cers approached our car. My fear was for him. I looked over at my father, this black man whose skin runs deeper than mine, whose features give him away in the light and dark. There’s no escape for someone like him. The officers were kind, but even through the calm conversation, I worried that one action would trigger a series of events that would lead to me losing my father. I hugged him that night and hid my tears in the crease of his shirt. How could my mother love this man who wasn’t always around? This man who could disappear if the storm in Jamaica went on for too long, and he needed to escape for the sun in America? This man who was a player, who boasted about the three other women he was seeing when he met my mother, and the seven different baby mommas he had? How could I love him? When I was on the brink of possibly losing him, I finally understood how love works. So now when my father’s face twists into sadness, and I worry for him, I know it’s love. When I haven’t seen him for weeks on end, and I walk inside ready to hear the corny joke I know is coming, I know it’s love. When we argue and I become angry to the point where I say something I don’t mean, and I’m too stubborn to take it back but still I feel like shit inside, I know it’s love. Finally, we found a house. It wasn’t perfect but upon walking in, we saw a home. My room would be there, the bed there, the lamp there, bookcase, picture frames, shoeboxes. Everything had a place. For just a moment, we felt like we could breathe. My father invited our pastor and other church members to bless the house. They gathered in the living room, arms linked, and prayed in a way I’d never seen before. My parents cried. They took the olive oil my pastor blessed and scattered it across each corner of the house, and each dipped their fingers in the oil and made a cross on my family’s forehead.
“And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house; and it fell not: for it was founded upon a rock.” Matthew 7: 25
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