You know, ain’t like I’m still five years old, you know? Ain’t like I’m gonna be sitting up every night asking my mom “When’s daddy coming home?”, you know! Who needs him? Hey, he wasn’t there to teach me how to shoot my first basket, but I learned it, didn’t I? And I got pretty damn good at it, too, didn’t I, Uncle Phil?

Will Smith, Fresh Prince of Bel-Air

My dad taught me how to crack whole crabs on dark summer nights. He’d tell me the faster I cracked the backs of the Old Bay-crusted crab, the easier it would be to get to the meat, dip it in the drawn butter, and devour it. I remember one time, he bought whole live crabs and cursed in pain, and likely a bit of shame, as he tried to close the lid of the boiling pot while the crabs nipped his fingers and forearms. I sat there as a preschool little girl, equally amazed and dismayed. Before my eyes, I witnessed the circle of life that would become tonight’s dinner with no preparation or condolences. 

There was one time my dad took me to his hometown of Gastonia, North Carolina. I may have been seven years old at the time. My paternal grandmother had prepared a big southern Thanksgiving feast bringing family members and friends from near and far to a large wooden table where we all took our seats in mismatched chairs. I remember hands quickly grabbing bowls, plates, and platters overflowing with food I’d never seen before. After all of the food had been passed, I sat there with just a slice of cornbread and cranberry sauce on my plate. My aunt noticed my confusion and hunger, and it must have clicked to her that her Maryland-raised niece was not as familiar with these customary southern dishes. I remember her whispering in my ear and saying something was pig feet, something else was cow tongue, another thing was turkey neck, and another dish was chitterlings. She convinced me to try at least one dish so when I returned home, I could tell my mom which was my favorite. I knew I didn’t want anyone’s feet, neck, or tongue, so when she pointed to those dishes, I politely shouted, “No, ma’am,” so she could clearly hear me over the now rumbustious dinner table. No one explained what chitterlings were, and I didn’t ask as I considered my other options, so when she pointed to that pot, I smiled and nodded, “Yes, please.” She added some hot sauce, and BAM, my life changed. 

I got on the phone that night and told my mom all about my feast. When I said, “I tried this new thing called chitterlings,” the line was silent for so long that I thought she’d hung up…. Then I heard her familiar laugh on the other end when she said, “That man got you eating pig intestines.” The joke was clearly on me. 

I was two years old when my parents divorced. I have no memory of my parents being together. When I think of my childhood, it’s mainly memories of my mom and me and a few quick snapshots with my dad. My dad was a towering and charismatic architect. He stood 6 foot 10, and while he played basketball as a pastime, he was often assumed to be an NBA player, an assumption he never corrected. He “never met a stranger,” which is a polite Southern way of saying he could talk to anyone, and he was brilliant, constantly weaving hot topics from sports to politics to science together in his everyday conversations, leaving many in awe of his sound perspectives and cultural consciousness. He also likely suffered from an undiagnosed mental illness that may have contributed to a stubborn addiction, leaving him to live a pretty isolated and painful life. 

Typically, when I reflect on my dad and our complicated relationship, I recall the hurtful memories—the promises he didn’t keep, the arguments where we’d both say something that hit below the belt, or the tearful reminder that he missed most of my childhood. But as I head into my first Father’s Day without him, it’s remarkable that I’m now more conscious of the greatest life lessons he taught me. 

Like how he’d constantly remind me not to hunch my back or bow my head during my early teenage years when I became more self-conscious about my height. I was nearly 6 feet tall in the 5th grade. I was towering over my peers, and I began to hunch my back and lower my head to appear shorter. He’d pull me aside and say, “When you bow your head, you tilt your crown. Your height is your superpower. People will always remember the tall, beautiful Black girl in the room.” Ever since that conversation, I’ve held my head a bit higher. 

In front of my great aunt’s apartment complex on East Capital Street in NE Washington DC, my dad taught me how to ride a two-wheeler bike. I’d already scraped each limb, and tears obscured my vision as he forced me to go around the block again until I got it right. I told him I didn’t want to ride a bike anymore and was done trying to get it right. He lowered his tall frame, looked me square in the eyes, and told me that I wasn’t a quitter, so we went around the block again until I was peddling on my own. 

It wasn’t until I was called to take care of my dad during the last few weeks of his life that I realized how much I never considered the perils of his humanity. A Black man dangerously measured against the same stick that whipped him and his ancestors to build and believe in the American dream. A Black man who was proud to be the first in his family to graduate college and pursue a promising career as an engineer in the 80s, a dream he never imagined would be intercepted by the rise of the crack epidemic. My dad violently suffered for being too brilliant, too Black, and too human in a world that doesn’t tolerate imperfection. 

I spent so much of my childhood fantasizing about how much better my life would be if my dad were more present that I neglected to value the gift of his presence when I had it. It wasn’t until his death that I realized his imperfection was his greatest lesson. His life reminds me that our lives aren’t always entirely congruent and that even in fatherhood, some of us can point to Lou Smith rather than Uncle Phil as our household example. 

As I celebrate my first Father’s Day without my dad, I toast to the Black dads who have a scratched scorecard—the Black dads who have left a trail of disappointment and maybe even despair as you disguise your own pain. Your presence and your absence are our greatest lessons in forgiveness and humility. I’m sorry for not recognizing that when it mattered most.