by Kyle Minor
I will do my best to write all the things I want to say to your daddy in this letter. I want you to forgive me for not coming to the funeral service to say them for my own self and to his face. There is a lot of reasons for it. Some of them are because I don’t go to the Baptist church anymore even though I still believe in God and pray in Jesus name. I have gray in my hair people dont gossip probably like they used to or even remember me but maybe some do I dont like there stairs when I pass by and what they are thinking about me and what kind of mother is walking by them when I walk by. Also I am not a disrespectful person especially to somebody like Leslie Ratliff when I first heard about the brain cancer I just cried and cried you can ask anybody around because they all heard me. Not just because I felt sorry for him with his pain or but because it really is such a blow to loose him we loved him so much.
Let me start at the beginning because I know your daddy was a discrete man and wouldnt tell everybodys business so you might not know. We had a daughter. Her name was Sheila. When she was born she was the love of our life mine and her daddy too. She was bad sometimes and got into things but thats how children do and she wasnt any different. We didnt have much trouble with her until she got to teen age. Even then she wasnt so bad but just wanted to wear makeup a lot of dark makeup around her eyes thick blue eye shadow and red lipstick and so forth. She was never one to mouth off but some kinds of rebellion are silent like the preachers say the devil doesnt come dressed up in a red Halloween suit he is more like to be the man in the suit and tie on the airplane real handsome with his hair slicked back and two hundred dollar shoes. Well Sheila was very pretty and spoke good to everybody and cleaned up nice and dolled up she was a prize fit for a movie star actor or a tv anchorman or a rich man which I admit to thinking back then that Sheila was just going to catch the eye of one of those boys in her class from Palm Beach who was going to be a doctor or lawyer or inherit a business and I could just see us out there visiting maybe taking one of those yachts to the Bahamas because that is something her daddy had in common with a lot of those guys with the yachts is he was and is a very good watercraft man. People who are into watercraft know who is able and who is not able and you get respect that way no matter how much money you have or dont have and I know it because we have ended up on boats with people like that and it always worked out okay even though it made me a nervous wreck because you always wonder what people like that think about a hairdresser and a Sheet Metal Technician II nearly to Sheet Metal Technician I certification.
So we could of went on like that and everything turned out okay like it does for other families whose daughter wants to wear some makeup or hoop ear rings or a short skirt like many do since we might be in the Last Days before Armageddon and Jesus riding on the white horse to rapture the living and the dead in Christ will rise first. But one day a mimeograft paper comes home from school about the senior trip. Sometimes the senior class goes to Europe but this senior class the note said is a very special one and they the students voted to make theirs a service and missions trip to the poorest most backward country in the world which is right in our backyard Haiti you see on the tv the black people men women children washing up half naked in the rick kitty boats and running from the police and hiding in the bushes the ones who werent able to get away.
Sheilas daddy and me thought there was pros and cons of going to Haiti and not Europe. On the one hand it would be a good cultural uplifting experience to see Paris and London and Big Ben and the Eyeful Tower and that one class a few years back got to go to Omaha Beach where Sheilas granddaddy almost died fighting for our freedom that would be a good thing to see. On the other hand it would be very expensive to ride the airplane over there across the ocean. They have these chicken barbqs to raise money for kids who arent rich like most of the kids but every year I watched those kids sorting dirty t-shirts for the rummage sale and their parents marking notebook paper price sheets for the silent auction items and on the day of the event the same kids and parents up there with the teachers people like or dont like in the clown dunk tank or running the duck pond for the little kids or the ring toss or whatever and all the while you see those rich kids and their parents running around like life is easy and spending the money on the expensive rummage like one year I saw this boob doctor from Palm Beach buy a real nice baby grand piano for his church then strut around like he was the Warren Buffit of charity and filanthropy, and everybody knew that his money was going to pay for some kid not much different from Sheila because of the in adiquacy of some parent like me and Sheilas daddy. Nobody wants to be made to feel that way.
It didnt matter anyway because once Haiti is where the class was going thats where Sheila was bound and determined she was going and I was not one to stand in her way. Her daddy neither. So I just signed the papers. Right away Principle Ratliff called to say there was a special senior trip scholarship fund nobody knew about so we had to keep it quiet but would we like to take advantage of it. This was not the first kindness of your daddys we had seen. I dont want you to think we were poormouthing him. We had money coming in from two jobs but tuition was not cheap at the Good Shepard Academy.
The school sent home all these lists of items to buy. Pack heavy and leave light they said. All those little Haitian kids didnt have toys so we packed some Matchbox cars and bored games and some baby dolls. We bought a pair of cheap underpants for every day the idea being to use them one time and then give them away so some Haitian lady could have a new pair of her own after it got washed. We bought packs of cheese crackers and pop tarts in case a snack was needed because it was dangerous to eat the street food and there wasnt enough at the mission to go around except for regular mealtimes.
