?I am my father?s daughter.
Copyright ? 2004 Dawn Gale Prince
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Dawn Gale Prince is a freelance writer who is pleased to share her personal voice and simple truth. Articles maybe reprinted with the author?s permission. She may be reached at gurlnts@netscape.net. Please visit dawnprince.com for more of her writing.
He is older now, beaten by life and cardboard dreams blown over in the wind. He is tired and worn out from the weight of sickness?eyes tired with dreams unfilled. Sometimes, I think I see glimpses of regret in those deeper than the ocean light gray eyes. I still see those solid hands when they used to be beautiful?when they used to hold onto my legs ever so securely; when he used to carve with those sure solid hands?carving out storyboards of the life in his head. He would carve African kings and queens out of ordinary pieces of wood. He made his people majestic. Those hands?when they were capable, they could create magic.
Time and sickness have stolen those hands and threaten to erase this single memory of me and my father seeking solitude. But for all of their effort, they cannot erase the fact that I am more like my father than I care to admit. They cannot erase the uncanny likeness of our beings. There is no mistaking the Dizzy Gillespie cheeks. There is no mistaking where I get my love of the ocean and long solitary walks. There is no mistaking where I get the creative energy that threatens to burst from me at times. There is no mistaking that despite all of our differences over the years?I am my father?s daughter.
Copyright ? 2004 Dawn Gale Prince
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Dawn Gale Prince is a freelance writer who is pleased to share her personal voice and simple truth. Articles maybe reprinted with the author?s permission. She may be reached at gurlnts@netscape.net. Please visit dawnprince.com for more of her writing.