Daddy's Love

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Speaker 1: Welcome to Jay Dot in a production of my heart rateis okay, like it's coming out of her clothes. Girl ain't got no windows open, so I don't make no noise outside, So I'm like, let me come out. I'm sorry, y'all. Y're gonna get pure sports bra. You got to come on out, boat boat release release. Oh. I felt that my sister shoutouts is going through menopause and it is. You don't have to do that. You don't have to do that. Yeah, I'm just saying it's fascinating. I shouldn't. I don't. I don't want it, but I don't want to not want it. Yeah, I mean, like watching her that that sweat start coming out, just I'm amazed. I'm like, Wow, it's happerty right now. It ain't funny. I don't think it's fine. I think it's funny either. Yeah, I'm not it forward to it, but it's a it's a reality, right, That's my point. Like I can't dread it either. We're right, We've got to talk to somebody on the show about that some one day. How to prepare for that. It's kinds but it seems like though I ain't even gonna lie to y'all like the precursor is just like that, the that the thing just gets super juicy for about five six seven years right before. So it's like dinner, you're super dry and then it goes super dry. This is this is what it seemed like. I don't know. I don't want to say nothing because I find that stop by with you and nothing well juicy right now and you fixed you. Oh haw neluljah. Oh yeah, that's good time. Oh that's wondering. This is not appropriate for where we're about to go, is it. No, it's not appropriate at all. As you can tell, we are definitely going to have a conversation about menopause. I mean we just got to anyway. Today, Welcome to j Dot Elder Podcast. It is me Jill Scott and Ada Graydon Dancelerla st Clair, ma'n. Yeah, we're all here today. We are gonna be talking about what we learned from our father's Oh baby, okay, first of all, let's start here. Adrian, you've got a daddy, Well, I have a daddy in the spirit. My dad has passed away. He's been you know, with the ancestors. Now for oh girl, it's eight years almost nine actually, but yes, that's a yes, that's an affirmative that you grew up with the father. Yes, I did, I did, I did. I grew up with the father. Layah oh for show, I grew up with a father, and for show. He has listened to his first episode of J. D Ill because he loves a good implement. Yes, man for sure, and for myself. Yes, I grew up with a father as well. He wasn't in our house. But interestingly enough, my father was my godfather for many years. What what in the Philly? I'm sorry, what now? But what in the Philly? Yes, my father was my godfather for many many years. I knew he was my father because I looked just like and I made just like him. It's not even fair. And I can't run. I can't run. It's my daddy. Gent what you won't? Yeah, but for grown up reasons, he was my godfather for how long? For most of my life till I think I hit about twenty three, and then I was just like, what were we doing? Like seriously, like what are we doing? Why are why are we acting like this elephant ain't in this room? Because he because he was there, well, he was he was my godfather, so he was always around. I still want to hear that conversation. So you had the conversation in your twenties like let's stop playing these games, let's stop playing these games. And he was like okay. And I my sister, who was my god's sister. I was like, I'm your biological sister at her wedding and she was like yeah, okay, and we just moved on from there. That was pretty much the gist of a conversation. And then years later, I must have been about forty maybe forty, and I was like, Daddy, let's just take this blood test. My mother, of course, was like she ain't. I take no blood as I'll tell you. I know what I know, and doubt doubt me. If you want to, I'll tell you. And I was like, okay, let's just let's just do it. Nine point nine nine nine nine that I was like, okay, got it, got it? Yeah. So our dad's our dads. Yeah, what what do we learn from my dad's so much? Well, my dad was married five times and he picked right the last one. But I watched him make financial choices. Um, he was like, how much you got? You got seven dollars. I got seven dollars, we got four, let's go. My dad was an orphan, so his thought process was to build. I don't know if it was necessarily to love. So he got married four five times and divorced four mm hmm. Yeah. So one of the things that I would say that I learned is that I don't I don't like to be unhappy. Yeah, I mean, I don't. I don't have to do that. I don't have to. You know, I understand people who want to stay ain't married forever, but I ain't gonna yeah, I mean, just because it's a vowal. Yeah, just I'm not. I mean, it's a it's a big deal. Anybody would prefer to get married and stay married, you know, to have that union and that partnership and that friendship and that hopefully passionate lover you know, for a lifetime. But you know, I've learned that there's a way out. And every time my dad lost the house, yep, every time, and he'd start all over from the beginning, and he would just let them, you know, take whatever they wanted and he would