She had run away again. This is what she would do when she faced difficult situations. She would run. All of the therapy, all of the meditation, all of the long talks, all of the punishments didn’t stop her from running. When she would return, she would assure us that it wasn’t a lack of love or support from us that motivated her to run. She would tell us that what she was seeking could not be found in our home. She called it adventure. Her therapist called it impulsiveness.
We tried to address her need for adventure in a healthy way. We helped her to travel abroad. We even sent her to live with my sister in Colorado with another sister’s daughter. We enrolled her in an online charter school to give her more freedom with her time.
This time it was different. She was running because her heart was broken.
When she returned home this time, I was emotional, and fresh out of patience. I met her with anger. I was angry that she allowed someone to push her to act careless and reckless. In my usual fashion, I began to lay out how her behavior made me feel and how disappointed in her I was. She met my fire with fire of her own. She began to tell me how she didn’t care about my feelings, and how she desired death, and ran because she needed to feel pain. She blamed herself for what she saw as a failed relationship. I didn’t listen to her. I couldn’t hear her. I didn’t understand what she was expressing. All I could see was her youth and a natural dissolve of young love, but she saw devastation. She was the perfect mixture of me and her father. She would self destruct before hurting someone else, not realizing how hurtful it is for those who love you to witness such a thing.
This time she was running from rejection. She needed to do something dangerous and dirty to make herself feel that she deserved to be rejected. She ran because she knew that if she sat still, those of us who loved her would convince her otherwise.
So a year later when she faced another breakup from one she loved, I didn’t stop her from running. I knew that I could not. Running was her way. I felt that if I provided a safe place for her to run to, then maybe she would not fall into the pits of self destruction or danger. So I helped her run this time. I did not fight her. I did not argue with her. I did not try to convince her to stay. I supported her running. I held her in my arms as she sobbed. I wiped her tears. I kissed her face and her head, and reminded her that she was loved by me. It was only a few hours after that when she ran for the last time. She ran to her death that night.
One of the last things my daughter said to me was “I know that you want me to stay, but I have to go.” Almost eight years later that means so much more to me than it did when she uttered those words. I am learning to accept her destiny.
May Olodumare, The Most High, continue to heal my heart and open my understanding. Ase!
Ifayinka 