DADDY'S SMART STRONG PRETTY GIRL

 

   10:56 AM. Saturday morning. January 31, 2009. I witnessed you fight for your place in this world. The doctors and nurses were in a professional panic trying to free the umbilical cord from around your neck so that you could breathe your first breathes. I watched as a doctor pulled you out of your mother's womb, severing the cord that for 9 months was giving you life but as you attempted to exit through the birth canal was attempting to rob you of it. I saw a nurse rush you over to a nearby table and then suddenly you were surrounded. My heart dropped a little because there was only the deafening audio of quiet whispers as they attended to you. Then that's when I heard the sound of a miracle. I listened attentively as your voice filled the delivery room with cries of life, the cries of a victorious fighter. I breathed a thank you prayer to the Lord. I thanked him for bringing you to us while simultaneously keeping your mother safe through the process.

    I huddled behind the nurses as they cleaned your tiny wriggly body. I witnessed them gently wrap you in blankets and cover your head with a white and pink hat. I took so many pictures and videos of you during the first 10 minutes of your life one would have thought I was the paparazzi and you were a world wide celebrity. But to those that didn't know this was the moment I had dreamed of for years. So yes I did feel like that fan who had finally had been awarded the opportunity to meet his favorite star. I was basking in the light of your glory. Since May of 2008 I had felt your kicks. I had seen your sonograms. I had heard your heart beats. But nothing compared to the moment when I first held you in my arms and cradled you against my chest. I walked you over to your mother who was out of it (thanks to the medications administered for your emergency surgery) yet even in a haze she smiled, kissed you softly and held you because she too was living out a dream. Our baby girl was finally here! It has been 5 years since that day and your celebrity status to us has never been higher. We are amazed and entertained daily by the charisma you have and share with us.

   It is as if the good Lord took everything, the good and bad that we both have, and all of the traits that your siblings who came before would have possessed and combined them to create you, a super version of an awesome child, a child that we are privileged to call our daughter. Your increasing intelligence and beauty is remarkable and it is only out shined by the pure goodness of your heart. Your life journey is exciting to witness because of all you have already accomplished in the short time that you have been with us.  To watch you growing up so grandly is such a blessing that we do not any moment we spend with you for granted. We are encouraged by your daily progress and we patiently wait to see what other marvels you will share with us in time. I just ask Haven that as you continue to grow up that you remain humble and good spirited. Don't let the world hide or take away that divine spark you wear on your face every day...your smile. Please know that no matter how far you go or how old you get, it does not matter what happens in your life...we will always be here for you. And even if you marry or have kids of your own you will always be able to count on another fact....YOU WILL ALWAYS BE YOUR DADDY'S SMART STRONG PRETTY GIRL. So today I am screaming loudly to anyone that dares to listen...

BLESSED 5TH BIRTHDAY HAVEN NICOLE!!!
 

                        
MOMMY AND DADDY LOVE YOU DEARLY!!!


"Those that have greatness in them also possess the power...to bring out the greatness...in those around them." - TWIL

YOU GAVE YOUR LOVE...SO I GAVE MY HEART

   I don't like to use the words HATE and BITCH...but maaan after 15 years of being with her I can honestly say with all my heart...I HATE THAT BITCH!!! Now I know you're saying geez that's a little harsh aint it?! And to those that don't know the story and back history yes it may seem harsh but it is true. I hate that bitch and that bitch hate me, probably more that I hate her. But it wasn't always like this. Actually there was a time when both of us were so deep in love with each other that I never imagined we would ever be able to surface. But time has an uncanny way of revealing the true nature of people and the feelings you have about them. I think it first began with the birth of our son. I started to notice how she treated me more as a personal object to control instead of her partner in marriage and parenthood. By the time our fourth child was born she had mutated into a jealousy filled raging monster the likes of which I had never seen. So eventually her temper and paranoid delusions became so great that I had to devise an escape. So the process of gaining my freedom from her rage began. We fought in and out of the courts for two and a half years. We fought over EVERYTHING from the silverware to the lawn furniture. It was an ugly affair but after the bombs had finished falling and the love we had shared was decimated our marriage was divorced and we were finally separated. I think her anger turned to hate the day the judge asked us about what we planned to do about the custody of our children. See even though she would flip the fuck out on me she was so sweet and gentle to our kids. I never doubted the care they received in her presence.  But during a divorce, shit gets real and you are forced to play hard ball.