move on. You know. Yeah, I learned that, you know, let them take whatever they wanted, and he moved on, and he moved on. I'm just saying that what I got out of that is one that I don't have to stay in a bad situation and too not to make choices about married just financially. Hmm. Okay, yeah, Okay, It's funny. I always feel strange talking about my relationship with my father because I'm in a I feel like, I don't know why. I feel like I'm in a small collective of people who had like just amazing daddy love and even in a home that was like divorce. My parents were got divorced when I was six years old, but me and my daddy been best friends since I came out the womb, and he sat there and talked to me about my life and what was gonna happen and the joy that I brought it to his life. My dad taught me about joy and the differences between joy and happiness, and I oftentimes feel very guilty talking about his love because I I don't have an equal, like bad story to tell outside of the fact that I grew up with an artist. My daddy was as a drummer. He's a photographer, so he didn't always have the money. My mom was a flight attendant. She had a job that came with a pension and things like that. And although he wasn't always able to provide for me, and some of those Christmas is were like bags of thrift store clothes. Like the love that my dad expressed to me and showed me at times, I tell him that he has given me so much love that he has made it hard for the men in my life because I'm like, I have a standard. I know how I want to be loved, and um, I know it's it's possible. Even though my daddy is a man, So the love that he has for me as a daughter, I'm sure the women in his life would be like because I too have had a father who has been married a couple of times. You know, he he is an artist, a New York artist, so he he also is eight. He's gonna hear that I say this. He eighty one, but he looked every day at fifty five. So everyone you know what I'm saying. But as far as like the arts, jazz music, my dad came up with Michael Peters and Debbie It's just it's so many things that arts and culture and things that my father has brought into my life that I'm so grateful for, even though we argue almost every other day. And that's fine too, because he's getting older. He don't want to hear about my womanly problems, my physical babe, just talk about anything but that period. But yeah, it's it's that that it's always interesting talking about Ron st Clair because like I said, he you know, he was there. He was there. The money wasn't always there, but Ron will show up. So oh, I love that, and and I I'm sorry that you that that you have to carry that or feel like you can't talk about that, because it's so needed for us to know that there are men out there from multiple generations that have shown up for their families and really like loving on their daughters and as black women that we have like women out here whose fathers were loving them thoroughly and beautifully, you know what I mean. It hurts me that there's energy where you feel like you have to hold back that story because girl, I want to hear that story again and again and again and again and again. That makes me, That makes me thrilled, But it's hard to watch your girlfriend women sometimes who don't have that in their lives and you see it and you see that they didn't have like a foundation of that, and that's all they needed to not go through that issue that they went through, you know what I mean, not understand that that man wasn't good enough for them. So it's just it's interesting because I know it shouldn't be hard, but it's. Yes, it's like, yeah, I grow with some daddy love and I got guilt, girl, So father, let no girl, let's let's ditch it. Let us let us take all of your guilt and put it in a tin can and set it a blaze and let it go up into the atmosphere. Because I'm gonna tell you something. That story. We need that story to heal. Yeah, we need that's a that's a crown. It's a crown. Don't know this man called me. He'd be like, baby, if I miss your call, it's like missing a season. Oh my god, Oh my god. Okay, okay, So your father has set the standard for what you require in this life or what you deserve. And it's like and because of that, now all you have to do, my friend, is to call it. Call it, but you don't look call forward the specifics of what you want in your life as a partner, you know what it looks like. Ye be as specific as possible, call it and don't look out the window, don't pay the floors. Enjoy every moment of your existence, but know that it is coming. That is not miss That's the laws of attraction. That's what. That's what. That is all you have to do. And so many of us, you know, young women, black women particularly, we didn't see our our father's loving us like that. You know, we didn't get a chance to watch. You know, if you had a mother and father together, you didn't get a chance to see them making out or dancing together, or you know, having an argument and fixing it. And we're learning with a disadvantage in so many ways. But I got some odd stuff going on over here because Kareem and Ron are like you know, they check on each other. I make sure like