Al Letson - A Father Figures

 

 

So, it's late March, several years ago, and I'm in the Jacksonville Memorial Gardens graveyard. I've got on this black suit and I'm lost. And this black suit, I wear it here every time I come here this time of year. By the end of the day, the suit will have grass stains on my knees. I'll have walked this area several times looking for a grave that I can't find, and I will feel like the worst human being in the world, the worst ex-husband, the worst father, because I can't find the grave of my daughter. 

 

Lauren Lashanda Letson was born March 27th, 1999. She also passed away on that day. But how we got there is a long story. It goes way back. See, I got married really young. I mean, really young. So young that I was actually playing with Legos and reading comic books at the time. The marriage might have worked out. It may have been okay. But right after we got married, I got a call from the Seattle, Tacoma, Washington district attorney's office telling me that I had a paternity case against me. See, when I was 17, I had gotten a girl pregnant. I didn't know about it. She moved away. And six years later, she popped up. So, that really put a lot of strain on a young relationship. 

 

And so, at the time I was a flight attendant, which was really cool because when things got bad at home, I could get on the plane and leave. But as time went on and you have a couple that has the emotional maturity of the entire cast of 90210, [audience chuckles] the first series, not the second, [audience chuckles] things get really hard. It just became a little bit impossible. And things were falling apart everywhere. As we all know, when a marriage is falling apart, the number one thing you need to do to bring that marriage together is have a baby. 

 

And so, I wasn't really excited about having a child. I mean, yeah, I just like, “Whatever. It's whatever.” I would go to all the doctor visits. I did all the requisite things that a good husband and father does. But I wasn't crazy about the idea. And then, one night, I was in the bed with my ex-wife and my back was to her stomach and the baby started kicking me. She kicked so hard-- It was really late at night, like 1 o’clock. She kicked so hard that it woke me up. I'm a little groggy, and so I poked her back. [audience chuckles] And she kicked. I poked and she kicked, and I poked and she kicked. We must have played for about a half an hour. It was a great time until her mother woke up and told us both to go to sleep. [audience laughter] 

 

So, after that, I fell in love. I would play music on her stomach. I would sing to her. I would read books to her the whole night. I fell in love with this little girl. When my wife gave birth to my daughter, Brooklyn, she came out and she was screaming. I walked over to her and I said, "What's the matter, baby?" and she stopped screaming, and she turned her head towards me. After that, the deal was sealed. Like, she would cry sometimes as an infant, and all I had to do was come in the room and she'd stop. I used to have conferences with her when she was six months old, telling her, "Listen, you have to be nicer to your mother. It's not cool that you only want me." She was really tight with me.

 

But the marriage didn't get better. Things were falling apart. I wasn't the best husband. I was really immature. After a while, I decided that I had to leave. So, we started doing the breakup game, where you go away for a week and then you come back, and you go away for a week and you come back. And one of those weeks, when I had come back, one thing led to another and she got pregnant again. I thought to myself, "Well, okay, okay. I can't leave now. What kind of man would I be to leave this woman with two little babies?" So, I decided to stick it out. But I was just so angry, because I felt like my entire life, I didn't know who I was and I was finally beginning to figure that out. Who I wasn't really fitting into this concept of what this marriage was. But I decided to stay.

 

I did all the things that a good father is supposed to do. I went to all the doctor's appointments, I tolerated the baby shower, all of that stuff. One night, I was laying in the bed and her stomach was pressed up against my back and the baby kicked. And this time, I was so angry and so ticked off that I got up, and got out the bed, and slept somewhere else. And every time when the baby would kick and I would feel it, I would get up and move. I didn't play any songs for her, I didn't talk to her, I didn't do anything. I just pulled myself away from it. 

 

So, one morning, I wake up and her mother says that something's wrong. And later, she would tell me that when she woke up, she didn't feel pregnant anymore. It's funny, like, when you go to the hospital under these circumstances, it’s quiet. Nobody really talks to you. No one wants to say anything. The nurses keep their eyes on the ground. They finally come over and they tell us that they couldn't find a heartbeat, and my daughter Lauren was gone. She was nine months pregnant, about a week away from delivering the baby. 

