They say love is indefinite. If you can’t get love from anyone, it’s been said you should always be able to get it from your parents.In reality, sometimes that’s not even possible.

I always wondered where he was; had I ever seen him walking down the street in reincarnation? Had he been watching over me while I prayed in tears to him? Had he been screaming at me from above, in Paradise, to open my eyes and realize that he’s been here all along? It seemed to me that this was one person I just couldn’t get love from, my Dad. Sometimes I wonder how my life would be if he hadn’t got shot 13 times and died on his back on the pavement of a small dark block in the bottom of West Philadelphia. If this never happened then maybe things would be a lot different.

When I was 9 years old my Mom shared one of her deepest secrets. My Mom was diagnosed with Breast Cancer when she was 17. The doctors said she would never have kids; many miscarriages followed was proof. I was the miracle child. I survived all 9 months with no complications. Those were the things she told me that day. I realized that with this secret came much emotion and responsibility.

I had to be there for her, but who was going to be there for me? My Mom? She could barely even be there for herself. That became my responsibility years ago. But when was someone going to be there for me? when was somebody going to hold me when the tears finally did fall? This was when I needed my Dad to do his fatherly duties. He was supposed to be here, holding me when my Mother was too weak. I needed him, but yet I never knew him.

Or do I know my Father? I feel like I’ve known him forever, while at the same time feeling empty because I don’t know him personally. In my weakest moments I hear him tell me what I should have done, could have done, and tell me that the past is the past so get over it. His voice comforts me like a teddy bear to a 5 year old little girl. My mom always told me he had a hard exterior, but a really huge heart and that everything he did was out of love. In those moments I hear him, i think about how similar we are, from what people tell me at least. Mom says we have the same smile and we both feel the need to keep our feelings private. The only way I can free my feelings is to write, just like him. My grandmother said our eyes are so much the same it makes her jaw drop.

As my mind clouded with sadness, I reluctantly realized his screams were fear -- the fear of his daughter feeling alone and abandoned. These thoughts hit me in the head like bullets, all 13 of them.

While opening my eyes, I realize that in my darkest moments I would have seen his footprints in the sand behind mine because he always had my back. I never thought that I could love someone so much who I can’t touch. If only I would have come to my senses, literally, I could have felt how my head lay gently on his chest while hearing not a heartbeat, but the most beautiful song.