madison lee

Yellow

I imagine the brain of an addict to be yellow. The frontal lobe overflowing with Mountain Dew cans disguising beer, and the cerebellum containing teeth stained from substance. If I was a surgeon, I could open up my father’s brain and be enveloped with thick syrupy scents of whiskey and illness. I would uncover all of the regrets and impulsions buried in alcohol with a slice of a scalpel. With forceps, I would discover that his favorite song is “Yellow” by Coldplay. I would learn how my parents met in a bar and fell in love. I would see memories that neither my father nor I can remember; my father being overcome by substance and I being overwhelmed with trauma.  

I would see all of the yellow parts of me. See my curly, dark hair and sullen eyes. I would see my inability to trust and my addiction to restraint. I would see all of the parts I am embarrassed to show. The parts that make me hard to love and prone to despondency. I was once told that being friends with me is like watching someone finishing a race and, just as they are about to cross the finish line, they turn around and walk the other way. Always on the brink of something great just to turn around and run straight into its roots. 

My mother, on the other hand, would be navy blue. An ocean of force and one hell of a woman. At age twenty-six, my father walked out and left her in the middle of south Florida with three toddlers and a teaching license. From then on, everything was navy blue. Our kitchen, our clothes, and even our school supplies. Every room filled with navy throw pillows, navy coffee mugs, and navy rugs. For Christmas, my mother would wrap presents of navy collared shirts and navy printed pajamas signed from Santa Claus. That’s how my mom is. Always giving even when she has nothing left.

My mother taught first graders at a low-income school. Even though we were dirt poor, she would buy all of her students their school supplies and extra treats. Sometimes she would drop off casseroles at students' houses who were noticeably hungry. There was one little boy that my mother noticed would come into school wearing the same clothes and smelling like urine. The next day she bought him a navy blue winter coat and stuffed it in his locker. The little boy would never know all of the navy blue my mother had sprinkled in his life. She never owned up to her kindness. If you were to ask any one of my siblings what our favorite color was, we would be obligated to say navy blue. Navy blue was our childhood and our only parent. It was the only color we knew.

My mother handled our situation with grace, but my father was sick. Even though he was the addict, we all had to wrestle with the disease. Years later, with a face full of tears, I would watch her eyes retell the story of my childhood for the first time. I would listen to the voice of my mother tell stories that I had always imagined to be fever dreams. I would listen to my mother explain all of my deepest fears and worst nightmares and how they were true.  

I asked her, “How did you fall in love with someone like that?” 

“I don’t know, it just happened,” she said with all of the strength she had left. 

One of the hardest things I learned in recovery from childhood trauma was that not everything is black and white; there are shades of gray. My father was not a bad person; he was yellow. Yellow is trying. Yellow is really funny when he’s sober. Yellow cooks me pancakes and calls me love. Yellow comes to my first soccer game and watches from his car, on an incognito mission. Yellow tickles me into an oblivion of giggles while we slurp grape slushies in a vintage diner. Yellow is capable of love; he just wasn’t quite ready to give it to me then.

When I think about the yellow parts of myself, I see the first morning I woke up without my father. I woke up early that morning for kindergarten, stretching and tugging at my eyes with tired little hands. My mom brushed my hair and dressed me for school. I waddled my way into the living room, hopped up on the couch and waited. By this time, my father and I would usually be eating french toast sticks and watching cartoons.  

But then I was at the front door, ready to leave for school, and I realized my shoes weren’t tied. My father always tied my shoes after breakfast. 

“Where’s Daddy?” I asked my mom, riddled with confusion. 

“He left for a business trip.”  

I don’t know where he actually went. I never asked. Maybe he was in jail or rehab or Alabama. I think eventually I just became comfortable with his absence. When I think of the color yellow, I think of the word expectation. I expected my father to be there in the morning, because why wouldn’t he be? When I think of the color yellow, I think about my inability to expect anything. Because what if I wake up in the morning and no one is there? 

When I think about the color yellow, I see the only photo I have of my father. He is standing on a golf course wearing a dark blue shirt and khaki shorts. He has a head full of hair and dark eyes. He is smiling and standing with one hand on his golf club and the other tucked into his pocket. My mother worries about me because she says I look the most like my father. She worries I will fall into the beaten path that all of the men before me have followed. Alcoholism is a hereditary disease. If I inherited his looks why wouldn’t I inherit his illness? When we were younger, my mother worried that leaving my father wouldn’t mean leaving the disease. She hid the Advil bottles by lock and key and never drank around us. My mother worried I would learn the word addiction too soon. But I know addiction well. I have looked it in its eyes, grabbed it by its horns and wrestled it to the ground. I just didn’t know its name yet. I wasn’t addicted to alcohol, but I was addicted to running and writing and shielding every piece of yellow I owned from the world. I didn’t want to be my father’s daughter. But I was. Every time I came barreling around the corner in my grandpa’s navy blue tattered T-shirt and giggling, my mother wouldn’t see me. She would see my father and everything I could become because of him.  

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The other day I texted my father: 

(Me) I’m writing a story about you. 

(Dad) A horror story? 

(Me) Guess what it’s about? 

(Dad) Absent father.  

(Dad) Little traumatic. 

(Me) What do you remember from my childhood? 

(Dad) Your black hair and silent confidence. 

(Me) Okay, write me a story about my childhood 

(Dad) Okay. I will mail it. 

(Dad) Call if you want to. 

(Dad) Hope you ok. 

I love how he still uses the mail. How he writes in all caps and always colors on the card. How he adds his little sayings that make no sense like, “Let’s roll regulators!” or, “Fly high Mad cap!”. 

(Dad) Seen pictures of you.  

(Dad) You are beautiful. No doubt… Inside and out. 

(Dad) Hang on sweet  

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I love how now he can tell me he is proud of the person I have become. I think the thing I lacked most from losing my father was hearing the words: I’m proud of you. Those four words mean a lot to both a girl and a grown woman. That little phrase carries a big weight in its absence. When my friend told me that being close with me is like watching someone turn around before the finish line, I thought about how that was the example she thought of. That not finishing a race would be the worst thing to ever happen to her. She wouldn’t get to run into her father’s arms and hear him screaming with pride on the side lines. Her parents would lovingly drive her home and stop for a celebratory dinner on the way. Over dinner she will hear those four little words: I’m proud of you. What she can never understand is that I didn’t grow up that way. I grew up green. I grew up the greenest little girl. Green like a growing vine or green like vomit. Green is messy, but green is tender. It took me a long time to learn that I am my own color. To not look in the mirror and see yellow staring back at me. I am green, the daughter of two colors and their love.