their friends, My famis my parents. They're the best divorced couple you will ever meet. He spends the night when I come to visit, like and that's not he got a room. You just stay in me room. You know that's beautiful, it is. I think that is amazing, like I said, And I feel like we need to make sure that there's room for you to tell this story because this is also something that for women who would not have this too. I don't want to say live vicariously, but to see a thing exists, you can also hold some ownership to it as well. Because there's gonna be a young woman who's gonna listen to this episode and she's gonna remember that missing a call for me was like missing a season. She's gonna remember that. She's going to to to store that away as a standard, to store that away as a standard for not only how love should feel, but how you should give it all these things. I mean, honestly, to me, that's everything. I mean, it's value. It's it's such a value place such or who you are, Like, oh I love it so yes, it's a beautiful thing. I really want to make sure that we have ample space for Royn st Clair in this In this moment, I want to go, he gonna flip, Lord, He's gonna flip baby, that's name because I get overwhelmed by his love and I sometimes I'm like, I don't know how to even get that back, Daddy, after you said, what do I just when you tell me what I brought to your life. Receive it, receive it, Receive it and know that you're worthy of it. Receive it and know you're worthy of it. We'll be back after the break. My situation my dad is so complicated because I mean I was deeply loved, you know what I mean, Like, my dad and I had a very interesting relationship. My Stepfrother said this to me one time. He was like, you know, you know you was Daddy's hips And that's set with me for a long time because my situation with my father. He was a complicated guy, and so there were times in which he was very absent in my life and the time so he was very very present in my life. He was good with the love part, definitely good with the love part, not so good with the support part. Wasn't really a good husband to my mother nor to his wife prior to my mother, and wasn't really a present and good father for my other siblings before I was born. And so it just became a very complicated thing about my dad and my relationship with my father because even with some of my siblings, we just had very different interactions with him, and so having to reconcile the way is that he wasn't able to show up for them, just was really, really weird in eyes from me. So I guess I can understand how Lie is her old guilt, which she no longer is carrying, but her old guilt, you know, for having that kind of relationship with her dad that was so loving, and you having a kind of, you know, a guilt as well. A complicated situation because your siblings didn't receive the kind love that you absolutely And let me tell you something, I got very close with my sister and it affected my relationship with my father because I have like, dude, like I can't look at you the same. I knew that things was odd with the two of you, but but it caused me the second guest and look at him differently. And I always say to my and and I have another sister, So gosh, my situation is so black and messy. Lord, I do not want to claim that just for black people, because your right. It's okay, my mother has two children, Okay, my sister and I have different fathers. Okay, but my mother married my dad and my dad kind of adopted my sister. So my sister has two dads. She's had her biological father and my father. Okay, but all of that is interesting until you adding to the fact that my father had three children before I was ever born, and so he was living in the household with me and my sister, who was not his biological child in many ways, raising her at the time that my parents were together, when he wasn't involved with his other children's lives. This is it gets very very messy. They don't want to take away about you though, right they understand it. No, no im than that, because you know, I got cousins right now. They don't like my ask because I grew up in grandma house, like like I had something to do with it, like I chose where I lived, or you know, like they're still annoyed by my very presence because I'm sure that there were complicated feeling particularly when I'm very close to one of my sisters, and I'm sure that I know that there were complicated feelings when she was younger. Obviously you know all of those things, but we're so close now, all that is, yeah, all of that is whatever whatever wage and water under the bridge and just so layered and so were all working through our stuff in terms of what I learned from my dad. My dad has been a person who always made me feel like I just was the dopest person in the room, Like he just was. Like I never questioned that because he always me feel like I was funny, like I was smart, He was always listening, you know what I'm saying, and and so I always felt like, yeah, like my daddy thinks I'm special, funck y'all, you know what I mean. Like I just always felt like, Okay, I'm good to go. But I also learned from my dad that that whole thing that my