Sunday Rain

My Sunday’s have undergone many changes. While my grandmother was still alive, she always talked to me about church and God. She bought me a really thick children’s Bible. I never was interested in it. One night before she went to bed, she made me sit in her room on the floor as she started to read Genesis. I was trying to watch TV and ignore her. My awesome grandmother’s intentions were good. She loved me and wanted me to know and believe.

Later in life, while living in an adopted city, I finally cracked open the Bible my mom gave me when leaving for that city. I opened it for the first time when I found trouble. Relationship issues and more were plaguing me. I wasn’t myself and I was looking for a way to cope, to find me, to be well. I started going to a church by myself, mainly on Tuesdays or Wednesdays. I was free, single, solo and I was in a good environment. As I grew and found a new love, I smiled again, I was on my way. My new love and I began to experience new churches. She grew up Catholic and I went twice with her to a church where she attend sporadically. In all this, my new life, my new path, there was still an underlying thing. See, I’d left a precious package behind and I needed to go back and get it. No, I needed to go to her and be present. The package was my three year old daughter. I made a decision to go back to my native city, leaving the adopted one I loved and made strides in. I was leaving the new city and the new love. I cried, pleaded, cried some more. I could not, would not be a long distance dad. The tug of war in my heart shook me. Me and my love talked about options. We talked about what God might want for us. We talked about moving together to my hometown. I gave notice to my job, and, before you know it, I was in my car, driving back east from the Gulf Coast. It all happened so fast. It took me years to get over leaving my love. I always thought about the moment we shared at the front door. I gave her my chain. I told her she couldn’t go with me to pick up ice for the cooler she packed for me. I thought it would be too hard. I left her. She didn’t ask for that. I left a perfectly good love. I left one love, to go take care of my legacy, my blessing, my hereafter, my furtherance. I ran away from one love, to another. I needed to be daddy. I needed to show my daughter how much I loved her. I held out hope that someday I would return to the adopted city, or my partner from their would come to me eastward. That never happened.

So, I don’t know what the hell I wrote has to do with Sunday’s or rain. Maybe I need to change the title. Most of the time I don’t know what I’m writing, or which direction it’ll go. It takes on a life of its own. Sometimes I think I need to write about chapters in my life, just to get it out. It’s best to get things on paper if those thoughts are repeating in your head like a record skipping. I had NO intention of writing about my time in that other city. But, here we are, here we are. My decision to leave that love and new place I called home was difficult. It would’ve been more difficult to not embrace my role as father, so I could experience one of the beautiful gifts of being human and living on this tired planet. That child of mine changed my life when she hit Earth. She keeps me in line. She is my balance and wisdom. She is my heart and rhythm. She is, I could go on and on, because she is, words, I haven’t come across yet, words not invented, words yet to be heard. I love her. She, must be, my Sunday Rain.