Dad.

I was named after my dad. If I was a boy I was to be Laurence. I had a vagina, so they went with Laureen.

The first memory that I have of my dad, he was strumming on a guitar and singing my sister and I to sleep. I do not know how old we were, but even then I could sense the desperation in him. What the hell was he going to do as a single dad with two girls?

I felt that desperation all of my life from him.

My dad married a woman who had two kids. My sister Michelle and her brother Willie.

My dad worked all of the time. He worked in the Bay Area and us kids were raised in the country with our step mom. We saw him on the weekends, and I know that must have been hard.

Before his accident, my dad was the fun dad. Always in the pool playing with the children at the hacienda. Shaking us awake, and taking us for midnight horseback rides, swimming in the lake or walking the country roads with only the moon as our light.

He would point out constellations and sometimes we would find a spot and just lay down and stare in silence.

Out there, the sky at night is luminous. It is not a still painting that exists to bring you bed time.

It is full of life and movement.
Stars twinkle and dance.
They shoot across the distances as if racing one another.
It is alive.
Out there, the night practically breathes back at you.

My Dad was a very tall man with midnight hair. He loved to sport a beard and he was in the Clampers. He built motorcycles and cherished his Harley.

When I was a small child, he frightened me. I was quiet and shy, and he was loud and boisterous.

He use to tell me that as a baby I scared him, because I never cried. I would just sit up and watch everyone. That is when he started calling me "Bocco Dinky Dau." Sometimes that was shortened to just Dinky dau.
I loved it because he ONLY called me that. It was special....Until I finally asked what it meant when I was a teenager.

"What does that mean? And why do you only call me that?"

"Uhhhhh" He looked at my stepmom and she shrugged

He chuckled and looked uncomfortable.

I shall share with you the meaning:

Crazy or crazy in the head. Derived from half French half Vietnamese. Boocoo (Beaucoup) Dien cai dau (Crazy, or literally "crazy head").
A phrase used by Vietnamese street vendors to American GI's to suggest that GI's bargaining offer is crazy. Before Americans stepped onto Vietnamese soil the French were there for around 150 years so their influence can be seen.

Yeah. I'm a crazy head. Thanks Dad.


After my dads accident, he could no longer work.
And that is when he introduced me to Star Wars, Dune and Tron.
Robocop, Superman and Ghostbusters.

This is why I love Star Wars so much. All of these characters bring back that feeling from childhood. The same one I got when I was tucked into the next couch over, annoyingly asking questions a mile a minute, enjoying every single moment that he gave just to me.

When I was grown and had my son my dad use to just watch us together. He would laugh at me and one day, he approached me during a visit to my grandmas. His eyes were worried. His once midnight hair was now grey and his eyes sat behind reading glasses.

"I worry that I did not do enough with you girls."
(My sister and I were always "you girls")

"What do you mean?" (I knew what he meant)

"I just, was always busy. I don't know. I feel like I could have done more."

What was sitting before me was regret. Clothed in age and bent in pain.

I remember staring at him and wanting to tell him the truth. I did. I wanted to ask him why he couldn't just spend time with my sister and I. Why couldn't he ever make us feel special? Why did he always feel awkward around me? Why did he always have to marry people to take care of us.

Instead I lied to him.
The relief on his face was palpable.

I went home and wrote him a letter. It was titled "I remember...."
And it was full of the good things that filled my childhood. It was full of happy memories and grand words. I gave it to him for his last birthday.

I've seen my dad cry twice in my life.
Once when his favorite horse Keneta died. And once when he read that letter.

Who needs to work hard all of their life and have the bad parts come back to life? Nobody.
That day I gifted him with memories of a child, with relief and with love.

My father passed away that following November, and tucked away in his white bible were the words Entrophy + Chaos....and my letter.

I see so many different types of daddies in my line of work. I see loving ones and scared ones. I see absent ones and present ones.
They are all important to their children.

The actions that they take are the memories of generations. The memories that will be told and written down in letters and tucked away in White bibles.

They are important.

They are relevant.

Every time you walk into that room, and you scoop up your child and hold her to your heart. Every time you smooth down her hair and tell her she is beautiful and intelligent and that you love her. Those feelings that she has will be remembered. The smell of your hair and the feeling of how safe she is will be held in her heart.

They will be cherished and when she is grown and she is loved, she will know how to do it right.