Letting go of trauma
Coming to Oregon… I came for all the right reasons.
Something told me it was time. And it was time.
My father in Oakland looked at me and said, “You are my adult daughter.” He knew I had to do things on my own. I was his only daughter. His biological daughter — and that’s different than a daughter inherited through marriage. That matters.
I left my father in Oregon, but through God’s help I found my way. Portland. Eugene. Through all the counties. Every step was a step toward myself.
I was a daughter from a marriage that was an interracial couple who probably married too young. My mother was a good woman. My father chose a mistress. People change. People walk through different paths. He settled for Linda because he did not desire my mother. That happens.
But in the beginning, there were issues. There was a brutal court case. I went to the Lane County court library and read things. I saw the battle — infidelity, pain, issues that would make any woman, like my mother, go to a courthouse with a gun. I can see my mother’s point. Because who was Linda?
I know more now. I learned from Father Daranger at a monastery — a man of God who told me the truth. I spent years hating my father. When I was younger, he’d come to California. He worked at the Concord Naval Base and wanted to be close to his daughter. But I didn’t know him. I would cry when he came — at first with Pittsburg Police. Who was he?
Later I learned through visits, through Christmas outings. But I never fully understood my father. After years of therapy, I always remembered what my mother said: “If you go with your father, it will just kill her.”
See, I’m the only one in my family with both a father and mother. I was born in Eugene, Oregon. My father from Philadelphia. My mother from California. My mother got the ’74 Volkswagen and the kids. But my other siblings all had different fathers, so things were different for each one. I pray for each.
I still think Danielle, my sister, got hit the hardest — because Bill always said she was his princess. I can see the damage divorce does. I can see the impact of having biracial children at a time when, let’s say, it was not right in the eyes of others.
My father chose a different path with another woman and raised her kids, repeating the same mistakes he made with my mother — but they were more white. When my father died, the obituary simply removed me from it.
I don’t care. Because God gave me my strength.
The same place my mother and father were married? He had his memorial service there. He later found faith and a different lifestyle. He also had years in law enforcement as a Black officer. But I still felt he never knew me, or what I stood for — because his faith really was not the same as someone who has the Spirit within.
The Spirit vs. man-made religion is a lot different.
But I don’t judge. I simply got peace from both of my parents. More healing. More strength.
Coming to Oregon was coming home to myself. To the place I was born. To the ashes, the cocoon, and the wings.
I am my mother’s daughter. I am my father’s daughter. But most of all — I am God’s daughter. And that’s enough. 💛
Phd Student
