When I Came Around

Cause you can look but you can't touch
Cause the best things in life ain't cheap
You can look but you can't touch
Cause baby I ain't for keeps

I sang along to Poison's lyrics as I merged onto I-75 North off of Newberry Road, leaving my hometown for good. My mother's funeral was just a few days ago, and after finding an old black and white Polariod of my mom with one of her students back in Cali, it got me thinking more about where I came from. Mom told me that my father was one of her History students, but she never told me who he was, or where he now lived. One the back of the picture was an address in Oakland, newly written in red Sharpie. I had always wondered who my dad was, but whenever I brought him up, my mom just started to cry. She had breast cancer, but didn't tell me, or Jerry, my sted-dad, about it until it was too late. I think in a way, she wanted to go...

I put on Bruce Springsteen and turned the volume up, rocking down the highway, leaving everything behind me. I wasn't going to regret this, I wasn't going to look back. If I didn't find my father, well, at least I made it across the country.