of deacons, and the church secretaries.
Just as they did every Sunday, the band struck up the tune and the choir began to sing the words my father had just uttered. The praise dancers, girls and boys with happy, brown faces dressed in angel costumes, glided down the aisles, carrying colorful streamers, waving them on beat to our singing. The place came alive with people singing and holding their hands up and out in joy for the moment.
My mother turned beet red when she saw me. Breaking ranks with the procession, she dashed toward me with her arms extended.
“Yes, Lord,” she cried, pulling me into her center. She added a drawl at the end of all of her words. And her sweet voice was decidedly and unapologetically Southern. “Thought you’d moved to Mexico.”
“No, Mama,” I said.
“Well, I called you last night, at 12 a.m. on the nose. Had to wish my only baby girl a happy birthday.”
“I saw, but I was sleeping,” I tried, shouting over the voices around us.
“No time for your mama? Not even on the day I gave birth to you.” She grinned and hugged my brother Jethro Jr, who was standing beside me.
Jr was only five years older than me, but he assumed all of the righteous dignity of a Buddhist monk—even when he wasn’t being righteous or dignified. He was a good-looking man with skin lighter than mine—almost like the insides of my hands—and serious, thick eyebrows. But like my father, what was most striking about my big brother was his size. At 6 feet 7 inches and 275 pounds, he and my father almost had to be leaders, because everyone had to look up to them. Jr, of course, ran with this. He’d served as the church’s ministerial director since his senior year of college, and fought endlessly with Jack Newsome over who’d take my father’s place when and if he ever retired.
While Jr looked like my father, my mother looked like someone had taken a video recording of me and pressed fast forward. She had skin the color of mozzarella cheese and eyes that were amber in the shade of my grandmother’s front porch, but then lit up like fiery embers when the sun hit them. She was lovely to look at, pretty in the kind of way that reminded people in the South of how ironic it was that something so beautiful could come from the ugly things that happened during what they now called with an intentional drawl, “a long time ago.”
“Little Journey made it to the Lord’s house,” my father said, making his way up to me from behind my mother. “And now a father can rest.”
We hugged and people around us beamed at the sight. It was the family’s tradition to hug in front of the congregation and sit together. It proved that our family was still close and leading the church. Even when we were all mad at each other and ready to draw blood, we did this because it was what was best for the church.
“Hey, Daddy,” I said, nestling my head into his massive chest. While I was three, maybe four times the size I was when I had my first memories of resting my head there, he still seemed larger and more solid than anything in my world. Jethro Sr had his flaws, but being a good father to me and my brothers wasn’t one of them. Yeah, he could be pushy and controlling, but he was there and when he gathered me and my bleeding knee, cut elbow, or hurt feelings up into his arms, I believed anything he said and knew the pain would go away with just one of Daddy’s magical kisses. He was what people were speaking of when they said “he’s a good father.” Daddy loved his family, his church, and God. Over the years, I’d seen many men try to be him. Some were successful—they’d gone out and started their own churches in Huntsville and Mobile. And many more failed. Looking at my two brothers, I knew that neither outcome was easy.
Jack Newsome went through church news and greeted the visitors and church sons as we took our seats. Daddy and Mama sat in the first seats with the visiting sons and Newsome’s seat beside them. In the next row, I sat beside Evan, Jr and his wife, May, Nana Jessie, and the heads of the largest ministries. Last in the row was the empty seat. It belonged to my younger brother, Justin. While he’d moved to Atlanta to go to an art school, which (according to paperwork my mother kept away from my father) he’d deenrolled from after one semester, my father insisted that we leave a seat open for him in case he returned. Justin was always kind of an outsider—both in our family and in Tuscaloosa. He was sensitive, didn’t really like to wrestle and compete the same way Jr did. He preferred to sit in the house and gossip with me, play with dolls and help me pick out their outfits. By the time he was in high school, he had a kind of sway to his step that led to the rumors swirling around him to grow from “he’s soft” to “he’s gay.” It bothered him a lot. He always swore it wasn’t true and even pointed to girls he liked, but inside I felt otherwise and thought he just didn’t know it yet. Our upbringing hadn’t left him space to know it. When he said he was moving to Atlanta, I secretly prayed Justin would find himself—gay or not gay. I dared not tell anyone, but it really didn’t matter to me. I just wanted him to be happy.
