Author : Ramekon O'Arwisters
In my entire life I had never seen my father's uncovered body. Everyone
was expected to be fully dressed at all times, morning, noon, and night,
either dressed in street clothes or sleepwear. There were no exceptions.
Daddy would send you away from the supper table if you dared expect
to dine in a T-shirt. But the times were different now. If my father needed
to be moved or roll over onto his side, I helped my mother.I was shaving. One day at the age of 14, when my father saw what I was
doing and asked if I was going to get some of that shaving cream out of
my ears before I left the house. I continued trying to shave even though
there was little if any hair on my face or for that matter any where else.
Daddy also asked where I was headed to anyway. I said I was going to
a movie."Really," he said. He probably figured I was headed to downtown
Kernersville, NC with my brother or sister, or perhaps even the cute girl
across street. But he asked anyway. "Who are going with to the
movies?" he calmly asked.He was not really prepared for my response. Not many fathers are, and
frankly, I was not prepared for my response to his question either.With my face covered with shaving cream, I looked up at my father—a
mountain of a man, standing six feet tall with chiseled muscles on a
large frame, and with an expression of such affection and love glowing
through all that form—and I said, "with Ronald!"When Wit Taylor, my father, was bedridden, weak from radiation and
chemotherapy, and nearing death, he showed me for the first time his
collection of photographs that he kept locked in a safe. I asked him to tell
me about the people in the photographs, all my relatives, and when he
did I would write a small number on the back of the photograph and log
the names, dates, place with any other information he could remember
on a separate piece of paper. Dad and I did this for almost three days.
He gave me his collection of photographs. The oldest one is a
photograph of my grandfather, Robert Paul Taylor, in his World War I
army uniform. I have pictures of my grandmother and my great-
grandmother.With that, the expression of tenderness and joy upon seeing the only
male heir, the only Taylor left to bear the family name, taking his first
steps toward so-called manhood by shaving, were replaced with the
heavy concerns and burdens of fathers everywhere. He knew that look
on my face and the sparks in my eyes for a boy who lived across town
meant that this was no ordinary friendship. I was in love, and it was not
the neighbor's daughter that caught my fancy. He moved closer and
said, "Didn't you have dinner with him last night, and lunch today, and
the two of you are going to a movie together tonight?"
"It is just a movie," I said sheepishly.He moved closer; I grew frightened, and he said, "We already have one
Mark in the family. We do not need two!"
That was all my father ever said to me about being gay. He wanted me
to know he was no fool.I shaved daddy for the first time in my life, and he would let me, calm
and smiling. One time a friend of my mother's from church brought
daddy some clears oils I believed had been blessed by our pastor.
Daddy wanted mother to rub it on his back. She bristled and instructed
me to do it. What! Me?"I had never touched my father's shoulders.
I proceeded to rub the oils and became more aware of the moment, and
of his pending death, and of my own someday. While I was rubbed the
oils, his physicality, even at 76 years of age, shockingly resembled my
own. Even though I was 40 some years his junior, I could see the shape
of his fingers, how they remind me of a childhood memory of the way his
fingers resembled fat cigars, and now how my own fingers look the
same. How his skin, though weak and old, draped on his body over his
bones and muscles felt familiar to me. His muscles, that at one time
fought for more room insides his work clothes, are the same pinecone
brown color as mine. It will all become a memory, causing me to wonder
if the dead ever remember that at one time they were alive.But he never stopped me from seeing Ronald, or anyone else for that
matter and years later he often encouraged me to bring my boyfriends to
the house. "I will deal with your mother," Daddy told me. Ronald and I
were lovers throughout high school and would later join the same
fraternity-Chi Phi at UNC-Chapel Hill. My father knew who and what he
was raising and he never mistreated me--or tried to make a man out of
me. And because he never beat me or abused me in an attempt to
toughen me up in a time during the late '50s and early '60s, when doing
so would have been consider the right and proper thing for a father to do
when confronted with an effeminate son, I will always cherish his
memory. I know at least one man in my life truly loved me, and that man
was indeed my father."If you don't want these I am going to throw them out," my mother told
me when I was back home visiting. They were love letters written to my
father before he and my mother were married. She also gave me a 1922
silver dollar from my father's coin collection, his drivers' license, and a
pair of shoes, cuff links, handkerchiefs, and key chains. And a photo
album. An album of proud men: strong men, and their wives.When "daddy's little boy" wanted to be "mommy's little girl," I knew I was
in trouble. I wanted to knit, sew, bake cookies, quilt, and paint, kiss boys,
and play nurse. Now at 45 years old, I create art by adorning women's
handbags with colored pins, puzzle pieces, beads, mementos, and
charms. I know I can do these things because I have the support and
grace of a loving father in my heartRamekon O'Arwisters "SuperArt Hero" obtained a Master of Divinity from
Duke University in 1986 and has participated in Yale University School
of Art's Painting Scholarship Program. Commercial products are coded
carriers of social and political attitude in his art. Oreos join watermelon
seeds, bananas and women's handbags as the physical stand-ins for
racial and political prejudice. Ramekon "SuperArt Hero" engages
ordinary objects of consumption to reveal their deeply- rooted
symbolism, an activity that offers personal and social catharsis.
Ramekon "SuperArt Hero" was a recepient of the prestigious Artadia
Award in 2002 and attended the Djerassi Resident Artists Program in
2003. His work on paper is in the collection at The Fine Arts Museums of
San Francisco, Achenbach Foundation, San Francisco, California. In
2005, Ramekon "SuperArt Hero" displayed his artwork at the LGBT
Center at Duke University.----------------------------
Recent/Upcoming ExhibitionsJune 2006:
Queer Arts Festival, SOMA Arts (a grant from Qcc, S. F. Foundation)
Keyword : father, fathers, spiritual, sons, son. love, family, art, handbags. inspirational,
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