The Hands of the Father
My Journey from Sonhood to Fatherhood
I remember when I was young, there was an evening when I had observed my fathers hands after a long day of work, noticing their callouses, the grease between the grooves of his fingertips, and their overall hardness. He installed vending machines for a living, and worked on cars at a cousin’s garage for extra money. At that time, I had idolized the man, like any young son might. When I looked at my own hands, they were soft, pure, and untainted by the world; a world I didn’t yet know of, and therefore, couldn’t really predict or foresee. But somehow, I felt that my father’s hands were ‘perfect.’ And I remember my mind describing them as that word specifically.
Today, my 2-year-old son asked me to help him to turn on a portable fan — the kind that spritzes water to cool you, and that you’d bring on a long car ride. I put the batteries in, and turned it on for him. I couldn’t resist touching the fan so that my fingers would stop it. He tried doing the same, but because his palms were soft and pure, it hurt him. In that moment, I was reminded of my childhood sentiment toward my own father, who, although not fathering me biologically, raised me as his own from the ages of 3–18.
As I look at my hands today, I marvel at the stories they have told. They have learned so much since that fateful moment of innocence questioned. I can still remember being three years old and playing the Sega Genesis. I had to learn to use each of my fingers and my thumbs, both individually and as a unit, in order to control Sonic the Hedgehog, Ecco the Dolphin, Tara the Orca and Ryu. I had to learn how to tie my shoes in the same way, and to make a fist (heeding Dad’s warning not to put my thumb inside, so that it wouldn’t break!)
I remember when he taught me how to fish. We’d spend time out on Lake Ontario with cousins, and I’d be mesmerized by the design of the waves. Sensitivity was the main component needed when detecting a fish on the line, and patience, the prerequisite. When one would finally bite, I’d need my hands to work together to pull the pole when I wasn’t reeling it, and reel it when I wasn’t pulling it. How genius it is for these appendages, which are capable of molding worlds (truly!) to do all that they do!
This brings to my psyche an unreleased song by the great Michael Jackson called ‘Seeing Voices.’ It features the Ray Charles Choir, and is available to listen to on YouTube, via Sven Nelson’s channel. The lyrics state:
“So when you see hands,
Weaving the space between friends
Think of them as being
As though you are seeing voices.”
Listen here.
For those who are inclined to the study of astrology, I’d like to note that MJ was known as the King of Pop (‘Pop’ known colloquially and especially throughout Black American culture as a nickname for ‘Papa’), and he also had Saturn (representing fatherhood) conjunct his MC (representing public persona) with a difference of only 24’. So, it’s very enlightening to know how precious a role that being a father had played for him in his life. I do my best to emulate his outlook. His innocence.
The hands are an extension of the throat chakra, stemming as branches from the neck and trunk/torso. Hands have much to say, and they are one of, if not the most intimate parts of our bodies. It is very human to hold hands, and in various languages, the word for ‘hand’ has to do with ‘man’ (‘main’ in French, ‘mano’ in Spanish). If our arms are trees, then the gifts we exchange with our hands in the forms of our crafts can be seen as leaves, which, in autumn, had to leave us in serenity and get to know us in memory through the soil they fortify and enrich for the next spring. Their death leads to new life; the renewal of buds, which will blossom and balloon to far-off lands, meeting others and creating lives that have never before been lived.
It has been said that a firm hand is essential for fatherhood. I agree with this sentiment, but that firmness is not for striking, but for support. The hand, arm, elbow, shoulder, back, legs, and feet (because each part is needed equitably) are firm in order to catch the seeds and saplings when they fall (and they will) to the trickery of the world. These hands are to hold them and remind them that they are loved. By both us, and the Earth. And eternally, by the One who developed and birthed the Earth.
My hands have told me many stories, and I look forward to the ones that they will tell my contemporaries on this planet. Upon each of my pinkies, I have moles. On my left one, it is below and to the left of my fingernail. I’ve had that one as long as I can remember, and it helped me to differentiate left and right as a child. On my right hand, the beauty mark is a bit more pronounced, and less faded than the left. It bespeckles the inside part of my pinky, where it presses against my ring finger, and is located just above the second knuckle. I haven’t had this one forever. One morning, it just appeared.
The pinky in esotericism symbolizes the water element, to which I and my ancestors, my present family, and all my descendants hold a very close connection. I remember going to Cape Cod as a youngster and touching Plymouth Rock, not knowing of the significance of that moment. For a mixed child, a descendant of African, Caribbean (Taino), German, and Ukraine peoples, to have touched a stone that marked the beginning of worlds colliding… the event of my contact was humbly powerful indeed (as children so naturally are). On that same journey, my family and I went whale-watching, and I spoke to a humpback (‘HIIIII WHAAALE!’)! The whale spoke back with a beautiful song, then their pod approached our boat and spouted mist from their blowholes. It was a magical moment that I’ll remember forever. And something that I don’t want to go understated or underappreciated, was the wonder that my childlike bravery in that moment had brought to my fathers eyes. There’s a teacher-student relationship that children and their parents share, respectively. One day, I will bring my children to see the whales too, for they deserve to meet their ancestors just as well. And I will learn from them, in humble devotion.
I wouldn’t be the first to speak on the ambiguity of the Atlantic Ocean for Black Americans, and I surely won’t be the last. I do find it interesting that this body of water was not always present on the surface of the Earth. When the land lay as one in Pangaea, the Atlantic Ocean didn’t exist. Africa and South America fit together like some primordial pair of earthly parents, and it was their separation that led to the formation of the great Atlantic. On the other side of the original supercontinent, laid the great Pacific; the original sea. Could it be that the earth-shaking formation of the Atlantic not only led to the vast speciation that we see in animal life now, but also to a timeline in which the waters only ever separated in order to reconnect, reconvene, and reunite? Maybe the same is for us as humans.
