November 1980, Sharon, my wife at the time and I drove down to Wichita Fall, Texas to visit with my brother and his wife, Rose. Rose put us up in a back bedroom with an iron bedstead, iron rails and wood slats, also open springs and a cotton mattress.
Then four months later when she started to show, Sharon told me she thought the baby was conceived on that bed in my brother's back bedroom. And that thought was born out when nine months later, almost to the day, Christy Danae was born on August 15, 1981.
Black Baby Bed
Christy was a wonderful child but she had a few problems to overcome, one that required correctional shoes and another where she had to wear glasses for a while.
My favorite memory of Christy is when she was three and four years old, dressed in a triangular shaped dark blue and white dress with white leotards, black patent leather shoes, her hair cut straight across the front, around the sides and back, a round face and wearing a pair of glasses as thick as the bottom of a pop bottle.
One day I was in the master bedroom working on my computer with my briefcase lying open on the floor when Christy came in dressed just as I've described with a piece of paper and pencil in her hand. She sat down beside me and started to scratch lines, figures and letter on her paper.
Finally she said, "Daddy, how do you fix your mistakes?
I turned around, glanced down and saw her staring at a small bottle of white out in the briefcase and decided to play with her. I turned back around to face my computer and said, "Christy, I don't make mistakes."
She immediately pointed toward the small bottle and said, "Then what is the white stuff in that little bottle in you suse case?"
A month later, dressed the same and looking the same, she was seated cross-legged in front of the TV in the living room. I had just come in from work and was stretched out in my recliner behind her when a commercial came on offering help to those with a drinking problem.
Christy didn't take her eyes off the TV, not deviating to the left or to the right. Then, when the commercial was over, she turned around to me.
"Daddy, do we have a drinking problem?" She said.
Surprised, I said, "No, honey. We don't have a drinking problem."
Christy then immediately turned back around to face the TV, very confident and settled back into place and said, "no, cause I don't drink that much bad stuff!"
Christy continued to grow and was able to maintain her inquisitive demeanor but began to lose in other areas, becoming obnoxious, even a little arrogant at times. And when she was eight years old we were living in a house on Merlin Circle in Pryor, Oklahoma. My middle daughter, Amy, from a previous marriage was there, also Christy's older brother, Jimmie, both of who were twelve.
One Sunday afternoon we were having a family meeting discussing everyone's chores, when Jimmie raised his hand to speak. He said, "I promise to keep my room picked up and all my stuff out of the living room."
Amy raised her hand and said, "I promise to do the same with my stuff."
Then, when it came Christy's turn, she stood up and stared straight at me. She said, "Dad, I think you should have a job..."
I stopped her in mid sentence and said, "Christy, I do have a job. I go to work every day."
"Yes, but I go to school, Dad. It's the same thing. You don't do anything. All you do is come home, eat supper, gripe and go lay down on the couch and go to sleep. I think you should have a job"
She definitely had a mind of her own and Frankly, I don't remember how our confrontation was resolved. But there is one thing for sure I remember and that is, when her mother and I were divorced several years later, Christy chose to live with me.
First we moved into a small trailer on south Elliott then into the Meadow Trace apartments and finally into the Bissell Apartments in the south of Pryor. I gave Christy the larger of two bedrooms with a queen size bed and I took the other. And we lived there together for three years - just Christy and I.
Then one day just a week before Christy was to graduate from high school, she was out with some of her friends and I went into her room and sat down on her bed and just sat there, glancing around at all the memorabilia hanging on the walls, lying on her dresser, propped up in the corners, and on her bed, and thought about all our time together.
Finally I got up from the bed and walked back into the living room and found a pen and writing pad and came back to the bedroom, sat down and wrote the following poem.
I called it: To My Senior.
Here is the poem.
Today I went into your room
I brought you some school supplies
You were not there, I saw that so
I remained to reminisce for a while
You've lived with me for many a month
Living under my wing so to speak
I take care of you as best I can
Mostly words, a few clothes, and me
And now as I gaze about in your room
The pictures and stories they tell
The friends and places, the happy faces
Of the years growing up with me
There are pictures of girls with curls of gold
And places they want to be
Of boys and toys and special notes
All works of art to me
A blue cap and gown, a yellow tassel,
A senior picture and your yearbook
Some cards and letters, a favorite joke
All treasures to keep forever
I feel a tear and it falls away
As I turn to leave your room
My little girl has grown into a lady
From a baby, in just a few short years.
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