It began for you, August 3, 1948, and the sunset for you, December 25, 2024. There comes a time when we all must take our final breath and are laid for all to view. As I prepare for your final goodbye, I have had to help plan services for you when you never wanted a relationship with your openly gay son since I came out. I am reminded that alone in the world we came and alone in the world, we die.

Since I came back to my hometown, everything has felt forced and fake. People calling who don’t call. Always offering to be here to talk. Talk about what? It’s never been a secret that me and my father didn’t have a relationship at all. Maybe that’s why there’s so much silence. Very little genuine outreach. Whatever it is, I’ve felt it from most since news broke and I arrived here.

If you understand me at my core, you know that loving you doesn’t mean I necessarily like you or carry a healthy respect for you. I love my father. In life and death, I will always love him. Simply because he helped create me. There is a biological respect there that I will always honor. Never trying to mistake it for a genuine relationship. I don’t have a void to be filled from your passing. True enough, there is someone missing. I lost part of my existence. That’s a different kinda introspection.

When my grams died, that was a void. And to this day, it has yet to be filled. With you, after I came out, your void created when you walked away was filled by the women in my life. Not that I wasn’t open to a male figure stepping into that roll, but, real shit nobody ever stepped up. Not my uncles, cousins, or brothers. All the male shit I learned myself. Through trial and error. I patterned myself after the shit U neglected to do.

My momma, your ex-wife, is quick to remind me of the traits you have that were passed to me. I always accepted that I am a mix of my parents. I’m sure others would say I have some of you in me, naturally. What’s missed is how much I’m truly nothing like you. Why would you wanna create kids and never actively take a role in raising them and preparing them for the world. Leaving your responsibilities to our mommas and other family or friends to fill. I’m more disappointed that you couldn’t be man enough to address me. I accepted that years ago, too.

This journey to the end hasn’t been usual, normal or fun. Many days filled with questions and not getting any answers. Too many times, you shut down and went to my aunts with questions about how to handle me. How pathetic is that. My grams stayed in yo ass about me, and it never moved you. You lost your oldest son and instead of embracing me when you saw me at his service, paying my respect, you looked me dead center in the face, and ignored me like a common nigga in the street. But the woman behind me, whom you didn’t know, you greeted her with a smile and a polite handshake, thanking her for coming.

I remember the days as a child when you reluctantly came out to play basketball or football with me and my friends. Even thou you loved both sports. Anyone with a brain could see you weren’t interested. I remember being like 14 or 15, you showed me sum stanky ass magazines with naked women. Then, explained to me some of your nasty ass sex stories. I never gave a fuck and I didn’t wanna know. I know you felt it. I never faked happiness or excitement. I saw yours, thou. You thought you was indoctrinating me to your ways. Wrong nigga.

You were etching in my head shit I never wanted to do or how I wanted to be. Yea, I took some of them traits. My last three relationships have been fucked up in the sense that I didn’t hold all the value to them that they deserved. Rest assured, though, I truly respected and loved my ex’s. Always present and actively engaged in the relationship.

Through all of this, my solumn prayer is when you were alone in your final hours and minutes of life, you were at peace. I pray you found the forgiveness you needed and that now your spirit and soul are at peace. James L Reynolds Sr, I love you. For everything you were and all the shit you weren’t. I don’t exist without you, and that’s a respect that lives eternally.