Tina and I set out on our journey in the summer of 2007, a voyage which lasted eight days. Although this city may not have provided us with answers to all of our questions, we believed it was a crucial part to a better understanding of our father. Our father is a man of great prestige, but he is well-known for his quiet tongue. He does not talk much about his past, but we do know that is hasn't always been pleasant. His father passed away when he was eight years old, which left the entire family heartbroken. My father had been closest with his father; therefore, when he heard the news of his father’s death, it was as though a piece of his heart had been ripped out. But it was his stepfather, the man I called grandfather, who brought the light back into their lives. He taught them how to love again, something that my father greatly struggled with. He completely opened his heart for anything that they needed, which in turn allowed them to appreciate the new love he had developed for them. Until then, we had never understood why our father had such a difficult time inviting new people into our lives. He was afraid for us because he did not want us to ever have to feel the pain that he endured as a child. We may never know much about our father’s real father, but we now know that his tragic past has caused him to be the protective father that we have grown to love.
Our first step of the journey began with visiting our father’s relatives for the very first time. We met with our aunt, who is our father’s sister, and her daughter, who is our cousin. Our aunt Holly lives in the home in which our father last resided in before moving to Pennsylvania. It was a two-story located in downtown Raleigh, a very suburban area. It was a fairly large home, with ivory siding and navy blue shutters. She gave us a tour, but she said that the interior of the home was nothing like our father would remember. We went to the backyard to find an enormous stump, which had once been our father’s favorite tree to climb. Our father has always been the adventurous type, but we now see where many of his childhood scars are from. From there, we went to a small part of the city to find our cousin, Megan’s, home. She has three daughters, which reminded my sister and me of how we were as children. We found it quite interesting to see how they lived; being that it could have been us if our father had never left the city. They were extremely religious, which is something our father had instilled in us at a very young age. My sister and I had grown up in our mother’s church, which was something that our father had never agreed with. Our aunt described their childhood home as a loving but very strict environment. They went to church every Sunday, unless there were extenuating circumstances. We are now able to understand why our father gets so upset with us when we do not attend church regularly. His mother had brought him up this way, so he feels it is his job as a father to teach us what he knows and believes is right. Hearing about our families religious lives aided in our understanding of why our father believes in the things he does.
Next on our journey we took a tour of the city and saw many important places from our father’s childhood. We returned to the home that he grew up in, which our aunt says is exactly the same as it was when they lived there. We also visited the site our father went to preschool, which was in the basement of an old church. We were unable to get inside though, being that the school was closed during summer. We then ventured a few miles down the road to a park where our father used to play baseball. One fact that my sister and I both know very well is that our father admires baseball. Not only playing the sport, but also watching it. He started out playing when he was very young, which explains why he is a remarkable player. Our father is a very diligent businessman, not leaving him much free time. He does manage his time well though, in order to be our softball coach every summer. He enrolled us in our town’s summer league when we were very young, hoping to pass on his love for the sport to us. We discovered that it was his father who taught him how to play baseball, almost soon after he had learned to walk. We believe that our father acquired his magnificent coaching skills from his father.
Our journey was coming to an end, with only one place left for us to visit: our grandfather’s grave. We arrived at the cemetery, which was located behind the church which our father had attended as a child. The grave read, “Donald Bucky King,” a name that holds a special place our hearts, even though we never had the chance to meet him. There was a cold breeze in the air, almost as though his spirit was with us. Our father is not able to approach his father’s grave because the sadness he feels is simply unbearable, which is another reason as to why my sister and I had to visit for ourselves. Although we had never met our grandfather, the importance of him in our father’s life made it difficult for us to overcome the sorrow that we felt at his grave. My sister and I had suffered through the tragic death of our grandfather at a very young age; therefore, we may now relate it to our father’s pain and heartache. The journey to our father’s past not only allowed us to gain a better understanding of his life as a child, but it also brought us much closer to him on a personal level.
Although the journey of a true understanding of our father may never be complete, this voyage set us off in the right path. We can now build a personal relationship with our father that we never thought was possible. We learned that in our father’s life, actions do speak louder than words, and that he taught us by example, rather than by mouth. We can now understand why we never felt very close to our father. We learned that in order to communicate with him, we must choose our words wisely because he was never able to talk back to his parents. We have learned that when our father yells and gets angry with us, it is not because he wants to be mean. But it is because he loves us more than we could ever imagine and wants to keep us safe at all costs. Most importantly, we have learned that we can relate to our father. We are now able to confide in him with all of our problems and always count on him to give us his most honest opinions. We now know that he would never judge us, no matter how ridiculous our actions may be. Overall, we realized that he is much more than just a father figure in our lives; he is one of our best friends.
Taking a journey to our father’s hometown provided us with answers to many of our questions. We may never fully understand why he believes in certain things, but it is something that we will both strive for throughout the rest of our lives. Not only did we gain a better knowledge of the man we love most, but we also strengthened our sisterhood bond. We experienced this life-altering journey together, which we both believe could never have been done individually. We are now aware of why we were raised to be faithful Christian girls,
which we believe has shaped us into the characters we are today. We are special individuals because of our father’s influence in our lives.
(above photo taken by Caitlin King^)
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