Dear Daddy,
Today, you could have turned 86, but you chillin’ in the ancestral realm. I can’t believe your 82nd was the last Cancer season we celebrated together. I am still here, alive and well, a few days away from completing my Jesus year, and my heart is full of saudade (longing, nostalgia) for you, missing the us we used to be in the physical realm. But, I know your spirit continues to walk with me. A few days ago, I swear, I heard your voice, so clearly, repeatedly calling my name just outside my window while I was chatting on the phone with a friend. Shook, I opened the blinds to check, just in case; the empty sidewalk saw my crestfallen face.
On your birthday, I am remembering just how much of a daddy’s girl I’ve always been. Morris Jones, Jr. do you remember how the librarian used to call me “Maris Jones The Third” in elementary school? Well, people all over the world who never got the chance to meet you can still feel the essence of your spirit shining through me!
Daddy, your general, your world traveler, your tiger, your big girl misses you endlessly. This year, like so many times in the last three and a half years, I have wanted to call you with a “status report” filled with an overflow of stories from my globetrotting:
lying beneath the stars in the Sahara,
huffing and puffing as I hiked volcanoes in the Andes,
spying on rhinos and peacocks in the jungles of Nepal and finally catching a glimpse of the Himalayan peaks after the monsoon,
swimming with fur seals and sea turtles, and spotting a humpback whale with her newborn calf in the Galapagos,
presenting my research in Brasil and dancing on the beach alone beneath the moon,
clocking the remains of Portuguese naval imperialism on the Moroccan and Kenyan coasts,
walking the silent streets of Berlin at night with my Brazilian bestie,
finding snippets of Black history, even in Turkey,
singing my heart out at all of the concerts in all of the cities,
soaking my bones in the thermal baths in Puerto Rico, and doing full moon yoga in the grass with friends in front of El Morro during a spectacular pink and purple sunset,
receiving new job news on Juneteenth,
and always, always coming home to your ashes on the mantle awaiting my return.
Like Bad Bunny, you would have told me I should have taken more photos, but I been too busy living! You told me to “give ‘em hell,” and I promise, I am.
I love you, Daddy, forever; ‘preciate you lookin’ out, always.
Later,
Dr. Jones