You should of seen all those kids lined up at the airport in Miami with all there luggage and backpacks and laughing and horsing around. Me and Sheilas daddy both took the day off work and went down there to see her off. Your daddy was there too with his clipboard playing his role of principle just making sure everyone was accounted for and handing out these little hard candies butterscotches and peppermints and also some caramels to everybody just to make a nice mood. We watched that plane go up in the air through the window by the gate. Sheilas daddy said this was a big turning point in our life because soon she would be gone to college or married or both. I said she would not be our little girl anymore and he said she will always be our little girl. She will never stop being our little girl. He wasnt ashamed his eyes got wet. That wasnt like him. If you ever met him you would see a man with green navy tatoos and a weightlifter and a blackbeard just a big man some would say intimidating. That was part of who he was its true. But he was a daddy foremost and thats what killed him if I get to lay blame.
We knew while they stayed over there we wouldnt here much from the kids. Sheila only got to call us one time for about three minutes the connection was bad and it costed us fifteen dollars. She said it was so lovely the retarded children were lovely and the pregnant girls. Just to here her voice was reasuring. You know thats an island where people are fleeing from danger so you worry about violence and all that. But nothing like that happened where they were. They didnt see anything like that. She felt safe over there and maybe it would of been better if she had got a scare while she was on that senior trip.
She was real quiet when she got home but also somehow lit up like a fire beetle. You know how teen agers are moody and girls especially. We got used to that and tried to be understanding. But when Sheila got back from that trip she like to floated from cloud to cloud even if she was just vacuuming the living room. Twitterpated is what her daddy said. I agreed but there wasnt a single boy calling the house. One day I just came out and asked her and she got shy and wouldnt say very much. But after graduation I knew she was going to William Jennings Bryan College with a full scholarship even room and board then all of a sudden she said she was going to stay home and go part time to the junior college. That was worrisome, her walking away from an opportunity like that. She clammed up about why bu
t we were for sure it was a boy.
Then one Saturday morning the third week of June there was a knock on the front door. I looked through the curtain liked I used to do and it was your daddy. That was weird for the school principle to be at the door after your daughter already graduated. I called everybody to the living room then I let him in. He was wearing a two button shirt and corduroy pants, and I remember thinking that was funny because it was hard to imagine him in anything but a suit and tie and penny loafers. I offered him some tea and we all sat on the couches in the living room to talk. It was small talk for a while and then he said to Sheila would she excuse us for a few minutes. Her face was red flushed the whole time he was there then it got redder when he said that. Her daddy said Sheila you better get on to your room. After she left he said what kind of trouble has my daughter got into.
Your daddy had a real nice way with people. He said you know sometimes its not the children who get into trouble but the adults who might get them into some. He said something has happened but I am not sure exactly what or how much of it. It took him a long time to get into it but the long and short was that one of the missionaries in Haiti was an old school buddy of his from Apalachicola Bible College and maybe thats what blinded him to what must of been going on between this older man and our Sheila. He said this missionary man had wrote a letter saying would your daddy come talk to us about how him and our daughter were in love from only a few days together and then it all made sense to me why Sheila was acting like a lovesick fool and not taking her scholarship and room and board at William Jennings Bryan College.
Right away Sheilas daddy got up and started pacing the room. Principle Ratliff said if it was his daughter he would want to punch somebody in the mouth for being the bearer of bad news but he would refrane because of his love for God. But something we had to consider now that Sheila was eighteen and legally an adult was something could come of it. He asked did we think she was motivated enough to do something rash? Her daddy said he was. Principle Ratliff said that was another matter but he understood well enough because he had a daughter of his own, and here Anna you should know he went on and on about his love for you even then when you was so little he was thinking about when you would be grown and married he would be so proud of you but he wanted it to be somebody your own age or a little older who loved you and you loved. We said that was what we wanted for our daughter too.
We called Sheila into the living room and told her in front of your daddy and all of us what he had said and was it true? She was slippery about it. She said that this man Brother Samuel she had met was very nice and they had got close but no closer than very close friends. Nothing unto ward had happened. Principle Ratliff said he had a mimeograft letter he would give to us so we could see what Brother Samuel had said and from here on out he would leave the matter to our family to make some choices about but he would help if he could he just didnt know what more he should do about it telling us was the right thing to do he thought.
I must have read that letter a hundred times since then including one time today. That letter is really what got so much of this thing off the ground between Sheila and Samuel Tillotson. One day I came home and saw her reading it and she was cucumber eyed like she had been getting. I said that is poison and fire you are playing with and she acted like it wasnt. At that age you know everything or think you do.
A couple of times the phone rang and she answered it then said a few words like she was speaking code. After that she would leave the house all the time. Later we found out she was going to my sisters house her aunt Glory that traitor. Over there she was talking to Samuel long distance Lord knows how much it was costing him or how he was paying for it. What we know now is they were making their plans. One day she was there in the kitchen cutting carrots and the next day she was gone. He swooped in on the airplane and took her up to his brothers house in north Florida and they came back married and saying they were moving to Haiti in two days.
