Another 1/2 birthday....
My twins are growing so fast. At birth the twins were low birthweight, barely opening their eyes. Labor pains for 13 hours. Before my eyes I’ve watched them learn to sit up. Learn to hold their bottles. Learn to recognize their loved ones and distinguish them from strangers. Roll over from their backs to their tummies. Blow bubbles pushing their lips together tightly. They even love to scream loudly which scares me and catches me off guard every time.
I was just six months old when my father was arrested. It’s amazing how much a child will grow from 6 months old and on. And it’s sad that my father missed all of that. When I took my twins to see my father, I could tell he was afraid. He didn’t know how to keep them from crying. He was panicked when he held them asking “ do I have him right teen ”? But this whole time I’ve seen my father I felt like he was right there in my life. Him calling and writing frequently, wasn’t the same as him being physically there but my father was apart of my life.
Growing up, I loved getting cards that he would draw for me. My favorite I remember was a teddy bear with sparkles on his belly. It was the little things that showed me how much my father cared. We lived in 6 hours away when I was growing up. So I couldn’t wait till Christmas break or summer vacations, that’s when I got to go home. I got to visit with my family, and got spoiled by my father and his mother. My favorite memory was when they would buy watermelon. Me and daddy would devour it on our trailer visits.
Trailer visits was my fathers home, it was our opportunity to play, laugh and cry together. I remember being excited to throw the football with him, since he taught me how to hold and throw it correctly. Kids back home would ask me where did you learn to throw and I’d say in my proudest voice “ in the prison yard”. They thought it was cool that I learned somewhere nobody else knew about. Sometimes we would have a water fight. No, we weren’t allowed to have water balloons or the super soaker sponges but daddy would fill up kool-aid pitchers, bowls and place them outside the trailer. He’d come inside and say ok you go out and I’ll go out and on the count of three it’s war. Back then I was super skinny less then 50lbs wet. So I could get around. Visits with daddy were special. But they didn’t amount to all that I wanted to show him , tell him, ask him. I couldn’t just call daddy when I had a problem. Or ask him to buy me the new tamigachi toy I wanted so bad. Because at a young age I knew my daddy had a different kind of home it was a guarded castle with huge metal doors. A place the public called jail.