Andrew says a out what you said and what you did for people will never forget the way you make them feel. I've had to reconcile that my dad showed up in ways that were not good for other people, and how they felt was important, and I had to learn how to separate that from myself. That's hard because that's my blood. And so I've had to reconcile who this person was as my father and what does that mean about who I And I learned from my dad that yeah, you can be funny and charming, and you can be all these different things. You gotta be aware of how people feel. And you have to show up as the person that you say that you are. You just have to do that because it affects people for all very very long time. It's funny. Care care Gains and I were just we're just having this conversation a moment ago, and we were talking about fame and how challenging it could be because you know, you know my position. I'm still like listening, we all people don't put nobody on pedestal. They're gonna fall off just the way it is, because everybody's people anyway. Um, I was saying that the tough part is that you might catch somebody. Somebody might catch me on a bad day, a litteral a literal bad day. You know, something in my family, something in my body, something just something that's heavy to me. And I've learned now to say something like, listen, I'm not in a good place today, says I'm just I'm not in a good place today, because you're right, what they remember is how they felt, so you know, they walk away with this, Well, she was so nasty, she was mean, she was she was just that and the other. Instead of that, I'm like, okay, look, let me just be up front and say what it is. But you're absolutely right. You know, it's how people make you feel. And with my dad, I was short, I was in school, I was a temple and I was short eight hundred dollars. And I tried to figure out how, just because I was trying to get through the semester, how I was gonna get to, say, hundred dollars, I don't know. So I called my dad and I said, Dad, can I borrow you know, trying to be a big girl, can I borrow eight hundred dollars? He said, yes, Jilly, I'll bring it to him. So he shows up, gives me the eight hundred dollars. I paid my tuition, and I, you know, I made it a point to get that money, to get that money and put some aside. I put some aside so that when I gave it back to him it would be the whole eight hundred dollars. Now, by the time I got the whole eight hundred dollars, I literally had maybe seventeen dollars to my name. So I was like, Okay, my dad is gonna be proud of me. He's going to he's going to say, oh, oh, thank you, Jilly, And then he's gonna give me it back, or he's gonna give me some back, you know, just because I did. I did. I did what I was supposed to do. And I'm his daughter, you know. You know I'm huffing and puffing through school and two jobs. Think his money, Yeah, I thought then he was gonna give me at least some of it back. He took that ship and put it in his pocket. And we continued today, and I was like, Okay, at any time he's gonna go down and then and if she's gonna give me something back, you know, at least a hundred dollars, at least a hundred dollars. That that man kissed me goodbye and went on about his business. I was so mad. I was so mad. Oh. I internalized that thing, and at that point I was like, I will never in my life need a man for money again. You used the B how you mad? You used to be word you used to be worth the L word which was lone you can I have. I should have played myself. I played myself, but it did give me a valuable lesson. But I decided I would never in my life again have to borrow or get a loan from a man again in my life, somebody like somebody that's in my life like a boyfriend. So yeah, you know, while other people are looking at you know, I'm supposed to date a successful actor or a successful singer or a successful something, I do not think about money at all because because you ain't gonna take nothing from him. And now with the state of pre nups and agree, you ain't gonna take nothing for me, even motherfucker, get going out of get out of here with the listen. They never had no money, girl, So that's whatever. I wasn't never gonna borrow ship from my dad. But like I said, my dad was big one. Now this is one thing and I and then I was sitting here thinking, I was like, oh shoot, I didn't think of this new enough. As a parent, I'm fun and I got that from my parents. Both my parents could be fun people to be around. But my dad was big fun. Oh girl, Yes, Like my dad would take me ice skating, but he couldn't really do it that well. But he would skate top speed, girl to speed and he had this brown coat but he would fall on the ice and all the white from the from the ice would get all over his coat, and it was just embarrassing to me, like he didn't care the care when when it was snow he would break open the um cardboard box because we didn't have on money. Yeah, the car put the cardboard box. You break up in the carboard box. Girl, You would think he's doing this for us. No on, ma'am, he's going down the hill first, head first, running start. I didn't start, you know. What's what I'm saying, Asian, did y'all ever