At the time what I thought was what can I do about it now? What is done is done. Marriage has always been sacred to us we are belivers in Jesus. Now I am more sophisticated about my thinking on it. Now I think my daughter was just a child and you cant make a child enter into a binding agreement she was manipulated into. We should of pushed for an annulment like her daddy wanted and put our foot down and said no way are you leaving the country no way with that man old enough to be your daddy with salt and pepper hair and crows feet at the corners of his eyes and his teeth gone so yellow already. But then I just thought what can you do? She was already a year older than I was when I married her daddy.
We said stay at our house then even though it was strange but they had already got a room at the Holiday Inn on Okeechobee Road the same place where her daddy and me had our honeymoon so that was a strange thing to ponder all those memories and think of what was going on in that hotel room. So we took them to a very nice expensive dinner at the Red Lobster to celebrate the wedding we had not been invited to or told about. That was very hurtful even though it saved a lot of money I always wanted to give Sheila the kind of wedding like I never had with a big white cake and a train for her dress and I was going to do her hair up in a tiara and spend a lot of time getting it just right like nobody did for me. A church wedding and not a reception in the church fellowship hall but a real banquet hall someplace like in the movies.
I was real proud of Sheilas daddy during that dinner he leaned over to Samuel Tillotson. He was trembling which is as unusual as tears for him or it was then. He said now that you are a part of our family I want to welcome you into it and you are like a son to me. Which was funny because they were about the same age. He said I just want one thing from you and thats you take good care of my daughter because she is the only thing we got in the world worth a tinkers dam we dont even care about the house or the cars its just her we would give anything in the world for her and you should feel the same way. And Samuel to his credit said that he did feel the same way and we should all feel good knowing that Sheila would be very loved. Right then he put his hand on both our shoulders and prayed there in the restaurant for the family we were becoming to each other. That was embarrassing for us but it would of been impolite to say so because this seemed like a real important moment for all of us. Plus we wanted everything to be nice since Sheila was leaving and it might be a while before she could get back home to see us.
We drove them to the airport. They sat in the back seat and held hands. I didnt like the way Sheila was dressed for the trip a little tarty but I tried to keep it to myself because she was leaving like I said. I had made sure she had all her comfort things she needed and things to do her hair curling irons and so forth. I kept thinking something was missing and later I relized it was some of her stuffed bears she slept with every night until then that her uncle Frank got her when she was little for Chrismas one year. At the terminal there she said Sammy I am hungry can you bring me something? Her daddy like to leaped up to run get her a sandwich. He brought back four sandwiches and four ice cream sandwiches. Her pretty mouth was chewing. Her mouth was always so pretty. I saw Samuel looking at her mouth like a wolf but what could I say I couldnt say nothing they was married.
Her daddy was always quiet but he got more quiet. There was a plane that went down sometimes from the missionary flights international sometimes we brought down some packed boxes with cheese crackers, magazines, granola bars, fresh underwear to give the old ones to those Haitian ladys and pass the goodwill along. I always wrote a letter too but Sheila didnt write back very much. When she did it was short and she just wanted something like feminine products which I was happy to send the next box. One day your daddy called and said its Principle Ratliff but we can be friends now so just call me Leslie and thats what we called him from then until the day he died. He said what can I do and I told him there was nothing to be done about our daughter whats done is done but my husband has got very quiet.
A few days after that your daddy knocked on the door again it
was early evening. He told Sheilas daddy he heard we was going to put an addition on our house. Sheilas daddy said that was no longer because the addition was for a guest room for visiting grandbabys and no body of that discription was going to visit us now they just planned to stay overseas always. And your daddy, Leslie, he said time has a way of working these things out. He was very gentle. He said he knew a few things about construction. He was good with electrical work and he could knock out walls with hammers and crowbars and he could hang dry wall and he could lay all kinds of floors from tile to laminate to wood or even carpet.
Every Saturday for eight months after ward he came over and helped Sheilas daddy with that addition. We lived with a open house for a long time. Just Visqueen hanging over the open part to protect from the wind and rain. When we was both gone to work or shopping or church the old jewish lady two houses catty corner from the mailbox was agreeable to watch over the house so no robbers saw no one was home and stole from us. We got a dog too. Big Doberman named Sweetheart. Sweetheart loved your daddy. Thats another way of knowing how good a man he was because guard dogs know bad people.
Almost two years that guest room sat finished and empty. We bought a bed to put it in there but no body slept in it. One day on the six o clock news came word that Baby Doc Duvaliay was fleeing from a cooday taw. We heard there was un rest but the reports now got bad. Somebody at the Baptist church brought over some articles from the Miami newspaper which covered Haiti a lot because of all the Haitians living there and sure enough it was bad enough we got worried. Sheilas daddy said he was going over there on the first plane but the missionary board called and said no planes were getting in and dont go over any way it could put Sheilas life in danger if not handled right the customs being different over there and kind of savage with bribes and extortions possible.