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I screamed and cried until I had to run to the bathroom to throw up. When I’d regurgitated everything in my stomach, I dry heaved for what seemed like forever. After cleaning myself up, I got in bed and pulled the covers to my neck, continuing to let the tears stream down my face and wondering why I had to even exist in this world without the love of my daddy. I was grieving my loss all over again… my loss of both of them.
CHAPTER17
JAKARI
“Last time we talked about all the things he did that made you angry and that made you disgusted with him. This session, I want us to go back to your earliest memory of your father and how it made you feel.”
I stared at Serita for a minute as I thought about what she was asking me to do. It had been two weeks since I’d seen Yendi, but my soul felt like it was trying to be at ease about my father. I hadn’t seen him or heard from him since the game, and that alone gave me peace. I’d come to see Serita last week for my first session, and it was hard.
I ended up walking out on then going back in. I wanted to be better. I needed to be a better man, not for anyone else but for me. I was suffering inside because of shit I couldn’t change. I couldn’t change who Avery was, but Icouldchange how what he did affected me. I couldn’t allow that to dictate every decision I made in life. I lost my one because of this shit. I just hoped once I was in a better headspace that she was still available and was willing to give me another shot at her heart.
“My earliest memory is him teaching me to ride my bike without training wheels. I was scared, and I remember him telling me that he would be there to guide me along the way. That I could depend on him to be there for me. He said that would apply in life when I got older. I didn’t understand what he meant back then, but now that I recall it, I understand now.”
“How old were you?”
“Four. I told him that I couldn’t start school the next year still on training wheels. That I was a big boy and big boys didn’t have training wheels. After trying to convince me that I could take my time and that other kids would still be using training wheels and he saw I wasn’t folding, he agreed to take them off. He said years later that he knew in that instance I would be a leader.”
“Good. Now go back to four-year-old Jakari and tell me how it made you feel when your dad said he would be there for you.”
“Like I could do anything. It made the fear rest for that moment, and it gave me courage to get on that bike. I felt safe…”
I lowered my head knowing that Aunt Syn and Nesha felt everything but safe. “Jakari, look at me. Don’t do that. I can tell you went somewhere else in your mind. Don’t think about how anyone else feels about him or how you feel about him now. I only want you in the headspace of the little boy who loved his dad and trusted him to keep him safe. That’s it. I know it’s hard, but you can do it.”
“How do you stay so positive all the time though?”
“Practice. It took me a long time to make that a habit. I went through a lot in my life. I didn’t truly get on the right track until all four of my children were grownups. My mindset affected them. A lot of times, we can get things right long before we actually do. I was depending on my ex-husband for happiness and to make me better. He did for a while, but when things went crazy and I made the horrible decision to leave him, I no longer had him as a crutch.”
I could tell that decision still bothered her a little. She took a deep breath and continued. “I had to do the work for myself, and I crumbled under the pressure. I ended up on drugs and nearly killed myself a couple of times. My kids were young, but they remember every traumatic moment they were exposed to. Me putting off getting the mental help that I needed caused my kids to suffer. My relationship with them didn’t improve until they were all finding the loves of their lives and getting married. That was when I chose to show them I was there for them.”
“I hurt Yendi,” I whispered.
It was my first time mentioning her in therapy. “Who’s Yendi?”
“She was my girlfriend. We’d only been together officially a week or so. My issues with Avery caused me to neglect her. I knew I needed help a long time ago, but I was trying to be there for everyone else and neglected being there for myself.”
“That’s okay. You’re here now. We’re going to get you back on track. Now tell me another positive moment with your dad.”
I smiled slightly. “My brother, Christian, had destroyed one of my wrestling men. He’d chewed that shit to death. I was pissed. I snatched it from him to go show my mother but ended up running into Avery…” I closed my eyes and took a deep breath then continued. “…running into my dad in the hallway.”
We’d discussed when I first arrived that I would call Avery dad in this session because that was what I knew him as until my early twenties. The memories we would be speaking of would be those where he was Dad to me, not Avery.
“I told him what Christian had done and showed him how the Rock’s hand and face were ate up. How was he gonna do the people’s eyebrow if half his face was gone? I could tell he wanted to laugh, but he somehow restrained himself. He apologized about what Christian had done and said that he should have been keeping a closer eye on him. He also explained that Christian was a baby and didn’t understand. Although he was three years old at the time, he didn’t understand that he’d done something bad.”
“How did you take that?”
“I felt bad for getting mad at Christian. I went back to the room as Dad scolded him for eating the Rock’s face off. Once Dad left the room, I hugged Christian and told him it was okay. The next day, a new Rock figure was on my bed waiting for me when I got out of school.”
Serita smiled and that caused me to smile slightly. “That obviously made you feel good, right?”
“Absolutely. There was nothing anyone could say bad about my dad back then. I supposed that’s why I took his fall so hard and as my own. He taught me a lot. He wasn’t a farmer and didn’t really know about farm animals and ranching like the Henderson side of my family, but everything else, I learned from him. He taught me how to treat girls with respect. How could he teach me something he wasn’t doing?”
“Easily. I taught my kids to tell the truth, yet I was living a lie, pretending to have it all together. He has an illness, no matter how sick what he did is to us. I’m a victim of rape myself. A grown man raped me when I was a kid. I was nine or ten when it happened. After a doctor’s appointment and they discovered I had STDs, he shot himself in front of me. So I know what this journey looks like. It can get ugly if you don’t get help. Even with all that history I have, I can see Avery as a man that has an illness.”
I took a deep breath and nodded.He has an illness. He has an illness. He sick as fuck… He has an illness. Something happened to him to cause him to do things like this.I was at war in my head, trying to get my brain to accept what Serita was saying. That shit was hard.
“Jakari, his illness doesn’t change who he was to you. It’s okay to be angry, to be hurt, and to be disappointed, but those feelings should not have taken over your life’s trajectory. Avery did right by you. I’m not saying that his offenses aren’t serious. I’m saying that if he is truly wanting help with whatever he is going through, then you should let it go and start living your life. Don’t base what he did as something you would be capable of. That wasn’t even how he raised you to be.”
“So you want me to establish a relationship with him?”