Billie always said that from her seat, my family looked like the happiest black people she’d ever seen. People talked about us. They watched as Jr tapped my father on the back and they shared a laugh. Loved it when my mother’s face lit up every Sunday when she walked in the doors and saw me. And they thought Evan and I looked like we’d have perfect “pretty” babies. But it was what they weren’t talking about in our presence that made us not so perfect. At the top of that list was Justin’s absence and my father’s indiscretions.
“I’m humbled, church,” my father said after finally making his way to the altar with my mother by his side. “Every year, on this day, at this time, I’m humbled. . . because I’m reminded that I’m a daddy.... Not just a father or dad—my sons call me ‘Dad,’ you know? But a ‘Daddy.’ And there ain’t but one person in this whole, big world that calls me that,” he continued. “My baby girl. Now, I expect only the other ‘daddys’ in the room to understand what I’m talking about. It’s a beautiful thing, you hear? When you have the love of a daughter. Nothing else in the world compares to how she looks at you. To how she holds on to you. To how it feels when she calls out to you, and you know that everyone knows that if nobody can’t stop her from crying, her daddy can.”
“Pastor ain’t never lied!” a man cried from the front, standing up with his daughter in his arms. I looked a few rows ahead of him to see Newsome’s mother, Sister Iris Newsome, being escorted to her seat in the front row by one of the ushers. She smiled toward Jack and through the corner of my eye, I saw Jr shift in his seat and whisper something to May.
“Now, Journey, you may have someone new to kiss your boo-boos and pay your bills,” Daddy went on, looking at me as everyone laughed at his usual humor. “Evan, you’d better be paying her bills!” He squinted his eyes as Evan laughed and kissed me on the cheek. “But today, on your birthday, your daddy wants you to know that he’s always gonna be here. You can be grown. You can even be gone. But you got only one daddy. And I have only one Journey. I love you. Happy Birthday!”
“Thank you, Daddy,” I mouthed and then blew him a kiss.
“I promised myself I wouldn’t cry,” my mother said, taking the microphone. She’d been saying that for years, but I’d never seen that woman miss an opportunity to cry in public. She wiped a tear from her eye. “It’s only once every few years that your birthday falls on the same day of the week. And whenever it’s a Sunday, as a child of God, I like to make reason of it.” Her voice turned strong and she looked out into the crowd with focus. While my mother taught elementary school for many years when I was young, she now led the women’s ministry and served as the CEO of our church’s women’s center downtown. It took a while and a lot of nerve for her to finally take up a leadership role in the church. While most people loved her, there were some detractors—a constituency of five or so women who’d been linked or linked themselves to my father through nasty gossip and church chatter over the years. It always seemed like some woman who’d refused to leave the church was claiming my father was her man and leaving my mother. And while it hurt her deeply and I could s
ee the distrust building in her eyes, he never left us and the rumors always eventually subsided. While I knew much of what people—mostly lonely and desperate women who’d turned from worshipping with him to actually worshipping my father—said was untrue, like my mother, I knew some had to be otherwise. And whenever we walked into a room, I felt her doubt and anxiety as she wondered who’d been in the company of her husband. But that anxiety had long faded and my father was growing too tired to fill up his calendar. So my mother grew stronger with her new attention and with that came her Word at the pulpit. Which everyone seemed to love.
“Today, my daughter celebrates her thirty-third birthday on a Sunday. Those of you who know your Word know that this is her Jesus year.”
Daddy shook his head and the older people began to clap.
“The Bible lets us know that our Savior died at the age of thirty-three,” she went on. “Now, I’m not saying this to bring you down. We don’t need tears today. But when you really think about it, no one should be crying anyway. Because the day Jesus died also marks the day we were given eternal life. Something was renewed that day on Calvary. Yes, Lord. Something was reborn.”
“Amen!” May said, standing up and clutching her Bible in its red leather case.
“And it was grace. It was glory. It was the opportunity to rectify your life through the blood!”
My mother jumped back from the altar and bounced on one leg as my father held her up.
“And when you—church and Journey—reach your thirty-third year of life, you have to remember that,” she said. “Remember that sacrifice and take stock!” She turned and looked at me as the sun came shelling through the skylight at the top of the dome and caught the embers in her eyes, the golden streaks in her hair. “Take stock and see what you’ve given, what you’ve done, what you’ve sacrificed, and know where you’re going. Appreciate your life and the fact that you’re still here, because Jesus knew that He wouldn’t see a thirty-fourth birthday.”
“Hallelujah!” More people began to stand up and the band began to play the soft notes of a song I used to sing lead for when I led the choir years ago, “It’s Your Time.”
“Know that anything is possible, baby,” my mother said, waving for me to come to the altar. “It’s your time.”