Click above to hear "Daniel"
I would have never written this had it not been for someone I met, quite by accident, or perhaps fate. While looking through a website from someone who had very graciously signed my guestbbook, I noticed a link. It was from a site that had a picture of a young woman with a young boy. And the text was about the boy Tyrone being kidnapped by his father. I just sat there staring at the woman's face, and I saw my own and my son. This is for you Ali, to show you not to give up hope, not to lose courage, not to fear. There is a large ray of hope, and I share it with you now.
October 3rd, 1973
I was at a restaurant having a drink after work with friends around 7 PM. The door opened and my father walked in. This was very unusual, as one my father didn't drink, and two he never would have just shown up there unless something was terribly wrong. I looked at my Dad as he walked toward me and I felt sick to my stomach. I knew something was horribly wrong. He looked as if each step he took was sucking the very life from him; he looked as if he had aged 20 years since I had seen him that morning. He came over to the table and without so much as a hello to my friends or me (was very unusual, as my father was a very polite man) he said the words that will haunt me forever. "Have you seen Steve(my ex-husband who was living in Pa.)and Michael(my 3 year and 3 month old son) today?" My gut just emptied, I knew, I knew, I knew, I would never see my son again. I said "No, I had no idea he was in this part of the country!" My Dad shrunk before my eyes and would never stand as tall or straight again until the day he died. "He has Mike" my Dad said and just turned and walked out the door. I jumped up and followed him outside, he was leaned against his old truck and he was white as a sheet. I said, "Daddy, what do you mean he has Mike?" and my Father got into his truck and slowly drove away, back towards home and the empty little red rocker that sat there alone.
August 1969
Peru, Indiana
I had traveled from Leesville, LA. to Peru, Indiana with my brother Lawrence to visit with he and his wife over summer vacation. I was 17 and had hardly ever been out of the parish much less the state of Louisiana. I felt free, free, free! and let my brother and sister-in-law know that I was there to kick up my heels and have some fun. My brother understood this as he knew that Mama and Daddy were kind of strict on me. I was the youngest of seven children and I was far away from home, and it was 1969 and I was free. The first night there my sister-in-law put makeup on me, and loaned me one of her black dresses and put my long red hair up in a French twist. I had to admit when I surveyed myself in the mirror that I didn't look 17. We went out to the Air Force base where my brother was stationed, and went into the NCO club. Now you have to picture this small town hick, country girl, in the bright lights of a bar. I love music and always have, loved to dance, and I was primed for fun. I had only been there about half an hour when I looked across the room to a table of young airmen. I scanned the group quickly and then I saw him, the man who would someday tear my heart into the jagged pieces with one act of youthful selfishness. His name was Steve, and he was an Air Force MAN! I saw him looking at me and I knew that my 17 years were deceiving him. Long story short, I married Steve in September 1969 after knowing him all of about three weeks. To this day I can not believe my parents let me quit school, marry him and move to Indiana in three short weeks. By Christmas of 1969 I was pregnant with his child. I already knew that this was not going to work. I was sick, scared, homesick, and miserable. I talked him into taking me home for Christmas, so I could see my family. I never went back. He finally divorced me in early 1970 and went on with his life.
July 2nd, 1970 3:37 PM
Leesville, Louisiana
I was in labor and my Mom kept saying "It's ok, if you need to scream, no one will laugh at you." I had no earthly idea what she meant. I am one of those women most women hate. I am like an old cow, lay down have the baby and back to work by five. Well, not to work, but out in the hall, looking through this little window at the strangest sight I had ever seen. There he was all 7 lbs. And 6 oz. of him. I looked at him, and thought, "What am I doing? How will I ever be able to take care of him?" He was so tiny and helpless looking. And then as all mothers's know, he did the unpardonable, he looked at me, and I was gone. I fell so head over heels in love at that moment I was dizzy.
I was not the only one who fell in love that day, my Dad, who had always been Mr. SILENT and though he loved us, had a hard time showing it. He fell hook, line, and sinker. He was my Daddy's pride and joy. My Father named him John Michael. John after our family Doctor that delivered him and Michael after the baby that he and Mama had lost when I was a year old.
After that, it was the TWO of them, if you saw Daddy, you saw Mike, if you saw Mike, you saw Daddy. They watched TV together, they fished, they painted fences, and you name it. It was SANFORD AND SON(because of Daddy's old beat up pickup that's what me and Mama nick named them).
Steve chose not to be a part of Michael's life and that was fine by me, he had remarried and was living in PA somewhere. Never talked to him, never saw him but once when Mike was about 5 months old.
October 3rd, 1973
I couldn't breathe, I couldn't think, I was lost. I felt guilty, sick, scared, angry, hurt. Had always showed Mike his Father's picture and told him who he was. It sat on the TV. And he would tell you it was Daddy Steve, as he called my Dad "DADA", as that was all he knew.
I felt betrayed, and used. I wanted to be alone, I wanted to kill Steve, and I wanted to hug my Daddy. But, he had already shut down and I don't think he ever opened up again. The world was over. I was useless, I cried only in the dark of my room. I played Daniel by Elton John over and over and over. It was a song that Mike made me play every night before he went to sleep. So, I did the only thing I knew to do, I shut down too. And it would be a long time before I opened my heart again. There was a piece of me missing, and I could not find it. It was gone, driven off in a cloud of dust, without a goodbye, or a wave of a pudgy little hand that I had held so often.
July 2nd, 1986
Atlanta, GA
I paced the house looking at the clock, nervous beyond belief. I couldn't believe it, in just a short few hours I would see him. 13 years and God, how did I look, was this the wrong dress, was I too dressed up, not enough? I smoked one cigarette after another. I combed and combed my hair a dozen times. I made sure; my youngest son Paul was dressed and ready. My husband (God Bless him) Jason, kept saying, "It will be fine, just be yourself." I couldn't tell him I had no idea what my self was any more.
I had loved him, and missed him, and worried, and cried, and hated those and myself around me for so long. I hated Steve and Debby with such a passion. I was so full of hate and bitterness. And now he was coming, on his 16th birthday. What would he look like, what would I say what if he hated me??????? I was a wreck.
TO PAGE 2 OF A MOTHER'S NIGHTMARE
