Ten Catches

In the eighth year of my life, my home environment—unexpectedly and without warning—changed forever. Until then, it had been filled with happiness, joy, a faithful belief in God, hope, and promise for a bright future. I had unwittingly taken for granted my loving parents. The steady and predictably routine life of my youth was comfortably certain, and without ever really articulating it, I thought that everyone had a life like mine. That belief was blown off its axis on December 16, 1968. Completely irretrievable. Ironically, or perhaps not, as maybe this is how all tragedies start, the day in question started as routinely as any other I had experienced in my two-thousand-plus days on this earth. As was our daily custom, we had morning prayer as a family, which typically was conducted in our living room or my parent's bedroom. On this day it was held in my parent's bedroom because my dad was not feeling well. My father, a Baptist minister, strongly believed that each day should begin with prayer, and our presence was required whether we liked it or not. In the late 1950s, my parents had migrated from the Deep South to Cleveland, Ohio, in search of better opportunities and a higher quality of life for our family. My mom was from Slidell, Louisiana, and my dad was from Columbia, Mississippi. They set up a home that was rooted in spirituality and an unshakable faith in God's promises. On this day, like any other, I had no forewarning that my faith or those promises would be challenged. After prayer, with the orderly and well-orchestrated use of one bathroom, we all promptly showered and dressed. There were ten of us at home, and the hustle and bustle of everyone maneuvering throughout the house and getting ready to push off to school, in varied directions, was a comforting, chaotic, yet oddly organized madness. My two oldest siblings were away at college: my brother a first-year student at Princeton University and my sister a freshman at San Jose State. As usual, I happily headed off with three of my sisters who dropped me off at my elementary school. My third-grade school day was as uneventful and routine as always, until three o'clock in the afternoon, when I looked up to see our principal at the classroom door. When she asked for me to come into the hallway, my heart started pounding uncontrollably. I did not know the purpose of her visit. She instructed me to go back in the classroom and grab my things because I needed to get home immediately. My teacher told me that my sisters Joyce and Paulette were waiting for me downstairs in the school office to take me home. As I nervously walked to the principal's office clutching my winteer coat and books, I spotted them through the square glass window in the office wall. There was an air of urgency and fear engulfing their faces as they told me Daddy was not doing well—and we needed to get home. I hurriedly put my coat on. As soon as we exited the school doors, we all started running. To this day, I can remember the path we took, the tears streaming down my face, and the sense of impending doom overcoming my body. It seemed like my feet were not touching the ground; my legs were pumping and turning so fast it was as if I was running on air! I just wanted to get home. My mind was racing wildly. We ran the entire two miles without stopping. Once we arrived at the house, we blasted through the front door and ran upstairs to my parent's bedroom, where all my siblings and my mother were congregated. When I had left for school hours earlier, my dad had been lying in bed in his pajama bottoms and a white T-shirt. He was no longer there. In that moment, I felt my life changing. My mom was crying on the side of the empty bed, and all my older sisters were crying around her. My three-year-old sister was staring out the window as she did every day, waiting for my dad's car to pull into the driveway. Little did she know that she would never see his car turn the corner, drive up to our home and pull into our driveway again. My mother told us that she had taken our dad to the Cleveland Clinic emergency room after we left for school because his flu symptoms and overall condition had worsened. He was treated by an emergency room physician and diagnosed with the Hong Kong flu. He was subsequently sent home and told that there was nothing more they could do. His condition did not improve throughout the day. At 2:00 p.m., my dad died in my mom s arms. She called for an ambulance, and he was taken to University Hospitals of Cleveland at Case Western Reserve School of Medicine, where he was pronounced dead. Did my mom just say my father was dead? What does that even mean? I just hugged and kissed him a few hours ago! Overwhelmed, I simply started to cry. Axis shift completed. My mom's fractured voice pierced the shock into which I had fallen to announce my dad's final words spoken before his last breath: " Keep the faith, and everything will be all right.” These profound words spoken from the mouth of a man with only an eight grade education not only captured his wisdom and the essence of his life, but also held his final instructional message on how we should live our lives until God's return. We should maintain our faith, be unwavering in our belief in God and one day we will all be reunited. It was as if I could feel his hand upon my shoulder reassuring me that we shall meet again.