Go Ahead And Cry, Dad

I called my father tonight, and he told me that he's been crying most of the night. Every time he stops, he said, "The tears just come again."

You might think that he's emotional because he's black. Not only black, but a black man who grew up in the South, where he wasn't allowed to drink from certain faucets, wasn't allowed to sit next to his white friends at the movie theaters, a man who grew up with a bitterness toward America's mainstream that only the truly oppressed will ever know.

One of the most important things my father ever did was to allow his children to grow up without passing along the scars from the slings and arrows hurled at him in his lifetime. And while his bitterness and anger toward the mainstream mellowed over the years, his cynicism remained.

So you might think my father's tears were because he felt past injustices had been righted, that the vote somehow validated his perseverence in the face of adversity.

Not so.

He was looking toward the future.

"Mike - Michael (he never gets that right, but I never correct him, and tonight, he really wanted to get his words right) I have always wondered when this country would get smarter, grow up, mature," he said.

"Tonight, we've grown up."

I couldn't think of anything to say. The best I could come up with was, "Go ahead and cry your fuckin' eyes out, Dad."