EXCERPT
Letter #1
Dear Son
By the time you read this, you’ll be twenty-one and I’ll be dead. And as I see you in my minds eye opening the envelope and looking at the metallic blue ribbon on the accompanying gift, I can only imagine what you’re thinking. ‘No one made him pull the trigger.’ That’s why I wanted you to read this as an adult. So reason could temper your emotions and pain would not overshadow your smile.
I once heard an old woman say, ‘Black people love their children with an abnormal fixation that's hard to explain.’ Since she was wearing a MAGA hat, there was a racist, undertone to her words. But everything changed the morning I touched your mother’s belly for the first time. I felt life radiate from within her, travel up my arm and embed itself in my heart. When I looked in her eyes, I saw you—the life I may never meet. The purpose to which I’d never surrender. The cause of my abnormal fixation.
There’s so much I wish I could have shared with you in life. There are countless things I want to teach you because you will make mistakes. But my son, remember in life, what you look for you will always see. What you see will determine your perspective and eventually your perspective on anything—will become your reality. If only I’d known this three months ago.
As I lay here today, I’m saddened. Sad because I will not be able to walk you to the bus stop on your first day of school. I will never change your stinky diaper or look at you in the mirror while I’m shaving and see the usta-be-me smiling back. It saddens me that you will grow up—as I did, being fatherless. So, to the extinct to which I am responsible for this, I apologize.
Now, to the gift.
If you’ve not opened it (and something tells me you have), it’s a porcelain chess piece. I carried it with me every day of my life. The reason I chose the king is because the entire game is centered around him. So carrying it was my reminder of how God saw me. It should have also reminded me of how I should have treated your mom. Like that crowned gameboard piece, I can only strategically move one step at a time—yet God sacrificed it all so I might live. I wish I’d taken my relationship with Peaches one step at a time—one day at a time—one emotion at a time. Nevertheless, I invite you to always carry The King (and now I mean God) with you.
When it comes to your mom—I’ll tell you something I’ve yet to tell her. The divorce was my fault. I never took the time to understand her to the core. I once owned a very nice BMW. A year after I bought it, I noticed a little button on the dash I'd never seen before. It was there. I’d seen it a million times, but never slowed down enough to “see” it. There was so many things about your mother I failed to recognize even though I’d seen them a million times before. It took divorce papers and a bullet to understand the woman I married.
As I close my son, nothing compares to the idea of holding you in my arms. Nothing can equate in my heart to how it would feel to teach you how to ride a bike, study the Word or shave. You’re the mirror that will project a part of me into the future and even if I am not there to direct that light—I'm at peace as I know it would be the will of God. So for now, I’ll end this letter in hopes that I will be able to write many more. But even if I’m not; just know you’re loved.
Your Dad,
Rev. Dr. Lorenzo Hosea Richardson
P.S. Someone once said if you love something, set it free. If it comes back to you it’s yours forever. If not—it never was. Son, somebody lied. If you love something, hold on to it. Be honest with it. Fight for it. Take care and value it; and never give it reason to want to walk away. And lastly, remember with all your heart, it’s the words, between “I do,” and “until death do us part,” that kill us.
LHR