 

And to me, it just seemed so crazy. I understood a miscarriage happening earlier in the pregnancy. But at nine months, you think that nothing's going to go wrong at this point. So, at nine months pregnant, you have to give birth. It's just like regular labor. I remember everything about it. I remember the room, I remember the way it smelled, I remember the weight of Lauren after she was born and they gave me to her, exactly how she felt in my arms. I remember being surprised at how warm her body was. I thought because she had passed away that her body would be cold, but it was really warm. When I looked down at her, she was the spitting image of my daughter, Brooklyn. It could have been her twin. At this point, Brooklyn is about a year old or so. 

 

I'm looking at this baby in my arms. And for the first time, I want her more than anything in this world. There's a nurse behind me. And I think to myself, "If I don't hand her to the nurse now, I won't ever be able to let her go." So, I give her to the nurse, and she walks away. God, I just remember everything. My mom was in the room, and she had brought Brooklyn to the hospital to see us. Brooklyn actually took her first steps in that hospital room. She crawled, walked, stumbled over to me. 

 

A couple days later, we do the funeral at the Jacksonville Memorial. I'm in that black suit. I remember my family being there. And I remember my mother giving me all the cards for bereavement. I put one of them in my suit pocket. They must have came off of some flowers, because there was a pin, and the pin pricked me. And it really hurt. Right when that pin pricked me, my mother said to hold on to these cards, because you needed to write thank you cards to everybody. And I thought, "I'm not writing anybody any fucking thank you cards."

 

I'm there, and they bury my daughter, and we go home. I stay with her mother about as long as I could, as what I felt was a proper amount of time before I could actually leave. Because I couldn't take it anymore. I couldn't stand to look at her. Not because I thought that she had done something wrong, but because I felt that I had done something wrong. Like, I couldn't stand her even looking my way, because I just felt so guilty. My little girl, as she's grown up, she was fascinated with the idea that she has a little sister that passed away. She would ask me about it all the time, and I would tell her anything she wanted to know, except when she asked me how she died. 

 

I just could never bring that up. I could give her the physical explanation of the umbilical cord got wrapped around her legs, it cut off circulation, and she passed away. I could give her that. But I felt in my heart that was a lie, that she died because she thought her daddy didn't love her. And it ate me up. I couldn't tell my little girl that. So, I would always tell her just to ask somebody else, ask her mother. 

 

Years later, I meet somebody, I fall in love. There are just some things that don't ever get better. The person that I meet, she tells me that I'm great. I tell her that I'm a murderer, she tells me, "No, you're not." It feels good for someone to say it, even though I didn't believe it. We get married, she gets pregnant, and I'm overjoyed. I'm so happy. I am there more than I've ever been. Like, I'm there at the doctor's things. I was actually happy at the baby shower. Yeah, it was a task. [audience chuckles] But I have this fear in me that's just eating me whole, so much so that the whole front of my head goes gray. I actually dye my hair now. The whole front of my hair goes gray. 

 

While all my other friends, when their wives get pregnant, they gain weight with their wives, I start to lose weight. I can't sleep at night. Anything my wife tells me is wrong. I'm obsessing about it. I'm staying up all night long. I'm just a wreck. The slightest little thing could tip me off. She's about eight or nine months pregnant, and my daughter, Brooklyn, who I'm still extremely tight with, she asked me if this was the same time that Lauren passed away. And I tell her yes. And she asked me, "How did Lauren die?" and I just fell apart. I just wept and wept. I mean, I couldn't stop crying. 

 

My little girl, she comes over to me, and she wraps her arms around me, and she says, "Daddy, I used to dream about Lauren, and she told me to tell you that it's okay." After my son was born healthy and beautiful the next March, I went back to Jacksonville Memorial Gardens. And instead of wandering looking for a grave that I can't find, I actually went inside and I asked them, "Why can't I find my daughter? Help me." They told me that when Lauren was buried-- We didn't have a lot of money. We could barely afford the plot. We never paid for a permanent stone that we just had a temporary marker that had been pulled up. And so, I paid them to put a marker down for my daughter. But I've never even seen it. See, I didn't have to go back there anymore, because Lauren told me that it was okay. Thank you.