“I need you baby, and if it’s quite all right, I need you baby to warm a lonely night. I love you baby. Trust in me when I say: Oh pretty baby, don’t bring me down I pray. Oh pretty baby, now that I found you, stay. And let me love you, oh baby let me love you, oh baby…”. Lauryn Hill, “Too Good to be True”, The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill, 1998.

RIGHTEOUSNESS. My sister and I lost our father in 2003.  At age 73, he succumbed to the complications that follow a severe stroke.  The trauma to his brain kept him from bouncing back. So on a warm summer morning in July, my father, Jimmy Wilson, transitioned to his afterlife with his heavenly Father.  My dad was tall, dark, and handsome.  He was a war vet of the Korean War.  He was also an insurance salesman, and by the time he passed he’d spent the last twenty or so years retired and working as the right-hand man for his church pastor.  He and my mom met when she was in college.  Stillman College in Tuscaloosa, Alabama.  They married and had two girls – my sister and me – but later divorced.  Thankfully I had a relationship with my father.  My mom never said a bad word about him.  Neither of them ever re-married. And I’ve always thought that they wanted to get back together, but no one was willing to come out of their corner.  “If I knew then what I know now I would’ve never let her go,” is what my father told his pastor months before he passed.  I loved my father, and I am who I am today because of the love he was able to give to me.

The DDR: Happy Father’s Day to all the fathers and men who father children that may not be theirs.  To all the male mentors, school counselors, coaches, principals, and God fathers.  You all catch hell sometimes, but know that we would not be able to do this without you.  Have a blessed weekend. See you Monday morning. 7AM SHARP!