A Father First: How My Life Became Bigger Than Basketball (25 page)

Those were the precise words that Tragil remembered telling Mom, who recalled them much the same way. My mother added in her account to me, “Your sister cried and I cried. Before I got out of the car, she told me again, ‘I love you,’ and I said, ‘I love you, too.’ And I went upstairs and told Bebe, ‘I’m just messing up everyone’s life, I’m hurting everyone. That was my baby and I’m hurting her so bad and I just wanna die.’ ”

Mom also remembered the sickness getting worse that day and having to walk down to the old neighborhood. She explained, “I had to buy a bag of dope. And I needed to think, to clear my head. To find a reason to live. I had gotten to the point where I didn’t want to be around anymore.”

No self-destructive act of desperation nor miraculous overnight transformation took place. As time would tell, however, Mom was still fighting. Or as Tragil put it, “Something began to work.”

On the heels of that day, just after I’d returned to Marquette for training and had my heart-to-heart with Coach Crean, came the attacks of September 11, 2001. Aside from the fear that seized most of the world, I know that the day was also a reminder of how fragile life is and how suddenly everything can be taken way. Now that I’d made a commitment to fatherhood, I thought harder than ever about the responsibility of making sure any child I brought into the world would be kept safe. How to do that? No clue. At least not yet.

As for Mom, my impression is that after “the ride” and during that period of soul-searching after 9/11 that many were going through, a kind of awakening was taking place inside her that was different.

Tragil was right. Something had begun to work. But what exactly that “something” was didn’t come clear until a month or so later—October 14, to be exact. A Sunday. Mom was in church that morning, probably high on something, maybe a little inebriated. But even so she was in search of the light, in a place of praise and worship. She was alone, sitting in the back by herself, when Pastor Darryl called her name and told her to read aloud from 2 Timothy 3:5: “Having a form of godliness denying the power thereof.”

My sisters and I had prayed for this to happen for so long but only Mom could feel the truth. She understood. She had already been experiencing God but had been denying His power to change her.

At long last, the madness had come to an end. But the fight was just beginning.

ON SUNDAY, OCTOBER 14, 2001, I IMAGINED FEELING A boulder lift off my chest that had been sitting there for most of my nearly twenty years of life. No one had to tell me about the specifics of what happened back in Chicago. Mom and I had been connected through time and space for all this time so that shouldn’t have been too surprising.

This next series of challenges with her trying to get sober was primed for pitfall and traps. But I believed she could do it, as much as I had always believed this day would come.

And having my faith confirmed in that area helped to reassure me in other areas—especially with the new challenges as Siohvaughn and I stepped into unfamiliar, sudden roles of being expectant parents. Any suggestion of getting married right away was out of the question. The baby was due on the second day of February and basketball season wouldn’t be over until the beginning of March. Or later, depending on how well we did.

There were other sources of stress. Siohvaughn was only just getting settled in as a transfer student, with both of us determined to focus on our studies. Besides the demands of my basketball schedule, I was against rushing to the altar, for many reasons. For one, we couldn’t afford a wedding. What we did do, rather than setting a date, was to make arrangements to take a class on marriage and parenting with Pastor Darryl over the Christmas break.

Given my history and the examples set for me, my sense of responsibility as a parent and spouse was already well developed. The area that required work was on communication, probably the key to all great relationships. Von (as I called Siohvaughn) and I had a ways to go on that front. Then there was the very real source of marital strife that came from our financial struggle. In preparation for the baby’s arrival, we moved off campus into a very modest studio apartment. The rent used most of the funds provided by my athletic scholarship stipend. So getting us fed—and the baby before long—would require taking on part-time jobs when our academic schedules allowed.

Siohvaughn had a lot of fear and that was understandable. Her main worry: how were we going to do all these things not just in college but out in the real world?

My main answer: “I can’t tell you how but I know we will. I will find a way.”

