Denise Lee Porter

I got out of bed on Monday morning April 28th,1997 after a sleepless night

Papa was A Rolling Stone

and looked out at a beautiful spring morning. The birds were chirping like crazy, there was a nice little breeze and as I looked at the sky thru the 26 pine trees I could see from my kitchen window, I realized that my Daddy wouldn’t be seeing that sky any more.

I really took my Father’s death hard,  and today 12 years later I finally understand why. You see my Papa truly was a rolling stone, a good looking ladies man, father of 5 children with my mother, 4 other children that I knew of, and God knows how many unknown offspring.

I was a Daddy’s girl, he took me everywhere that he went (even if it was to visit one of my other “mothers”) and I loved my father to the Sun and the Moon and back again. And I believe he loved me the same way too. So when he brought us to America in November 1969, dropped us off at a luxury apartment, and then got into his car and went home, well the bottom dropped out of my world.

I prayed really hard every night that he would God would see fit to put my parents fractured marriage back together; instead God allowed me to overhear the conversation where my Mother asked my Daddy what she should tell his 5 children - and he replied “Tell them I’m dead”.

Oh, how I could go on with the list of ways in which my father wronged me, and the many reasons that I had to bring so much baggage into all of my relationships. I knew as I made each mistake in my life that it was my damn father’s fault, I was always searching for my Daddy.

Do fathers even realize or understand that when they reject and abandon the mother, they are also rejecting, abandoning, and scarring the daughters?

In 1993 when i was pregnant with my youngest, I realized how angry I was with my father for everything. I was so angry that I had to see a therapist (it didn’t help, do they ever?).

In the months before he died, Daddy begged me to come see him because he was dying. But I was in school, I was working on this huge project for work, I was renovating the house, I was full of excuses because I didn’t believe him. The last time I saw him he was well enough to point out that I had gained some weight, and I somehow managed to tune out how sick everyone told me that he actually was.

Sometime between April 20, 1997 and April 27, 1997 my father called me and left a message. I had every intention of calling him, but never did.  I saved the message until someone erased it accidentally. Regrets.

A few nights before he died, I was  sitting at my computer working on a

Disco Syd - The Rolling Stone

project for school, when suddenly I felt an embrace and started to cry uncontrollably, I was not crying because I was unhappy or sad about anything. As I cried I couldn’t even figure out what I had to cry about, but I felt strangely comforted.   Later, I told my Mother what had happened and she said that in the old country they believe that in the days leading up to your death, your spirit walks the earth, revisiting the places you’ve been and the people you’ve loved.

I firmly believe that because I would not go to him, my Father came to see  me one last time. I believe that it was his embrace and his regrets and his sadness that brought me to tears.

You see my papa was a rolling stone, but it didn’t mean that he didn’t love me.