The Door My Father Closed
The Door My Father Closed
Now that my father has died, I can honestly say I have forgiven my father.
Forgive does not mean forget. I do not forget the things my father did. I remember the absence. I remember the silence. I remember what it felt like to be the daughter he left behind. Forgiveness is not amnesia. It is me putting the knife down. It is me deciding I will not carry his choices like a second spine.
My father was Black. Black in America is what the world saw first. And my father chose a more white family. He chose that door and closed the one I was standing behind. I was a little Black girl raised by a single mom, book-fed before I was shoe-fed, trying to make sense of why my blood did not count enough to stay for.
I can see how damaging a Black man has done when he chooses a more white family, leaving the Black race. It damages the child first. It tells her she is not worth the trouble of claiming. It tells her Blackness is something you can walk away from if you get a lighter option. It tells her she has to prove she is lovable in two worlds because her own father would not love her in one.
It damages the community next. Because when a Black man leaves, the message is not just personal. It becomes public. It says we are disposable. It says our homes are something to escape. It says the mothers and grandmothers who hold everything together are not enough to hold a man. That lie gets repeated until people start believing it.
But he is dead now. And I am free. Free does not mean I pretend it did not hurt. Free means I can tell the truth without choking on it. He made a choice. That choice damaged me. That choice damages us when it gets repeated house by house, block by block.
Forgiveness is me saying: I see it. I name it. I will not become it.
I will not teach others that Black women are a pit stop on the way to something “better.” I will not teach girls that their hair, their skin, their mouths are the reason a man leaves.
My father is gone. The damage was real. The forgiveness is real too. Both can be true.
I forgave my father. I will not forget what his leaving taught me. And I will use it to make sure I never close that door on anyone I claim.
_Cathryn M. Murray Harris
