This morning I put on daddy’s jacket. I forgot I had it. I forgot I needed it. The reflection in the mirror and in my mind caused a tidal wave of emotions, seeing him/me in the mirror, reflecting both inwardly and outwardly on the man whose jacket fits me much tighter but somehow, I couldn’t quite fill. The realization that fitting and filling are two very different things. My dad’s jacket, embroidered with his nickname, “Moose” better known as “Moosie” by family, a name not based on size or stature from the physical sense, the last time he wore this jacket he was very small, a name which I now struggle with its origin but I think Janice started it, a name bestowed upon him in the governance structure of our people.
On the last day of Black History month, I remember and submit him, Marion “Moosie” Wallace to the annals of history, now an ancestor, our history, a true Black history. A man born in the Jim Crow south, fled oppression as part of the “Great Migration”, raised a middle class Black family, rose to become a supervisor and retired working for Material Service Corp after 40 years, joined the union (the emblem on this jacket), started from not being able to look a white man in the eye to telling them what to do. There are millions of Black men whose stories go untold; their successes go largely unnoticed in the social structure. Although he could barely read and write, because of him I can!
Thanks dad for allowing me the privilege of wearing this jacket as I write these words.
