The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face

The First Time Ever I Saw 1

By Kenyatta Yamel2

Most of us never remember the first time we saw our fathers because we saw them when we were new-borns. In the movies, they always show fathers waving like crazy at sleepy children. The first people most movie children see are their pretend nurses. They earn a few dollars for their trust funds while barely conscious.3

The rest of us come home our parents without having entered the labor market. Safe in our homes, we were held, kissed and fussed over by dozens of adults we knew nothing about. But the ones who were most loving and consistent, those were our parents. It was instinctive, the feelings of warmth and protection they instilled in us. Feelings which were legalized by county officials issuing birth certificates with our names and our parents. My birth name, Brian, means “strong and of good courage,” symbolizing my mother’s hopes for me. My last name, Lee, marked me as the son of John Lee, a 27 year old man from Arkansas.4

Somewhere in Buffalo, New York, John Lee had met and attracted my mother Helena. She was an optimistic young woman who dreamed of becoming a nurse. Born in a small town outside of Buffalo, she still had those old-fashioned values about faithfulness. Her two questions have been asked of men since our ancestor “Lucy” lived in Africa centuries ago. “Will you honor me?” and “Do you love me?” Almost invariably, these men, including John Lee, answered yes. From such a union, I was conceived and delivered into this world an African American male child.5

Between conception and my settling into home life, there were many broken promises and lies. Friends of Helena warned her, “Girl, you know not to trust that man, he’s just a snake and he will take you down, too.”6

They even told her, he was not the naïve country man he presented himself as. “John Lee is worldly, Helena, not for no girl that wants a man who can take care of her.” 7

John’s lies led to recriminations. I can hear my mother asking him, “Why you breakin my heart like this, John? Why? What had I ever done to you?” What had she done? She had loved, trusted and believed in the face of what her mind had told her.8

How could John respond, that cheating and running up under any woman’s skirts was hereditary? He had learned it from his daddy and his grand daddy? No, he told her straight out, “You ain’t the first woman’s heart I’m gonna break and it won’t be the last. That’s what I do.”9

Soon after that argument, the slender black man who was my father left our lives. His smile, his confident walk, his… Who am I kidding? I don’t know who this man was. All I knew was, my last name was changed from Lee to Land, in honor of my older sister’s father. A new birth certificate was issued announcing this new person to the world. Today, they would call this re-birthing. All very neat and simple: as the child slept the county, his mother and his sister’s father changed his identity. But no one counted on my curiosity. Curiosity is the spark that gives rise to life saving inventions. Without someone’s imagination, we would never have found penicillin, electricity or fire. But curiosity can also shatter a young child’s innocence. 10

There I was, the second of 4 post World War II children in a city deeply divided by race and a family divided by hurt. To express my confusion, I began writing a poem called “Where Is My Father”, that began in an African village and ended in America. These are the things that trouble a young man’s mind when he is uncertain about his very existence. Seeking answers and yet, secretly dreading what he will learn…. 11

Just as my mother never counted on my curiosity, I never counted on the mediocrity of the Buffalo Public School System. A system my mother had battled to prevent me and my younger brother and sister from becoming its victims. Discards passed through without their parents’ knowledge, on a road leading to Attica State Prison or the Bethlehem Steel blast furnace and the cemetery. I graduated and went away to college, leaving my brother to struggle with an undiagnosed learning disorder. Who will worry about the reading or non-reading ability of a young black boy? Who will know how he felt when his father died? What did he grieve? The times, they were a changing. Slowly but surely, they ensnared my younger brother, causing him to take flight.12

When I was 19, I discovered my younger brother had stolen my birth certificate and used it to travel across country. The army was calling and I needed to prove my identity to prove I was old enough to die for America. When the replacement document arrived I uncovered the story of my life long deception as the names Brian Lee and John Lee appeared. I asked my mother “Who was John Lee?”13

She answered “John Lee was a mistake who caused me great pain. Now, let’s just leave it at that.” However, I could no more ignore my sense of betrayal than I could vote for George Wallace. Why wasn’t I allowed the option of finding and loving this man on my own terms? Who was my father? I searched deep within, finding the strength to continue my journey. I traveled from military service to civilian life and from elation to depression. Still, something kept me from gaining my bearings. To this day, listening to “A Song For My Father” in the background as I type, I feel what I lacked was a sense of certainty.14

Suddenly, one day, when I was a graduate student about to embark upon a career as a professional librarian, my mother came to me with news. She had located my father and I was welcome to go see him. This is the story of the first time I saw my father, a slender black man of medium height and build: probably the same 5 feet 9 and 165 pounds I carry. He was in a fine suit and had a full head of grey hair that bode well for my future. I was going to keep my nappy hair through the warmest summer for a long, long time.15

Seeing my father was the best and worst day of my life. I was the first one in my family to have graduated from college as I sought the key to the future. Unfortunately, I never had the opportunity to tell my father anything about this as he lay there peacefully in his casket. I signed the guest list as “the son he never knew” while my younger self advised, “always be strong and of good courage.”16