do the paddle boating on the basin? You and your dad? Yo, Me and my dad used all the time, y'all listen. I mean just fun, yeah, goofy being fun, sing, was saying with me, dance with me, all those different things, very very because mama was and daddy was the fun one, right, Dad was a fun one. But in my household, honestly, I won't even lie, my mother was really fun too. God. Let me hold on, Asian, hold on hold because she might be listening. Let me just say this, Mommy, I didn't mean that you were strict. I was just saying you was more strict and I had so much fun. And thank you for taking me around the world. Yes, girl, thanks I'm on my way. The things though about that for me again, it's just like I said, complicated. My dad, DoD made it hard for me when I became an adult, and I had to have boundaries with my father because I was in love with him. You understand why I'm saying boundaries because he was messy, he was a drug addict, He was a liar sometimes. And you know, you talk about borrowing money, my dad would borrow money from me. My dad would borrow money from other people. Like I'm saying all this to say, and and you know, mega rest his soul, but I gotta be honest about who he was. And it was here because right, you know, And when I got older, I felt like I'm mature. I'm not a baby anymore, so not have to deal with you like an adult. M I can't just let you get away with it because you're my daddy, because I love you, because you're cute, because you're handsome, and everybody think you handsome and they say I look like you, so I must I must be handsome, you know, and you know, and all of the ways that I was so attached to him, and it was painful because it was like the daddy that I love. I gotta let him die to deal with the reality of the dad that when the people don't love and that he is. And so that began my adult relationship with my father, which was so off on, off on, off on, so much so that two years before my dad passed away for two years I didn't speak to him. I had an unfortunate incident with him involving my older sister, and I just decided that I was no longer going to be communicating with him anymore. And my husband warned me against this. He said, listen, I have a complicated thing too. I gotta complicated daddy story too. He was like, but you care about that relationship and now and you in here lying to yourself about how much you care about it. And he was like, if something happens to your dad, you're gonna be devastating. And I was like, no, I'm right, I'm correct, and I was correct. This is where it gets tough with parents. I was right about what I was upset about, but how I chose to handle it it isolated our relationship worse than it had ever been my whole life. I had never gone my birthday not talking to my day. I had never gone holiday seasons and think without speaking to my father, and I didn't talk to him for two years straight. And I got a call literally right after my birthday. We had not spoken. This was the third cycle of birthday going through the un spoke. Got a call and it was like he'd been diagnosed with cancer. And I drove down to see him, and oddly enough, my mother was with me. My mother was in Philly at the time, and she drove with me and went down in and and I had laid eyes on my father two and a half years and so when I went down there, I walked into the room and he was in bed, and he looked sick. And I walked in there and the two of us just cried, probably for about the first thirty minutes that I was there, and I just laid in the bed with him, and we just cried and cried and cried. When don't say nothing else to each other, We just cried. And it was the pain of the mistakes. It was the pain of the non consistent nature of who he was in my life. It was all the unsaid things, all of stuff, and we just cried that ship out. And then eight months later he died, and I'm grateful that I had that eight months because it was pancreatic cancer and that can be really, really aggressive. So I'm grateful for the eight months. In that eight months, I feel like I made as much closure as I could have, and I was okay, and I was with him the dating he passed, you know. So I'm grateful to have had that moment. But I always think about my dad my relationship with him, and I'm still learning things about that relationship. And what I learned from that whole journey was that a person is a lot of things, and that a lot of things, a person is a lot of things. You cannot compartmentalize a human being. You know. We've been talking about this when we talked about our mothers, you know, and and humanizing our mothers when we had that conversation. You know, it's the same thing with our fathers. My dad's is a kind of guy who would who would yell, hey, baby out the window, and then he would turn to me and say, oh, that's your cousin. And I realized that not every woman. It took me a long time, but it took me, you know, to realize that not every woman that he was yelling, hey, baby, was family, you know? He was? I say, was, And it's not fair. But my dad has dementia and he's at the state where the majority of the time he sleeps, you know. Um, he I had a moment, sucked me up and they sucked me up, and no