WHAT IF I KNEW MY DAD?

I never knew my dad, but if I had this would be my story:

Dad was one of those rolling stones. He left my mother for another woman when I was two years old. My grandmother took us into her home to live. If not for her, we would have been living on the street and starving. Often, over the next twelve years, my father would unexpectedly show up at my grandmother’s door while she was at work. My mother, Lilly, would let me sit and visit with Dad on the front porch, but he must be gone before Grandmother returned, because she hated the tall handsome Sam. He had a smile that would captivate any woman’s heart and her money for whiskey and gambling. When she had nothing more to give, Sam would move on to the next gullible woman, who believed that she was his one and only love. My mother was one of those women.

Throughout the twelve years that I sporadically saw my father, I never remembered him giving my mother one dime to help with my support. But every time Dad did visit, he would always give me a silver dollar. He would say: “Mary Louise, I know I haven’t been in your life as I should, but just you wait, someday soon I’m going to be a good father to you, marry your mama and settle down. In the meantime, here’s another silver dollar,” placing the shinney coin in my hand. “Don’t you spend it either! How many do you have, now?”

“Five. I keep them in my pencil box hidden away under my mattress.”

“That’s a good girl. I got to be going before your grandmother catches me. I don’t want to tangle with Willie Mae.”

“When will you be back?”

“Soon. Promise that you will not spend those silver dollars.”

“I promise, daddy.”

“Now go on in the house. I love you, Mary Louise.”

This time was the saddest and the first time I called him daddy and the first time my father said that he loved me. As the years passed, I looked forward to that knock at the door, which I would hurry and opened but he wasn’t there. I had finally given up hope of seeing him again when a man knocked at my grandmother’s door. I wish it had been me or my mother who answered, but it was my grandmother.

“Sam! What are you doing here?”

“I just stopped by to say hello to my daughter.”

“Your daughter? You mean Mary Louise”

“Yes. Mary Louise!”

“No, you cannot.” Grandmother said.

“Willie Mae, can I have just a few minutes to say hello,” He begged.

“Sam, get the hell from my door and out of my yard!”

“Will you give her this?” Sam asked

“What is it?”

“It’s a silver dollar.”

“Grandmother slapped the silver coin from Sam’s hand. It fell and rolled onto the ground.

“A silver Dollar is that all you have to offer?!”

My father turned and walked away. He was not the same man that I last remembered. He looked much older, very skinny, and sickly. and he could barely keep his balance as he walked to his car. When he left, I found the silver dollar laying on the grown. It was the last silver dollar that I would receive from my dad and the last time that I would see him again. In later years, I was able to trace my father’s where about to Dallas, Texas, where he lived with a sister until he died of cancer.

Because of my father, my mother, grandmother, and I have lived a very good life. A new home, I am a college graduate, my mother travels to places she thought would never see, and my grandmother got her own cottage and the flower garden that she always wanted. All this and more because of the gift that my dad gave to me. Six extremely rare silver dollars.

HAPPY FATHERS DAY.