Chapter 8

Chapter 8 - Proclamation

Written 3-7-2023

As I write this, I’m home sick from work. I woke up at 4am this morning, nauseated, with a stabbing pain in my lower abdomen. The worst of it lasted an hour, but I wasn’t well enough to go to work. I had to call out. I couldn’t sleep, so I settled in on the couch and finally turned on a movie I’d been meaning to watch for months. It’s the movie about Aretha Franklin’s life.

In many ways, my dad raised me right. I was raised in the church, and we listened to the “Oldies” station. They played music from the 50s to 70s when I was growing up. I was drawn especially to Motown, and I always loved to sing. When I was sixteen, my dad bought me a Greatest Hits album by Aretha Franklin. I played that album every morning while getting ready for school, until I knew every track on it in order.

I couldn’t sing like her, but her voice gave me confidence, the oomph I needed to work hard in school. School was my thing, other than music. I sang in church choir and a couple solos, but that was just a hobby. School is where I excelled. I didn’t play sports, and I was never the cool kid, but I got along with everyone, and I finished third in my high school class. Not second; a title would have been nice. No, I didn’t make it to Salutatorian, but third was still good.

By the time I reached veterinary medical school, my dad had introduced me to other soulful artists from Aretha’s era. And artists from other genres, too. The song “Crazy” by Patsy Cline was special to us. As odd as the selection sounds, it’s the song I wanted for our father-daughter dance long before I ever met David. But that Aretha always remained a favorite, close to my heart.

I expected to feel something with this movie. Moved by her music, inspired with oomph, like I was all those years ago while getting ready for school. What I didn’t expect was the proclamation I needed over my life. And I do choose to receive it as mine.

It’s the end of the movie, and Aretha is in the church. She’s about to record her first gospel album. This album will end up being the best selling album of her career, but she doesn’t know it yet. She’s getting cold feet, so the pastor tells the choir to break, and he speaks to Aretha in a back pew. She tells him she can’t do this. She can’t do this life. It’s so hard, and her “demons” are so strong. That’s when the pastor tells her she doesn’t have demons. She only has the pain she’s been running from her whole life. She is in church now, and it’s safe.

There’s that word. Safe. It’s a word that’s been rolling around in my head for a year. In some ways, the world stopped feeling safe in the years since my hospital visit. I may have been wheeled into my hospital room and walked out strong, but I lost some of my innocence in that room. I was all at once free, and yet also bound by the knowledge that the world can feel most unsafe by those we loved the most; those who raised us. Those who were supposed to protect us.

I pause the movie because my doctor’s office calls. They give me instructions to help with the pain and nausea, and tell me to take a pregnancy test as a precaution. There’s an innocence I won’t experience. Our own children. My husband and I considered it once, but with the pain and hospital stays, and the family strain; well, it sucked it out of us. We prayed about it, and we chose not to have kids. I take the pregnancy test, and of course it’s negative. And I’m happy with it. We do enjoy our freedom. 

I restart the movie and the scene continues. Aretha is sitting on the steps in the back of the church, praying. Her “Daddy” approaches her from behind. He gently taps her on the shoulder. She’s happy to see him. This pleases him, since their relationship has been strained for a while. He tells her how proud he is of her, and he seems to admit he didn’t always get things right. She seems to acknowledge this truth while recognizing the good he did bring into her life.

I received it. I received that scene as if it was my own. Different circumstances, same feelings. I’d been running from my own pain - emotional turned physical, for a long time and didn’t know it. My dad may never apologize. He may never acknowledge that he, through the choices he made and the woman he married, took away my innocence, my relationship with my Mom for a while, my faith in the world, my desire for children, my confidence for a time, and my good health– since the body always remembers trauma. He may never again show me that he’s proud of me and that I’m worth his time. But if my Daddy ever reads this, written on what happens to be the fifth anniversary of me entering the hospital, the fifth anniversary of me breaking contact with him, may he know this. May he know that I love him and forgive him, even if he can’t be in my life. There’s a lot he got wrong, but he got some right. He had me in church. And he gave me Aretha. And I can respect that.