other words for it. I went to go see him, and my dad flirted with me. He thought I was my mom and patted my ass. Shit. No, I left out of there with this strange sound in my spirit. It was a strange sound, and I don't I didn't know what to do. But but just like these weirded out and crying, and I had to, you know, realize, my dad doesn't He don't know who I am. He has no idea whatsoever if he don't see you every day. He really, really, I didn't know who I was, you know, and that was hard. And then before he had to go to a home. My dad as an ex police officer, retired police officer, and he had gotten to a point where he couldn't stay at home anymore because sometimes he didn't know who his wife was. Yeah, and if she wandering the room and startled him, you know, he very well could hurt her or you know, worse. So he was putting to a home and it's just honestly, it's just been downhill from there. The before that though, this was the one that got me to he had been diagnosed. I could tell because he had visited me in California for famies. That's our our Christmas time. Um, they visited for families, and he was driving and it was so reckless. It was so scary that when I got back to my family, I was like, Daddy can never drove again, Like he could never drive again. And I knew it was you know, it was progressing. The dementia was progressing. The next day they were leaving, my sister and my brother in law and my nephews were leaving, and uh, I was standing next to my dad and he pushed me. He pushed me like a stranger. He pushed me out of the way to hug my sister. About oh hard though, like real hard, like almost get out. Yeah, it was bad. And there again I was just like, Okay, he doesn't know who you know, He didn't know you at that moment, you know, at that one moment he didn't know and I, oh, I was I went through the whole thing, like that's how he really feels about me, you know, I know, but I did, but as dementia, But I did. I did. I went through the whole thing, and I was like, that's not my dad really feels about me. You know. It's it's like when somebody's drunk. But that ain't it, ain't it? You know, I was thinking, you know, truth say you know, but I definitely did that. And that was a lot. So, you know, him pushing me was one thing, and then him going into the home and flirting that was something else. Like it was like tearing the relationship that I had, you know, with my father apart just dementia. This was destroying it. Yeah, so it made it really challenging for me to go and visit, very hard. And you know, I have to say that the staff where he was, they didn't help much, you know, because I'm really there to visit my father, and they would come in on our meetings and and you know, when I talk about something, you know that I I really I don't even have the headspace. I'm looking at my father, who can't say words anymore. I'm looking at my dad who just groans, you know, and you know that was that was another challenging portion. But the last time I went to visit him, there was nobody that I knew in there. Yeah he was, he was, he was gone. He's gone. So are you working on cherishing what you knew? The man that you knew? How do you take care of yourself in that way? And I just I grieve him, Yeah, yeah, I grieve him, even though his body is still alive. And you know, I just grieve him. And my stepmother, you know, God bless her. She definitely, you know, makes it a point to always visit and to you know, to talk about him, and you know, she goes there and before COVID and she's watching a football game. She put a hat on him, you know, Eagles and stuff. And after a while I had to ask her to please stop, just stop sending me pictures because he don't eat in there, he doesn't look like he's in there, He doesn't seem aware of his surroundings or what he's doing in any way, shape or form. It was just painful. But she's she's dealing with it. But I'm asking her not to make me deal with you're dealing with it, because I can't take it right, I can't take it. I find it, you know. But you know, it's like when people put clothes on dogs. You know that dog don't want that. Damn the boots on, you know, like that's the only thing I can think of at the moment. But just just yeah, I understand. So the last time that I went, and I know that it's the last time that I'm going, but I send representatives just to see, you know, how he is and how his room smells and all of those things. And the last time that I went, and he just was not in there and at all, I rubbed his hand and I I smelled him. I used to I loved the hair on his hand and on his on his arm, and loved that hair. I could just rub it and rub it. And I rubbed the hair and I talked to him and I told him, you know, all the places that I forgive him, you know, and that I hope that he would forgive me too. And you know, I let jet see me more in my father, in front of my father, because because he's my son and that's his grandfather, and I needed him to know that I love my dad. I needed him to know that, you know, even though you know, he's not himself anymore, and he's in this place that that he needs because it's it's he's heavy, like, you know, just trying to take it's it's a lot, and he