Worry was always in the background, always questioning if I had what it would take to get us into a better place, always pushing me to prove that I could, until the engine that I was driving inside myself was running on:
I’m gonna find a way, I’m a find a way, find a way. FIND. A. WAY.

All our concerns about bringing a child into the world right then could be seen as normal in a situation like ours. I knew that; Von must have, too. We were babies. From Robbins, Illinois. None of this was going to be easy. Plus, there was a new dynamic in our relationship that meant we had to deal with a different kind of celebrity status that comes from being an up-and-coming name athlete, even on the college level. No guidelines existed for navigating those changes. Even Tragil was shocked when she saw the attention firsthand. Four or five games into the season, I already had whole cheering sections and guys with my name painted on their bare chests.

Success on the court was exciting to share with Siohvaughn. She was definitely proud and knew how much I had overcome to be where I was, especially after a year of not being able to play. At the same time, during that sophomore year while I was proving myself, leading the team to one of the best overall records achieved in years, I could feel tension stirring at home. Again, now that she needed me more and with her welfare based on mine, for worse and for better, neither one of us knew how to adapt. She was used to control, wanting things her way, a certain way, and I pushed back.

However, rocky as the relationship was at the start, one thing we were unified about was the responsibility we shared in becoming parents together. That was not in question. We were both as committed to the baby on the way as any two young college students thrust into our situation could have been.

When doubts set in, all I needed for inspiration was to think of Mom and the reports I’d been hearing. The word
miracle
doesn’t even come close to describing the transformation that was set into motion on that day, October 14, 2001, when Jolinda Morris Wade allowed the light in so she could understand what was meant by having God but denying the power thereof. When she left church that day, Mom understood that she needed to prepare to do battle with the Devil as she had never battled in her life before. With full knowledge of what stood in front of her, she went out and bought her last bag of dope, the last time she would allow the poison of it inside her.

She then called a very close friend who lived in Indiana, saying to her, “I got to get up off of this stuff.” My mother told her friend, “I have to die so that Christ in me can live.” After her friend came to pick her up, Mom was given a place out of state, away from familiar triggers, where she could stay and go through withdrawal from heroin and alcohol.

Anyone who has ever been through the physical agony of withdrawal or has watched someone go through it knows or can tell that the process feels like you are dying. After the substance that a person has been taking has blocked pain and given them that high, the cravings for some more of it is a given. Then there is the depression, agitation, anxiety, a feeling people talk about of having everything hurt, even to where your hair stands on end. Other symptoms of withdrawal are nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, fever, feelings of your skin crawling, stomach spasms, running nose, tears, sweats, not being able to sleep or stay still.

Detox is only the first step, though. The next step is to combat the much tougher withdrawal from the habits of addiction that have become a way of life over many years. The concern, according to experts, is that because drugs change your brain, the mental battle of getting and staying clean is much more brutal than the physical one.

Mom would later say that instead of being afraid, instead of waiting for the Devil to come to her, she stormed into that confrontation as the aggressor, fighting for salvation, drawing from Romans 1:13, praying in the name of Jesus Christ to be saved. At every stage, when she was most weary, she went to Proverbs 3:5–6: “Trust in the L
ORD
with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths.” After a life of saying that the big
F
had followed her, she shook that off, telling herself that no matter how disappointed life had left her, she would remain obedient to the Holy Spirit.

Within a week, Mom returned to Chicago. God had delivered her in three days from heroin, wine, and alcohol. She came back home sober and, as she said, “with a ready mind.”

Tragil kept me posted, telling me that I wouldn’t recognize her. She said that the dark purple color of her skin was starting to get back to a youthful, healthy, coffee-and-cream complexion. Her hair was growing. She had fingernails and a sparkle in her eyes.

