What Can I Give On His 84th Birthday To The Father Who Gave His Life?
When I stood against adversaries—even when I was standing alone, miles and a world away from Providence (and most often, I stood alone)—I stood because I had a father named Paul who taught me to stand
By John W. Fountain
Dear Mr. Adams, I pondered what I might give you today for your 84th birthday. What gift I might hand to a man who by now has had everything that a life well lived bestows by the reciprocity of love and selfless sacrifice he has given to countless others.
Fancy cars, money and jewelry... Fine wines, shiny watches and trinkets and other memorabilia, plaques and honors that now decorate your walls. I searched. But I could come up with nothing.
For nothing seems sufficient to express my celebration and deep appreciation of your born day. For the impact of the life of a boy birthed in Montgomery, Alabama, and whose dreams—nestled in the Jim Crow South amid a cresting river of struggle for Civil Rights, and nursed by a mother who believed in the transformative power of education—would become the light to ignite the dreams of countless other boys and girls.
So that we too might dream.
So that our own lights collectively might shine someday like the innumerable stars that twinkle across the darkest galaxy night as a symbol of the ability to make dreams come true even for forgotten and abandoned children of Chicago’s West Side growing up on the other side of the tracks. When they are willing to work, plan, build and dream. In that order.
What could I give to the father of dreams for so many of us?
To the protector of this galaxy we came to know as Providence? To the man who, in his humility and immeasurable servitude after all these years, considers not how many lives he may have inspired but instead bemoans how many he could not?
The man who still toils and sheds salty tears over the condition of our people. Who is still tending to the education of future generations of Providence-ians, ensuring that it remains a world-class learning institution, keeping pace with new and future developments in science technology, robotics and artificial intelligence. A man who has sought neither his own nor to make his name great, but to leave a legacy of the meaning of divine stewardship and the endless possibilities and profound power of education.
Then I thought about the greatest gifts I have ever given to those who mothered and fathered me and who now sleep with the ancestors. They were not silver or gold or other things perishable, but the gifts of my heart that were conveyed by my actions when they were yet on this side of glory. The fragrant flowers of words from my soul. So here goes:
Mr. Adams, you are the wind beneath my wings. God assigned as a father to me and to so many of us. Lifter and anchor, a beacon of hope and possibility.
You were among those who were chief in my life that I have never wanted to disappoint by giving less than my best to life’s tasks and pursuits. You taught me how to stand. How to stand as a man ten toes down, even when it means standing alone.
You taught me this by your stubborn defiance in the face of those who would close Providence St. Mel—who had made the audacious decision to write us off. They wrote us off. But you wrote us in. Into the everlasting archives of dreamers whose dreams, even if deferred, could not be denied.
I TOOK NOTES AS you stood amid the faces of evil and harm and drew a line in the sand. I didn’t understand as a boy how difficult it can be to take an unpopular or seemingly untenable stance. To be willing to die for a greater good.
To be unrelenting and fearless in countenance. Even if beneath the veneer you wonder silently whether you really will prevail. Amid piercing anxieties over the prospect of failing the mission and not being able to sustain the dream, both of which steal your sleep, leave your pillow wet with tears. But I do know now as a man.
Inscribed upon my soul is the image of you: mowing and otherwise tending to the emerald grass that surrounds Providence; tending to the boiler in the school’s basement so that there might be heat; buffing the hallway floors that they might shine like the glory of the mission at hand to educate those whom society had deemed uneducable; speaking unflinchingly eye-to-eye to every potential foe; celebrating the students of Providence, planting, watering, pruning so that we might grow.
Etched in my heart is the image of a Black man who stood. Amid the prevalence of so many who fled, who chose to sit, or run, or lie down when the storms rose with menacing winds, rolling thunder and jagged lightning crackling across the night sky, your decision to stand is not negligible. To the contrary, your aura, for me, is the embodiment of what it means to be a man, the very essence of African-American manhood and courage.
The mold of what it means to be an imperfect, fallible, flawed man and yet no less a gift from God sent into this world so that the world, or your corner of it, might blessed by your presence and spirit for the uplift of His people for His glory.
SO BECAUSE YOU STOOD, I have always known that I could stand. Amid becoming a teenage father, a welfare case, married with three children before 22, having lost hope and being knocked down in life, I found the strength to get back up. Because of the foundation and the fire laid at Providence, I resumed the path of education and I earned the right to dream.
And at various intervals along the way, when I found myself facing the dream slayers—whether inside the halls of academe, in mainstream American newsrooms or simply in life—I wrapped myself in the Paul Adams cloak of tenacity, ferocity, perseverance, and steadfast faith and I faced every challenge.
When I stood against adversaries—even when I was standing alone, miles and a world away from Providence (and most often, I stood alone, except for the Lord)—I stood because I had a father named Paul who taught me to stand.
When I have stood—feet firmly planted on principle and integrity—on my beliefs, despite fierce opinions to the contrary or staunch opposition, it was your DNA that yielded the marrow and intestinal fortitude.
When I have had to stand against physical threats of hurt, harm and danger with resolve to handle my business if need be—with my friends Smith & Wesson and shotgun—it was with that uncompromising Paul Adams’ resolve to stand my ground. Understanding that sometimes in this life you can’t as a man stand down. With the inheritance of knowledge that until you’ve found something you are willing to die for, then you are not fit to live as a man.
So on this your 84th birthday, I thank the sacrifice of your life.
For choosing Providence. For choosing us. For choosing me. For choosing to call me, “son.” For your providential journey from the red-clay dirt of Alabama to the cracked concrete of West Side streets, where you became a vessel of proof that grass even here can sprout emerald green and all of America’s children can achieve their dreams.
Thank you for your love. For being a father to me.
May my gift of words bring you joy and honor, resonate like the scent of flowers sweet.
I thank God for you. And I am so proud of you.
Love, your son,
JOHN
Email: Author@johnwfountain.com
This is a most beautiful tribute. Your prose is poetic, inspiring, thought provoking. Thank you for sharing.