needs twenty four hours care, you know, and consideration. So I cry real hard, and I mean, who okay, the whole game and all the snots, all the tears, all of it. I kissed my father all over and I asked him to, you know, relinquish, yeah, to to let go, because the only thing is it's his body, you know, just just go. So as selfish as that may seem to some people, I actually it wasn't. I was really as you were talking to Jail, I was like, damn, he's still here. So in a way, I guess you feel like you can't even speak to his spirit because he's still here. But when he's when he's not here, you'll have his spirit, you'll have access to it. And then it just so I'm just did not It's a it's a limbo kind of feeling. Yeah, it's like I feel so sorry, Like I feel like he's trapped, right, Yeah, like he's just trapped. It makes perfect sense. Oh boy, I mean it makes sense when when the week that my father transition, let me let me, let me just say this last part, thank you. I walked out of there with Jack and I cried some more, and a white butterfly landed on me and stayed for a while and flew away, and I laughed. I was like, okay, Dad, okay, like you know, just you know, those moments matter, those moments matter, and that the fact that the butterfly landed on me and stayed. I was like, thank you, Dad. You know that we I just felt like we've made our piece, you know, whatever piece that we needed because, like I said, I was his god daughter for a long time. And he wrote with that, I know that I wouldn't you know what I'm saying like, I wouldn't. I wouldn't ride with that. There's no way that I wouldn't be like, wait a minute, hold up, this is my baby, you know, so that whole not being claimed thing, despite what anybody else is trying to say, um fun with me. Did you have that conversation with him? Yes, yes we did. We had that conversation. We had to and why that he did the thing that you you know you would have never dined well it's a tough situation because this is my mother's story, that's right. So I just okay, never mind, sorry, miss Joy, And I'm not trying to get you into the trouble I've been in. So I'm just it's her story to tell. But nonetheless, they had an understanding, in an agreement. They proceeded in life with that. He was not privy to that understanding and agreement. All I knew is that my sister, you know, was getting all of the Daddy and I was getting guyfather vibes, you know, shout out to the guyfathers. But nonetheless, you know, so that that was a that was the thing. And I'm still you see me, I'm I'm still over here clutching my pearls because you know, he's still he's trapped in there. I just feel like he's or he you saw the butterfly, the body, the yeah, you know, and maybe maybe he's only you know what I mean. And we can't pretend to know that. We can't, we can't. We don't know it. We don't know it, you know what I'm saying. We can only put our intentions out there. And you did you did you put your intentions out there and the spirit communicated with you in the ways that familiar to you. Yea receptors was open. Yeah, I mean when I talked to God Jo at this point, I'm like, listen, you know me, make a real plain, make a real plain and simple for me, because you know, when it's too convoluted, I go into myself and I started thinking my own thoughts and things. Just make it real, real simple, you know, please for me, Thank you kind And I felt like that was confirmation for me. That's what I needed. That my dad said, Okay, baby, more conversation after this break. I think of these men and what they know of a love and parenting and as black men from a certain age group and a time period. And not saying that this is not to excuse anything that was done to anyone, right, but just how much of these things are they really capable of, you know, just in terms of just all of the all the things that they have to grapple with and what they just didn't understand and know he was talking about talking to Kierra earlier, and he's such a part of a newer generation of black fathers and husbands and fathers, but particularly fathers because and he has a little girl, which you know, right, And it's like, you know, they have a skill set in a language of vocabulary and emotional vocabulary, a life vocabulary that is different than what they wouldn't have it and they wouldn't have it if not for what our dads went through to. And that's the thing. So I remember when during my dad's eight months, we talked about a lot of and he told me something that he had never told me before. He said, I worried if my daughters would find good men to ship. He said, I wondered. I worried if they would. He said, for teen has mastered something that I never could. He said, he understands how to hustle with his family and toughe that's beautiful. He said. I didn't know how to do both. And he said, and I'm so grateful that you found someone that understood the things that I wasn't able to teach you about. But he didn't have the resources to do it. Also like and saying if he did, but he didn't have any It's just so different different times. It's just so interesting. So of course, yeah, you're right, And as I pulled back the layers, and also too, as I've learned