  You see because she was such a phenomenal mother they only card I had to play was our career paths. I had so much flexibility when it came to my job. I could leave my office if someone needed to pick the kids up from school or work from home if they were sick and couldn't go. My wife worked in a fast paced environment so taking any time off from her career required planning months in advance. But we lived together so it all worked out but now we were splitting up and what was once a compromise became an advantage. So I told the judge "she is crazy as hell your honor but only towards me. She has always been an excellent mother but because of her job I believe I would be able to maintain the home life the children have grown up with and become accustomed to." He agreed with me and granted us joint custody with the exception that the kids would live with me during the school year. And because I had the kids I was also awarded spousal support. Case closed! Battle won! But unfortunately the war was just beginning and so was the hate that I would eventually harbor for the woman I once loved. So she moved out of our house but leaving the kids was too much for her and she spazed. She attacked me in a rage the night she came to get the last of her belongings. She ended up stabbing me in the arm with a letter opener. I thought I finally had the proof that this chick was bananas. Because every other time she showed her ass she never did it around the kids or other people so when I would complain to folks that she was a classic psycho they never believed me. She was a master at preplanned crazy, a classic manipulator. She knew the kids were at my mother's house that night so she could go full crazy on me without traumatizing the babies or blowing the facade she kept up as a normal person. She told the judge it was just "temporary insanity" because of all that had transpired with the divorce and moving out. Of course her lawyer played the heart broken mother card and the judge bought it. I knew it was bullshit but had to take the L.

   Fast-forward five years into the divorce and our mutual hate has become a beautiful thing but as always we hid it well from the kids. I think that was the best thing about the love we had it carried over so that we were ALWAYS civil for their sake. We never cussed, fought or bad mouthed each other in their presence but maaan hahahahahaha if you could've read our text messages or heard our late night conversations it was like night and day. It was clear and evident that I HATED THAT BITCH and that BITCH HATED ME!!! But it is true that LOVE is more powerful than any emotion including hate. One day my ex-wife asked to come over. As much as I despised her presence I always felt compelled to gave her an audience. Hell she brought our kids into this world and was a great mother so for those two reasons alone I would always be indebted to her. So I welcomed her and gave her my undivided attention. She told me that night she had learned that her heart was giving out on her. She was becoming weaker every day and the doctors told her that she would die within the year if she didn't get a heart transplant. She wanted me to know that she never meant for our life together to end the opposite way it had began. She was basically telling me she was dying and was asking me to forgive her. She wanted to be a complete family again before death took her away. My first thought was BULLSHIT!!! Because she was so talented at playing me I just figured it was another plan to fuck with me. I gave her the textbook "we will see" speech and sent her crying ass on her way. Because this was a new tactic I decided to do my own investigations instead of accepting or dismissing the information she had just presented to me. So I confirmed with her father that what she had told me was the gospel truth. As crazy as it sounds and as much as I couldn't stand her, it broke my heart to know that my ex-wife, the greatest mother my kids will ever know had only months left to live. And after much deep thought and against every fiber in my mind I allowed her to come back home. We were going to be a family again.

   Weeks past without incident and I admit it was an awesome feeling having her back home. One night I came home from work to find the kids had all piled in our bed like they use to do and were watching a movie. My ex-wife was in the center and for the first time in many years I didn't see the vindictive woman that had made a living making my life hell but I saw the woman that I fell in love with. And it was that vision that proved that LOVE can conquer all. The next morning I consulted with my good friend who was a Cardio-surgeon. I asked him to pull some strings to see if he could bump my ex-wife up the list for a transplant. After much work he informed me that there was nothing he could do because hearts were so rare to acquire for transplants. Needless to say I was devastated. I kept thinking about our babies especially our three girls growing up without their mother. I sat and sobbed in his office and in my despair I told him that I wish I could give her my heart. The spoken words rattled deep into my brain. I COULD GIVE HER MY HEART. Love had provided a solution to an unsolvable problem. It was with that declaration that I made the decision to do something that I thought I would never do for someone who I believed I had come to hate. I feverishly made calls and setup secret appointments and felt a joy in my spirit when I was finally told that the surgery could happen. Our children would have their mother and a father would make the greatest sacrifice for the ones he LOVED. In the weeks leading up to the surgery I got all my affairs in order. I updated my will to make sure our kids would be taken care of. I told my close family and friends my plans and said my goodbyes. I spent my last days with the kids having the best and last times together with them. All those that needed to know were informed of my choice except my ex-wife because I felt she would try to talk me out of it. So the morning of the surgery I just hugged her tight told her that despite our problems I have and will always love her. We shared a moment that only lovers could and then I said my goodbyes as if I was leaving for work. I asked my father-in-law to bear the monumental responsibility of informing his daughter that when he took her into the hospital later that day for her heart check-up she would also be the recipient of a healthy heart and that her death would be delayed. My final request was that after she woke up from the surgery to have our kids and family there to surround her bed and to have our baby girl present her a small gift box. A box which contained a gold heart pendant and a note folded inside only for her eyes to read. I made the note simple but with as much truth as I could, it read..."if you ever wonder why I...it is because YOU GAVE YOUR LOVE...SO I GAVE MY HEART."