Then again, my sister reminded me, we had been down this road before. In the past, Mom had never asked Tragil to put her up when she was on drugs, but now she needed the healing environment my sister offered. Since Mom’s legal status as a fugitive prevented her from going out to get a job, the long-term plan was hazy. But in the short run, Tragil was focused on feeding Mom, putting some weight back on her, and making sure that she didn’t get out too much—to avoid the old traps. The better Mom felt, the more she tried to do around the apartment, straightening up and cleaning while Tragil was at work. She had her Bible with her most of the day and pretty soon she was helping out at the church, going out on walks, reclaiming herself and her life. The next thing we knew, Mom had kicked cigarettes.

What?
How does anyone overcome an addiction to coke and heroin and alcohol in one week and quit a lifetime nicotine habit not long after that?

Hearing of my mother’s miraculous progress must have given me extra octane on the court from the moment we roared into our 2001–2002 season. Not only did we win the first ten consecutive games that November, but I quickly became a leading contributor—on both ends of the court. Right before Thanksgiving, in a game against Indiana, I scored 21 points to give the Golden Eagles a 50–49 victory. With that we went on to win the next night and take the title of the Great Alaska Shootout tournament, for which I was named MVP.

For me, the feeling was not surprise. Instead, it was exhilaration. And that magic feeling of
appreciation.
I loved finally having a chance to show my stuff, to do my dance, to sing my praise, all while dribbling and posting up and dunking.

There were plenty of naysayers who hadn’t seen me coming and still weren’t calling my name by any means. Some of the “who’s who” out in college basketball even took to referring to me as “the little guy.”

I could choose to let it mess with my head or use it as motivation.

So, with Coach Crean driving us, we were off and running, eventually setting multiple records. For the season we would earn a 26–7 record, coming in third in Marquette’s history for most season wins. By making an appearance later on in the NCAA tournament, we achieved the best showing for the team since 1997. We would go on to be ranked ninth in the Associated Press’s top 25, the first time since the 1970s, and would stay in the rankings for an unprecedented twelve weeks.

In short, by Christmas we were already having a Cinderella season that was only going to get better as we soared to the end. As Siohvaughn and I got closer to our due date, we had grown closer to each other. We were both on pins and needles waiting to meet this little person who we had come together to usher into the world. No matter what hardships lay ahead, my mother was my living proof that difficulties could always be overcome.

When we returned to Chicago from Milwaukee over the break, we arranged to have one of our private classes with Pastor Darryl at our church. And afterward, I’d finally get to see Mom—who was, as ever, still my favorite girl.

Compared to the arctic winds that had been blasting us in Milwaukee, Chicago felt almost mild by comparison. With less than an inch of snow on the ground, the city was all dressed up in Christmas colors, the lights of the season more beautiful and special than I could ever remember seeing them.

In thinking back over my childhood, I couldn’t remember many Christmas presents or birthday parties or memorable gifts that helped mark the occasion and the year in question. Now I was being given the only gift I’d ever wanted: my momma in her sanity, the person Jolinda Morris Wade was meant to be. That had to be every Christmas, birthday, special occasion gift rolled into one. In my creative imagination, I kept seeing her with our new baby, being Grandmama and making up for lost time. And that day was right around the corner, too.

During our session with Pastor Darryl, I was pretty much giddy with anticipation and could hardly concentrate. As soon as we finished, I started to grab my coat and help Siohvaughn into hers, when I turned and saw Mom entering the main hall from the kitchen, where she had been waiting for us to finish. She looked amazing, better than anything I could have dreamt. We hugged and hugged. In the past year or so, we had seen each other at different points and prior to that Mom and Siohvaughn had met once before. But this was a reunion unlike any other I’ve ever known. I may have been about to turn twenty years old, but in those moments I was eight again, back home in her arms after being separated for far, far too long from the real mother she truly was.

None of that pain of separation could touch us anymore. Or so I thought. Then I saw a shadow fall over Mom’s face and knew right away something was wrong. Sure enough, my mother gestured back to the kitchen and asked me to follow her, saying she needed to talk to me.