Isell

Adoption, Reunion, and the Father Who Spent 55 Years Looking.

Though in the week I’d known my father, he had seemed every bit the night owl, now with the blue light of dawn slipping under the pink curtains, swaying in the breath of a breeze, and stealing towards the pink slippery coverlet… he was pacing the hall. My eyes half-opened as I gazed at the bed; it seemed like the sunrise cast shadows from a child’s mobile suspended above. All these years of wondering, of constructing a father using elements of the best and worst parts of my character. Most of all from Marvin Gaye though. In my ghost kingdom, as a kid, when I tried to imagine who he might be, I thought, hoped? Marvin. I had clutched the duvet around me throughout the night despite its synthetic fibers because when I showed up in his driveway, Isell was blasting jazz, “For my jazz singer!” and eagerly led me to my bedroom for the week, all done up in pink, “For my baby girl.”

Finding the man whose name was on my newly acquired birth certificate took only a little bit of digging. There was just the one, think of that, just one, hit for Isell on Google. My adoption was closed as most were in the 1960s, so when Colorado changed its law allowing adoptees access to their original birth certificates, it made me feel like a magpie with a mirror, drawn to the glint of my past. I called the numbers I found and left messages to no avail. I thought, I’m too late. He must be dead and gone. So, I turned my attention to the search for my mother, Shirley, for many reasons, most of which made sense for a storyteller looking for an origin story. The immense mystery and joy in finding her. Another tale entirely. It took a minute, but eventually, I turned back to searching for Isell and heard his voice as I, trembling an ocean apart, said, “I think I’m your daughter.”

It was my last day, and I snuggled more deeply into the warm double bed as I tried to memorize the moment. He must be feeling it too, the painful relief at saying goodbye for now.

I sat up slowly and swung my feet to the floor. My creaky 55-year-old knees were stiff and grumbling as usual as I took in the room with its old-fashioned armoire and my neatly packed trolley, with its spinning wheels looking impossibly modern in front of it.

Dressed in the black t-shirt and shorts I’d worn to sleep, my waist-length dreads still in their silk scarf, I grabbed my traveling dress from the wardrobe, thinking I’d head for a shower, cracked the door, and there he was in his room opposite, just settling into his recliner.

“Daughter, I know this is hard to talk about,” he began in a rush, as though continuing a conversation he was already having with me, before interrupting himself, “I’m sorry! Good morning.” He sat perched, fully dressed in a white polo and jeans, on the edge of his seat with his snazzy new glasses, gold-rimmed with a black bar on top, twisting his navy-blue ball cap- Retired Air Force emblazoned proudly on the front in white trimmed with gold.

He rose and carefully placed his cap on the dresser among the receipts, keys, books, and letters. CNN blared from the television below it. He ran his hand across his short-cropped hair, switched it off, and asked,

“Did you sleep well?” I delighted in his eagerness barely discernible beneath his delicious slow southern drawl, and that I already knew him well enough to grasp it. Delighted too in that old-fashioned courtliness that marked our every conversation, that had marked every interaction I’d observed him in with others. Grinning at him, I replied,

“I did so deeply! Did you?”

He smiled, then frowned, scratched his head, looked down at his bright white sneakers, and said,

“Naw, I was up all night with the jitters. You know, worryin’.” He looked up at me then and wrapped both arms around me, “You know, I’m not gonna be around forever, I’m an old guy, and I wanna be sure you’re taken care of.”

Isell, at 84, was fit and trim, a full head shorter than I, with the same tiny brown freckles around his sparkly, infinitely warm deep brown eyes, circled in a rheumy blue; sparse grey hair; and white stubble framing his anxious smile. A smile he had told me the day before was not his original smile; he had filled in the gap between his teeth that had been just like yours, he told me. Then, slowly pressing a finger to the indent above my lip, he said,

“This, too, mine. And I saw in those photos of you as a girl that you used to have my eyebrows before you got all fashionable.”

“You don’t need to worry about me, Dad. I’m good.”

I pulled back and held his gaze while my heart did a head thrown back, gleeful Snoopy dance.

“Yeah, I know. Still, I think we should take a DNA test before you go. I don’t want anyone contesting my will. This house and any money that’s left needs to be divided equally between you and your brothers. But it should be… What did we use to call it? A homestead! I don’t want you guys goin’ off and sellin’ it now, you hear? I want to know that you’ll always have a room here whenever you need it, maybe when you’re coming through on tour.”

My Snoopy heart stopped its dance and cocked its head.

