By: Viola Crowley

Word on the Street Issue 46, August 2024

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My daddy was a special man. You see, I was adopted at 8 months old because my mother was not capable of taking care of my brother and I. My mother was their daughter and they were biologically my grandparents but I only ever saw them as my parents. I always knew I was adopted. My daddy always told me I was special because I was chosen and I chose them. They had raised their kids and they were all out of the house and yet they chose to take on an infant and a toddler to raise. I was special and so was my daddy. No, he wasn’t perfect but his love for me was and my love for him. I remember he used to rock me to sleep and carry me to bed. Even after I was too big to carry, I could still get in his lap and he would rock me. Even when I was pregnant. When I was a toddler, I remember he was a bull hauler and during gardening season he would bring his truck and trailer by the house on weekends and back it up to the garden and we all would help unload and spread the manure in the garden. My older sisters would come home to help as well. I remember the first time I snuck out of the house while my friend was staying the night. My momma woke up because she had a feeling I was scared and in trouble. So she woke up my daddy and he came to look for me. I was at the swimming hole with 2 older boys and a grown man. The grown man was trying to convince us to get in the water but my pants were too big and I was afraid they would fall off. So he suggested we go skinny dipping and I was scared s***less. My momma’s intuition was spot on as always. I heard my daddy yelling for me and we got scared and went to hide. Well he found us. He literally kicked my bt all the way home. More like nudged me forward as I walked home. Even then I knew he did that because he loved me and was scared for me. At 16 I got pregnant with my first daughter. My momma wanted me to get an abortion. My daddy, well he supported whatever decision I made.  My momma didn’t like that and took me to my mother’s house 12 miles out of town with no electricity and gravity fed water. I hated it so I ended up renting a house in town with my sister. While I was pregnant, my daddy showed up at my house for firewood to build my momma a fire. It was the middle of winter and he was drunk. Although I was worried about him driving when he was too drunk to cut firewood, I was touched that he would go to any length to take care of my momma. He loved my daughters. He would do anything for his girls. After my mother stole my 2 oldest girls from me, I ended up in Seattle. On my oldest daughter’s birthday in 2002, I tried calling and my mother didn’t answer the phone. Nor the next day. On March 14, 2002, I called my daddy and begged him to call my mother and make her let me talk to my girls. He said he wasn’t getting in the middle of this. That I had to work it out on my own. I flipped my s***. I told him he was being a dick and he needed to grow a pair of balls and do something. I yelled for about 4 or 5 minutes until I eventually told him I hated him and then hung up on him. The next day I went back into the city, I was in Bremerton, and checked myself into Harborview. Into the psych ward. I wanted to cut and I stopped myself from taking a bunch of pills. “I didn’t want to ‘live’ anymore”. While I was there, for about 9 or 10 days, I got a phone call. The nurse took me to the doctor’s consultation area to take the call because my roommate was on the phone in our room. It was my mother and she was yelling at me. This is what she said, “Where the hell have you been? Don’t you know our father is dead?” I don’t remember what she said after that because I fell to the floor screaming and crying. The nurses came running and one of them took the phone from me and hung up on her. So I was desperate to believe it wasn’t true because my last conversation with him was horrible and ended so badly. Once I found out he died the next morning while having his morning coffee before his shift, I knew I was the last family member to talk to him. I couldn’t believe the last loved one to talk to him, told him she hated him. I hated myself for that. I love my daddy so much and miss him dearly. I’m writing this part of my story because my daddy’s birthday is August 4th and it’s hard for me to deal with, even all these years later (22). My daddy was my world! He meant everything to me. Even now, if I screw up, I worry about what he would think or feel about the situation, whether or not I have let him down. I miss him every minute of every day!