"Those that have greatness in them also possess the power...to bring out the greatness...in those around them." - TWIL

My DAUGHTER'S RAPE..Was Her FATHER'S FALIURE

   I will admit raising four daughters has always been challenging. We endured through some rough times before their mother lost her battle to breast cancer but after she passed away from us a difficult job seemed to evolve into an impossible task. So as a man, trying to guide four young girls on their life journeys as they grew up into women, I struggled mightily but we all persevered. All four of my baby girls made it to young adult hood without major incident. But the irony of life is that when things finally seem to be going right something unplanned disrupts it making you feel everything has gone wrong. The youngest of our girls was 6 when my wife died so naturally her mother's death affected her more than her older sisters. Seeing this I did my best to give them what they all needed and rightfully deserved, my undivided time and attention. But I admit I failed to provide it constantly. I was either to busy working or just plain too tired from running all four of them here and there to their individual activities. I look back now and realize that was a piss-poor excuse. And now I think maybe if I would have spent a fraction more of my time with them perhaps this tragedy could have been avoided. But as life teaches us some of the worst things we experience reveal themselves to be our greatest lessons. One weekend when I was out of town on a business trip I gave my oldest daughter, who at the time was 22 and had recently completed her college career, and her sisters permission to use our timeshare because it was summer and all the girls were out of school. Now over the years my oldest had proven herself to be quite trustworthy. She had become my savior in a sense because she had willingly and proudly taken on the roll of a second parent. But in many ways she was still a child, and it was this fact that I chose to disregard because I trusted her to care for her sisters.

   It would be that decision that I would later come to question. My oldest daughter at the suggestion of her friends decided a party needed to be had to celebrate their mutual graduation and impeding entry into the real world and used the aptly timed available timeshare as the location to hold the festivities. As one could imagine her younger sisters who were 19, 17 and 15 respectively had no where to go and were thrilled that they could attend an older crowd party without having to sneak in. My oldest, as we all have done at various times, choose this night to use her poorest of judgements decided that being her sister's cooler older sibling was much more important than being their responsible guardian and father's stand-in. Along with the growing number of visitors and loud music, alcohol and weed smoke flowed freely and my underage daughters were allowed to participate in the celebrations. As the story was revealed later to me my 17 year old had gotten so pissy drunk that she was stumbling and falling about and was taken upstairs by my 22 and 19 year-old to sleep it off. But instead of one of them staying with her, locking the bedroom or better yet not allowing her to drink they left her alone, unprotected and unattended and went back to continue the party. Then that's when my 15 year old heard her sister's screams. Two young adults one male one female found my daughter half-passed out and decided it would be "fun" to make a sex tape staring my intoxicated daughter. Thankful my other daughters and guests heard the fight that erupted when my 17 year old became conscience enough to scream during her attempts to fight off her rapists. The whole incident was both fortunately and unfortunately filmed so the culprits were caught and punished but the damage had already been inflicted and my daughter was now a victim. She had experienced something that no person especially a young girl should have to experience in their lifetime...she had been the victim of a rape.

   My oldest daughter was also traumatized because the person's involved were people she called friends. My other two daughters also carried the burden of knowing their poor decisions contributed to their sister's pain. It was a night, that like my daughters, I cannot forget. It changed all of us forever. We all went to counseling because this was a family issue that needed to be addressed, confronted and resolved by the family. In all honesty I was furious with all four of my girls because they all could and should have made better decisions that night. My oldest should have never put her sisters' well being before the desires of her and her friends. And the other three should NEVER had been drinking regardless of what was happening around them. I have had to walk a fine line with all four of them in a way that I don't blame them outright for what happened but also in the same breath try to express to them that their choices that night were a domino cause and effect that resulted in the irreversible moments and memories that we all carry. My wife always stressed to me that every decision that I would make as a father and husband would not only affect me but our family as well. So it seems without a cruel sense of irony she was right. It was my decision to choose other things to give my time to that cost me precious teachable moments with my girls. The guilt I carry is heavy. I often have to remind myself that in time the burden will get lighter but with every year that passes the load doesn't seem to lighten, I guess that's the price I am destined to carry as their father. It has been about eight years since that night and the time has helped heal the hearts and strengthen the minds of all my girls. Their bonds of sisterhood have strengthened beyond anything their mother or I could have ever wished for them. They have all grown up into intelligent beautiful young women and their decisions have put them all in positions to become successful in their own right. But many times late at night when I am home alone looking at family pictures I think about how I wasn't there for them when it would have mattered the most. I shed tears because in my mind...I believe that my daughter's rape...was her father's failure.

"Those that have greatness in them also possess the power...to bring greatness out of those around them." - TWIL