“But I don’t need anything from you.” I gestured, trying to sketch in space the depth of feeling our burgeoning relationship had settled in me. I grabbed his hands, squeezing them to make sure he understood that he was enough.

We both knew we belonged to one another. A few days before, as we rolled along the streets of Tampa to the MacDill Air Force Base in his meticulously kept big ol white Mercedes sunroof open, we sang along with The Spinners, “Whenever you call me, I’ll be there, whenever you want me I’ll be there,” reaching for the high note, “whenever you need me I’ll be there,” as if the song had been written just for us. We reached the base arms hanging out of the windows as he slowly cruised, stopping at every site he needed me to see.

“Look at this pier, we woulda come out here fishin’ every weekend. Get us some snapper or trout,” turning around, forehead creased in memory, “’cause we lived right there, and I loved frying up that fish. I didn’t know nothin’ when you were born, I was like 24 years old. I just stayed on the base, wouldn’t even leave. That’s how I met your mamma; she was workin’ in the mess hall at the Ent Air Force base in Colorado Springs. Her momma was tough on her, but she knew how to handle it. When I got here to Tampa after I’d been transferred from Colorado Springs to Alaska, I was somethin’ like 28.” I listened rapt, and in the humid haze, I could just about see him- fishing pole in hand, sitting on the dock, missing his unknown ghost daughter.

We stopped at the beach, where he told me his sons had played every day. We stood on tiptoes, peeking in the windows of his old office, where he told me more stories about being a Black man in the white man’s army.

As we walked back to the car, he said,

“In those days, you had to learn how to weave in between.” Then he told me his story about the Black Officers Club.

“We served the country through the ideas of Dr. King. I changed our club from a social club to a civil action club to serve the poorest parts of this county. I wanted to honor Dr. King’s birthday as well as demonstrate to the white military that we could get things done. So, we started planning a soul food fundraising banquet through the Brotherhood Club at the NCO club. You gotta realize these are the days that people were afraid to mention Dr. King’s name, and in fact, I was called in; they thought I was some kinda militant infiltrating the army - talking about the Doctor. Our folks would just say his name in a reverent whisper. But I wasn’t afraid ’cause I was a military man, and by then, I felt as comfortable on base as I did in the projects. I just needed to find a way… and the way was service to disadvantaged kids, plus any ideas of Dr. King, and the military couldn’t take retribution. I finally got the call from the NCO club, and they said yeah, you can have your Dr. Martin Luther King banquet here, but we ain’t cookin’ no chitlins! That’s what they told me!” he said, chuckling, “But you know what?”

“What?” I said, laughing with him.

“They didn’t have to; the staff at the NCO was all Black! They said we’ll cook the chitlins, we’ll do the hog maw, the black-eyed peas, and rice. You just gotta keep goin’ to the well,” he finished with a smile.

Isell had a love for idioms, for stories that made me realize just where that had come from in me.

This man, who had gone to the hospital to claim me two months after I was born. He had just returned to Colorado from Alaska, where he had been stationed, and found I had already been adopted. “I remember thinkin’ you musta been a pretty girl, gone so fast.” This man, who left his name made sure it was on the birth certificate, who claimed me as his daughter, and begged for any news of me. This man, who, when I was in my teens, trying to figure out how to grow up, had signed up for an adoption registry in the hopes that I would, too, and we’d find each other. This man, who, when the internet came along, enlisted his sons’ help and used all the clues he had to try to find me. He spent time each of my 55 years looking for me.

That evening, back from the base, we watched Spike Lee’s He Got Game. He asked me if I ever played sports, and I said, “Track.” I could see it as another loss, hitting that he hadn’t coached me, yet also a knowing smile that said, of course! Then he said, “If you were staying a little longer, we could head on over and do some karaoke.”

“I just loved that music of yours you sent,” he murmured, beaming. “I can’t hardly wait ‘till the new album comes out.”

“It’ll get here sooner or later,” I sighed. You know, we used to sell CDs and use the sales to fund a new album, but there aren’t even CD players installed in cars these days. It’s all streaming! But I’ll find it—I always do!”

That last morning, my father told me,

“We both know the test is just a formality.”

I insisted, “I really don’t need anything from you, I just want to keep getting to know you.”

His pained expression, the depth of it. “It’s not for you- it’s for me.” He spun his key ring on one finger, and I said,

“Okay, Dad, let me see if I can find a place.”

My flight back to Italy was in just a few hours, but maybe, I thought as I pulled out my phone, we could just about swing it if I could find a place that would test us immediately.

