A Reason to Believe_ Lessons From an Improbable Life - Deval Patrick [47]
She stayed for almost two weeks, and when she left, I felt a deep void. I couldn’t believe she had traveled so far to see me. She had never been very good about showing affection or saying she loved me, but her unlikely trip spoke more eloquently than any word or gesture.
In the years immediately following the blowout with my father, our relationship slowly began to mend, and my time in Africa played a central role. He was always citing the Motherland and his ancient Egyptian roots and reminding me how much more advanced African civilizations were than those of Europe. He had traveled to Egypt, Nigeria, and elsewhere in Africa, and that continent’s proud history stood in dramatic contrast, he believed, to the history of humiliation that blacks had suffered in America.
I wrote to him from Africa and described how rich and inspiring my experiences were, and this embossed my credentials with him. He stopped questioning whether I was black enough. It helped that my familiarity with African culture and history, given my time on the continent and my reading of African literature while there, was growing deeper than his. When I returned home for law school the following year, we checked in with each other more often, though I still didn’t see very much of him, except on one memorable occasion.
The summer before my third year of law school, I worked at a law firm in Washington, D.C. I turned twenty-five that July, and on my birthday, my father happened to be playing in a local jazz club called Pigfoot and invited me to join him. I hadn’t spent a birthday with him since I was three, but I agreed.
I arrived near the end of the first set, just before the break, and my father was playing the saxophone, jamming with a skilled quartet. I took my seat at a little table, and he nodded when he saw me come in. When they finished the number, he took the microphone and said to the crowd, “It’s my son’s birthday, and I want to play this next tune for him.”
There was warm applause and an approving glance or two my way from other patrons. Then the place got quiet, and he played an old standard, “I Can’t Get Started.” There was no vocalist, but by then I had developed my own love for jazz, and I knew the words.
I’ve been around the world in a plane.
I’ve started revolutions in Spain.
The North Pole I’ve charted.
Still I can’t get started with you.
He looked me straight in the eye while he played, long and soulfully, full of regret and longing all at once. I gazed right back at him, knowing what he was trying to say: Life is too short to go on like this; let’s find a way to come together. No words were spoken, but the music gave us our own language. We communicated more in those few moments than we ever had before, and it was clear how much we both wanted simple understanding. We weren’t quite there—when I graduated from law school, he did not attend the commencement—but we were moving closer, and it seemed my father never felt threatened by my choices again. I had saved a place, and so had he.
After law school, while I clerked for Judge Reinhardt in Los Angeles, Rhonda was living not far away in San Diego with her husband, Bernie, and their infant daughter. Grandpa Pat and various cousins on my dad’s side lived nearby in Orange County, so family gatherings included my father. They were infrequent, but relaxed and pleasant. He was eager to be in California as much as possible, as if to make up for lost time with Rhonda and me. It worked because we were building a relationship on tomorrow rather than yesterday.
Diane, too, was instrumental in the efforts between my father and me. I had always been open with her about my disappointments in my father, his abandonment of his family, his failure to contribute to our