Letter to a '231' Area Code

First of all let me say, this letter could have come out a number of ways. I never intended anger to overpower its overall message: anger is simply a hateful thing, a killer of the human soul. So I have tried instead to let the letter speak for itself. This is what has come out of me, out of the million artful ways I could have expressed it---There is so much more to say, so many memories to grip unto, so many questions to ask, so many wrongs to right, so many rights to recognize...There is hurt enough in the act of "leaving" to let it consume the heart. Yet, there is enough love, more than enough love to take the steps to take to fix this thing we all call the father-daughter relationship:

I still remember the far away sensation of biting into a green mango sprinkled with salt and how the salt used to sting my tongue as if a cut lay there, open. Oh, but how good and how unique the taste! Oh, what a surprise for the palate! Do you remember? Sometimes, the anger I feel toward you is just like a bitter mango, do you know? It rises out of me in moments when I cannot believe what you have done to this thing they call a father-daughter relationship. Simply turned your heel on it. Simply left, simply put. And what of us in this disruption? Your First Daughters and your Woman? We used to sit and wait for news of you from an ocean away and still we only get the benefit of a morning call from the other side of a 231 area code. Do you realize? It’s been 10 years now. Can you imagine? Ten years since we first dropped you off at the station and I think I knew from the way the sun sat in the sky, smiling upon us that day; I think I knew that this was a definite goodbye. Ten years later now, and the presentiment has proven true. Sadly true. Stark-white true, because I still have not heard your step in my ears, have not seen your walk back toward me. And I/we are still holding out-Hope.Ten years now. No- more I think. I think…How long? Please, tell me how long? What? You don’t know? What? You’re losing track? What? Too long now, too late now for anger and tears and resentment and grudges; too long now for anger still to be clawing at my insides as if on life support. Yes my anger is dying, disappearing, dissipating and in its place, what? I don’t know. Maybe freedom waits at the horizon, maybe peace sits beneath the clouds, waiting. I must remind myself that it’s been enough years for you not to find the girl you left when you come back because if you don’t believe in destiny, believe in this: We must hold out, hold out Hope. I will always remember the far away sensation of biting into a green mango sprinkled with salt and how the salt, upon contact with my mouth, made my tongue feel as if drops of hot pepper had rained on it. Was it pepper or my childish imagination? Can you taste it now? Oh, I hope the faint memory never fades from memory. Oh, I pray that the umbilical cord is never cut, away from you. Away from this Beautiful, Soulful Land they say we are all borne of: We are all Children of Africa. Are we? All? Do you know? I love my Mother for all that she is and all she has done. I love my Mother for all the belief she has placed in me, me the perfect example of an imperfect individuality. And I forgive you my Father; I forgive you for acting on the hope that the grass was greener in your Motherland. For leaving me/us. For forcing me/us to write to you, speak to you from the other side of a 231 area code. For we are your first born set of daughters and the bond of blood is thicker than water. I hope for you my father that we find each other again. Shall it be in real time? I hope for you/us that it shall be. I hope for you. I hope for you that we will look where we slipped and not where we fell in this thing they call a father-daughter relationship. Hope waits as impatiently as I do-on the other side of this boundary. Hope waits for us to mend our rupture, one timeless rip at a time. To Alpha Amadou my father, with Love in real time,Your Daughter.