My father was a magician. He conjured up fairy tale fantasy for his little girl, with paper mâché wishing wells and swing sets in the back yard for a birthday surprise. He made the pain disappear when my street-skating adventure ended with me head over heels and crying. His own frantic reaction made me more concerned for him than for my broken wrist.
He died more than 30 years ago, but the vivid hero of my imagination never went away. Maybe it’s because my son, who never got to meet him is so much like him, so I have to keep repeating the story. Maybe it’s push back against the myth of the absent black father – a story line even our president repeats in his forays into family politics despite numbers that tell a different story. Or maybe it’s because I miss him so much.
