This Father’s Day is among the first holidays since my loving and beloved father, Willie James Kendricks, passed away on March 7, 2018, roughly a week before his 77th birthday on the Ides of March. Whenever I write about my Dad, my eyes get blurry with tears and memories. My father’s passing broke my heart, punching a black hole in my world.
Willie James often remarked that “no one is promised tomorrow,” and he sought to live with as much gusto as possible. My father’s rock-solid faith in God helped him weather many storms in life. I hope that his religious beliefs that defined his identity were not shaken during the darkest hours in his roughly nine-month illness filled with multiple, extended stays in hospitals and skilled nursing facilities.
Even when my father’s body grew frail, he had a fighting and resilient spirit. In recent years, I helped my father bathe, and he would talk and I would listen. I cherished the everyday intimacies that provided opportunities to show my father just how much I loved him. During these vulnerable moments, my father would say, “once an adult, twice a child.” I did my best to put him at ease. I would have done anything for my Dad and I knew that he would done the same for me.
It is nearly impossible to sum up a lifetime spent in the wonderful company of this remarkable and caring person who had the greatest impact on me; a true gentleman who valued family and friendship above all else.
My father wore many hats after graduating from Willow Run High School in Ypsilanti, Michigan in 1959. He worked his way through his studies with a four-year academic scholarship at the University of Michigan, earning a Bachelor of Science in Education in 1963.
Born in LaGrange, Georgia in 1941, Willie James was an excellent judge of character and many of his closest friends knew him since childhood. Other friends met him when he was a young man teaching math and science in Detroit Public Schools and in St. Croix of the U.S. Virgin Islands where my parents met and fell in love. Like me, each of them loved my father deeply.
Willie James moved from teaching into computer programming, working as a systems analyst; a lead systems programmer, a senior software engineer, and a software design specialist for various companies. After retiring as a computer systems analyst/ engineer from the City of Los Angeles’ Water Treatment program in 2005, Willie James moved to a beach-front condo in North Carolina’s scenic Carolina Beach, attaining his longtime dream of living near the ocean. He returned to work as a nuclear engineer for General Electric before retiring once more and moving back to San Diego in 2016.
I inherited my best qualities from my father: Creativity, compassion, kindness, and a sense of humor. My father’s love for classic movies inspired me to pursue my passion for cinema as an artist, filmmaker and educator. He never tired of watching his favorite movies like 1931’s King Kong, 1939’s Gone with the Wind, and other gems in a list compiled over a lifetime of moviegoing.
Willie James was deeply proud of his meaningful personal relationships as a father and husband, a brother and an uncle, a cousin to many, and a grandfather to his granddaughter Ashley. My father’s excellent example demonstrated that nothing is more important than family. Home is more than a fixed address; it is a state of mind where my father built a fortress of unconditional love for my mother Basilia, my sister Daphne, and me that travelled with us wherever we went.
My father lived his life with dignity, respect for himself and others, coupled with a sense of awe for everyday miracles. My happiest moments in life were when my father was at my side: Riding our bikes when I was kid, camping as father and son in the Grand Canyon’s Havasu Falls; a family trip to Yosemite National Park with its towering redwoods, and driving my grandmother Gertude Kendricks’ car cross country with my Dad and taking our time to frequently stop and marvel at America’s gorgeous landscapes.
Some bonds can never be broken, even in death. My father was my guardian, best friend, and my one-and-only hero. I miss my father every second of every minute of every hour of every day. I know that my broken heart will ache all the more on present and future Father’s Days, Thanksgivings, birthdays and Christmas Days to come.
When the day comes for me to shuffle off this mortal coil, I pray that loved ones will bury me at my father’s side in Belleville, Michigan where I was born, and that I will be greeted by his wonderful laugh and marvelous smile in the hereafter. That is my hope – the dream of a good son missing his wonderful father. I love you Daddy, today, tomorrow, and always.
Kendricks is an Adjunct Lecturer at Southwestern College.