Isell brightened now that we’d decided and said, “We need to pass by the bank first.”

Walking into the dingy DNA and Paternity testing site, we strode up to the tiny reception counter and made friends with the secretary. Then, Isell smiled and said,

“This is my daughter. Can we get tested in the same room?

“No problem,” he told us.

We spit into our cups, linked arms, and went on our way.

I had my first face-to-face conversation with Isell on the dock outside of a friend’s house on Siesta Key. There was a riotous animal party as we sat and told one another stories from our lives and dreams we’d each had of one another. Ducks and turtles and cranes, and all manner of other birds, clamored around us. A huge iguana swam across the lagoon, climbed out, and lounged underneath the table at our feet, keeping us company for most of our five-hour conversation. I kept saying, dumbfounded,

“You wanted me.” If love were visible, it manifested as the golden hour light that comes with sunset, and every moment was suffused in it. If love were nourishment, all those birds and beasts who came to us fed upon it. If we could hold love in our hands, there it was, a shining beam in every touch he gifted me.

Isell and me Photo Credit Angela Tucker

Though I spent the first part of my visit sleeping at that same house in Sarasota, it seemed like an awful lot to ask of him and myself to plan on staying with him before we met. Once we had, I accepted his invitation.

The day after the visits to my alternative universe girlhood, I had a chance to be his daughter. When I arrived at the house, after leading me directly to my room, he showed me around. Just off the spacious living room was a room with a closed door. The only one he didn’t open. He told me it was a big ol mess and moved on. We took our memory lane tour, and I asked him about it when we got back. He said, rolling his eyes,

“You really wanna see this mess? Hold on to your hat.”

Pushing open the door as far as it could go against the mountain of boxes inside, he confided that this garden addition was where he wanted to create a home office. I’ll get to it one day. I said,

“Well, let’s hit Walmart and get whatever we need to make sense of this.”

Isell sat in a chair at the entrance to the room, and I rolled up my sleeves as he dipped me in his memories.

There were boxes of newspaper clippings and awards, plaques and trophies, and boxes and boxes of kitchen detritus and old clothes. As I sorted through the cartons, he creased his forehead, sank back in time, and pulled up an anecdote for every object. I marveled at his accomplishments and stories. After serving for years on the council, he became an Honorary member for life of the African American Advisory Council for the mayor and a member of that Brotherhood Club on base. He brought them a project to build a playground for the Black children in the housing project after seeing kids running over the railroad tracks with nowhere else to play. Dressed as Santa for 37 years for those same children. Trophies won as Interlay children’s baseball team coach, leadership awards, and Military Citizen of the Year. He told me he’d show me his park the next day, said

“I didn’t like bein’ up in front of people, but I loved bein’ behind the scenes ’cause we know a good deed is never lost.”

I made stacks of what to keep and lugged boxes and boxes of what needed to be thrown out or given away to the side of the house. I swept and mopped until he finally stepped into the room and began planning where his desk would go, right over in front of the window facing the garden. I had put the room to rights and felt very daughterly as we planned dinner.

The following day, back in his time machine of a car, we rolled around Tampa, singing along once more with his old-school jams. We visited the park he had established in the 70s, where three little girls in braids and pink challenged one another higher and higher on the swings, then visited an afterschool program he’d organized in the 80s that was still operational. I sat with a boy who told me all about the upcoming football game, but only if he kept coming and working on his grades, the teacher admonished him.

The pride, the honor, that he was my blood. That this kind and generous, intelligent, and open man loved me.

Back at the house, I said,

“I guess it’s time now. I’ve got to take the car back, and then I’m off.” I was ready, but oh my heart.

“Don’t start crying,” My daddy insisted, “You’re gonna make me cry.”

I blinked and blinked again and laughed instead, thinking again of Ella bellowing out my welcome to the house.

“Thank you for taking such good care of me.”

Isell threw a stack of cash on the counter and said,

“There’s some money for your new album.”

“Uh uh, no, you’ve already been so generous!”

“Take it, and stop crying, please.”

Back in Italy, it wasn’t long before the results came in. The results arrived sooner than expected. But by then, the only truth that mattered had already settled deep in my heart.

Bryan Tucker, Isell, and me Photo Credit: Angela Tucker

The truth is, love can be blood, and love can be something else entirely, stubborn as a porch light left on for a child who has been gone for decades. If you want to see the beginning of this journey, our very first meeting, watch the short documentary by Angela Tucker and Emmy Award-winning director Bryan Tucker. It opens the door to what comes next, and to why the last line of this essay is not the last line of the story.