more about history in general. It helped me put my own father into contact. You know, we know that our dads went to war, right, No, your dad went to war opposed girl, That is truromatic. Yeah, I'm so glad minded yes, because you're right. My dad went from an orphanage to war. Baby. My dad's my dad's father. His own father passed when he was thirty, so you have a situation where he went to war. My father also went to prison. Man, Can I tell you my father didn't on the war, but his experiences in the army were so traumatic that he was good on it. He's like the things that I saw brown men, I'm good on it. So you know, and I think about these men and the kind of emotional I don't a wheelhouse. Whatever we expect from them? What did what the man say? We're within? Where where with the roll? Where? Where with the roll that we we needed from them? But that how can we really truly expect for them to have deliberty? I don't know where my dad got it from being born in nineteen thirty nine and the the youngest of nine, I do not know. I don't know. I don't know where he got his love from That's why I know he he's a what you call that unicorn in a way. So girl, and you know what, and I hope that you're able to get a good deal of his story. So as I'm working on old Asia, I'm working on receiving better in that way and not being a daughter and just going yeah, yeah, yeah, I heard that story already. I'm I think we gotta be better with that. Kids. And it's bad term. You know, if you've recorded, you know what I mean, Just put your little phone down and listen to you if I have to talk about stuff, even though he said it a thousand times, because those stories, my dad, those stories, oh jelly. I was. I was in uh Kawaii and they wanted me to sing a song. And I've got this great picture of my father all young and his little in his little uh what I was about to say, costume uniform and he had one song, one song only, and he will sing it all night. I got a gal name jes As. I say, come back all the time. And then he said, every time they would cheering celebration, so I say it again. He said, I entertained everybody all night long, and they would say that's all good. I don't know. They might have just been bored. I've heard. I'm gonna listen to my daddy tell me this story one more time about his mama yanking him off the stage because the kids were singing jumped down, turn around Singabella Cotton, I'm jumped down turn around Thingabella. Hey, Oh that not my son. That's not my son. My son ain't about to do that that, grandma said, not my son, Grandma. Come. My dad loved jazz. He was addicted to jazz. And my father is famous for he's a d c native sort of that is famous for having said that he much prefers can pluge just version there. I go, there, I know he must. Yeah, yeah, he much. He much prefers King Pleasure's version of Moody's Mood for Love. I'm sorry, listen, I'm sorry. DC people. You're gonna be mad at my daddy, but don't be mad at him. We shouldn't compare. Shouldn't compare my dad saying he was a big jazz head. But my dad sang that song to us as kids so much. Who's King Pleasure? That's the original James body is James Pleasure? Yes, Jamesy with oh yeah, Jil, that's the one right there. Yes, come on playing Jim. Please just meet my daddy song too. Baby, you are the soul who snaps my control. Such a funny thing. But every time you hear me, never you give me is here and I wrapped up in your magic. There's music all around me, crazy music, music that keeps calling me so very close to you. Chade me your slave, Come into it me any little thing you want to anything, baby, Just w thin getting next to you? Am I insane? I really say? And then in your eyes right it stars that shine up you get the clear skies. How worry about you just came in my life without your baby here? Don't have just they're wondering. Come on, ladies, I'm really feeling in the move for now suits. Whoa Ladies and gentlemen, thank you so much for listening. Say that el. The podcast shout out to the five is thank you Ron st Clair, Thank you Ron st Clair, Thank you, will Um, thank you, Richard Burris Grady, Hi, if you have comments on something you said in this episode called eight six six, Hey Jill, if you want to add to this conversation that's eight six six four, three nine, five four five by don't forget to tell us your name and the episode you're referring to. You might just hear your message on a future episode. Thank you for listening to Jill Scott Presents Jay dot Il the Podcast. This podcast is hosted by Jill Scott, Laya st Clair and Agr Graden Danceller. It's executive producers are Jill Scott, Sean g and Brian Calhoun. It's produced by Layah st Clair and me Eve Jeff Coke. The editing and sound design for this episode we're done by Christina Loranger. Guys, can you hear this? Windows open? It's a little bit mhm a little It's not gonna make you hot though, because you know, I don't want you to start. You know, I don't have these problems, right I don't. I'm just warm because it's warm. Sure sure, sure, sure, sure sure. J dot Ill is a production of I Heart Radio. For more podcasts from I heart Radio, visit the I heart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.