I met my biological father in person for the first time since toddler-hood at a place called ‘The Frog Pond’ in Rochester, NY (my hometown). It went well, for the most part. As we walked down the sidewalk side-by-side, he even walked on the side closest to the street, as if I were still a child, and he was acting as a barrier to protect me from the oncoming cars. I wish I could have told him how I really felt.
But even then, as a 21-year-old, with a frontal lobe that hadn’t yet been fully developed, I did not know. Feeling was something that I was conditioned not to do. So I never grieved for his abandonment. I was expected to dumb down, and not ask any questions about it. To my mother and my father (who raised me), it was an inconvenient and uncomfortable truth that they were willing to let fester for the sake of their status quo. But that lie meant that my inner child would miss out on who he truly was. For that, no act of kindness can ever repay.
He appeared as a sweet person, kind and gentle. We had a lot in common, and my mom (God rest her soul) would always tell me that I reminded her of him. It was such a weird thing to hear… the man who planted the seed of light needed to build my body in the womb, and had left little infant me, in order to pursue music… I… reminded her… of him. It always made me feel as though I had to prove my identity, my own uniqueness, to her (as if I hadn’t felt that already!). I wasn’t aware of a lot that happened between him and my mother. But she told my sister that he wasn’t there for my birth. My sister told me, and I do believe my mom. Because she was there. She had to be.
I had to be there for my son’s birth, too. It was one of the most epic moments of my life. Truly. He came out the womb reaching his hand, then looked right over at me, as if to communicate, “Yup! That’s my Dad! I’m in the right body. God sent me to the perfect place. Hallelujah!” I’ll never forget it. He was beautiful and perfect, as he is now, and always will be. I’m grateful to be able to see both myself, and my family with God’s Loving Eyes.
My wife, being a birthworker, has told me that birth is the single most miraculous goal of life. This means that anything that happens after birth can be ultimately dealt with, and no matter how great, can’t really be overshadowed by the miracle of sex, conception, gestation, and birth. Not to mention, the reincarnation cycle. I agree with this, and I know that God does too. It’s a beautiful way to look at oneself, and to practice honest mercy. It made me value myself so much more than I did before.
And, I think that the root of me not valuing myself (and this isn’t coming from a place of blame… or ‘right vs. wrong… but rather ’cause and effect’) was my father’s abandonment and the subsequent lies that were told to me by my mother and adopted father. I still feel pangs of my inner baby’s unfelt grief when my son cries for me when I’m going quickly to the store. And, teaching my children where they come from is number one on my list of duties. They KNOW, in their bones, the heavenly paradise on Earth that they are headed for.
I wasn’t physically there for my daughter’s birth, but it was because I’d had yet to meet her. You see, it wasn’t my DNA from which her body had been built, but that of another man’s. Similarly to how my father (who raised me) had raised me, though having not created my form, I am also raising my daughter. On her first birthday, I flew out to meet my future family. On that first meeting, she called me ‘Dada.’
There’s an emotion that men feel when they smile with such intense joy that their eyes glass over, and they can’t do anything but gawk like idiots at the one who makes them feel that way. This was how I felt on those two fatefully life-changing days. Although my daughter’s body may not have been built with my own DNA, her soul and mine are one, just as is mine and my son’s. I met her before she was born, just as I did my son.
There’s something really powerful to be gleaned from the ongoing story of Black fathers and their children. Our ancestors were often separated from their families, so to even be able to be where I am now, with my wife and kids, and in secure and stable housing (a story for another article) is a blessing that I don’t and won’t take for granted.
Eventually, I had an intense outburst of anger at my biological father, pushing him away fiercely and letting him know that I never wanted to speak to him again. The straw that broke the camel’s back, was the fact that, when I’d asked him for money to pay some bills, he refused me, and blamed our reconnection on my mother, my mother’s mother, and his own mother.
I was furious. Sekhmet’s rage erupted from my fanged mouth, and his voice trembled in its wake. For this, I give myself that same Godly and honest mercy. I’m not ashamed of my anger, nor am I at the resistance I had to my anger. I have learned since then to feel my pain, and to let my anger go. This doesn’t mean that the outburst was unwarranted (God sees and ordains every sparrow that falls), but I can, will, and am doing better with the people I love now.
I didn’t know what it meant to be a man. The role models I’d had in my adolescent life, meant to show me how, had different definitions for the word, and I had to carve my own meaning. To me, it means to be open. To be sensitive. To live a fulfilling life, and to love others in a way that eliminates any doubt that you love them from their hearts.
When my biological father ended up messaging my mother after the ordeal, and telling her that I wanted his money for drugs, I knew that he never did love me, and never could. At least, not in a way that was congruent to the reality of what God truly is.
Now and forevermore, I walk alongside my wife, and we hold the hands of our son and daughter, showing them that “work” can be as simple as presence and emotional accountability. We believe in a blameless solution. In order to retrieve that, our own blamelessness has to be just as much a part of the equation. I don’t blame my children for screaming at me.
Emotions are difficult to process in general, and especially at such a young age, and in such a changing world. I admire their courage for coming to Earth now, as the purity incarnates that they are, and at a time like this! As we succeed (because we know we will), they will be much better off than we ever were. And their children too. And theirs. And theirs. And theirs.
