Nothing says rebellion like marking your body and punching holes into it. I used to walk past this tattoo and piercing shop in Bethesda oftentimes too tipsy to remember. I’m sure I swayed more than I limbered. Not even three months after my Dad passed away, I sat there determined to live the life I needed to move on.

Before my Dad passed away, I started that journey in the most responsible way imaginable. I was in the process of getting my driver’s license and paying off school so I could re-enroll, planning to graduate from University of Maryland University College and then heading off to George Mason University School of Public Policy and Government, dead set on working in public policy for underserved women. My feminist roots grew in 2012, volunteering for the the local chapter of National Organization of Women. I knew what I wanted to do for a career, finally moving on from those journalism dreams of my teens and twenties. Ciara wanted to change the world.

The first responsible move I made after my Dad passed away was to pay off my remaining balance at Drexel, which by then was down to $1,300. He left my brother and I close to $45,000 to help us both rebuild after his passing. I thought this was it. I punched my ticket to living my best life, my gift to live this life.

My Dad and I were super close. Although parents should never be their child’s best friend, my Dad was the closest he could be to that without losing that structure and discipline all parents possess. Every day I came home from work, I’d first walk downstairs to his office, this place he built from scratch. I remember when he put up the drywall and wired the electricity. Always the electrical engineer, he found joy in carpentry when the world became chaotic around him. I didn’t know we were mere months away from foreclosure, not knowing that my Dad charged me rent not because he wanted to teach me a life skill but rather because he couldn’t afford to pay the utilities.

My Dad was unemployed during my high school and college years. By the time of his death, he lived off of his pension from the phone company and my rent. After being forced to retire from the phone company, he tried his hand at doing odd jobs to pay the bills, cashing out stock options and hurdling deep into credit card debt. Through all of this, he never told me how dire life became for all of us. Even as I would drag my body down into his office every day to complain about my earliest forays into corporate America, he never felt called to divulge the truth of our situation. He didn’t want to scare me. It was his problem to solve, not ours.

I picked up that trait from him. Sadly.

Even in that Hell, my Dad left his life insurance policy untouched. In retrospect, I wish he cashed it out and paid the penalty. My brother and I would have found a way to be okay. But even in his worst moment, he refused to think about himself. My Dad was deathly loyal. Another trait passed down to me.

In his absence, I vowed to be responsible but then I realized that I didn’t have those eyes watching me or that office to saunter into every night. Seeing my Dad everyday kept my eyes on the prize, a constant reminder to keep it clean, to make him proud. I remember writing inside of a birthday card for him that I was thankful he didn’t give up on me when I left college. “I really needed to hear that. Thank you,” he said. I needed to redeem myself for the gift given to me to start over even when I didn’t deserve it. Before he passed, I was on the road to redemption. To my father’s pride.

That pride would go off on me when I would come home late from the city. He feared for my life, his 20-something year old daughter who dated more men than she could remember, who spent nights in Washington D.C. and didn’t come home until the morning. I had to call him when I would be out late just so he knew I was alive. I would creep into the house at 1:00 AM so I wouldn’t wake him. I would go straight to a happy hour and not his office. I missed his bedtime hugs. I know he hated that. I never brought a man into the house, for both parties’ sanity. I didn’t want my Dad to meet some dude that wouldn’t be around for the long run. That felt disrespectful. Having sex in cars parked outside of the house was okay but meeting my Dad? Not cool.

I went to spend a weekend with a man instead of visiting my Dad after I made the decision to take him off of life support. I broke my promise.

I made it my mission to fulfill that promise even in his death. But as I started my journey to complete my dreams even in his absence, I realized something: he was absent. That’s all it took.

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