The first thing I ever believed in, I saw in the eyes of my oldest daughter. She was born in September 2009, and I was 23. I arrived at the hospital around 8:30 p.m., after walking through downtown Detroit in anticipation. Her mother was in active labor when I entered the room.
After about three hours, I saw my child being born. I saw the crowning, the dark blood on the sheets, and the nurses aiding my daughter’s shoulders, hooking their fingers under her armpits and gently pulling her out into the world. When she was in my arms, she pushed out soft noises, breathing and yawning. I rocked my body to keep her calm, and I felt the electric connection between us.
I now wonder if every father feels that surge of energy when they hold their child for the first time. And I wonder if fathers who are in the streets like I was ever think about prison being miles away yet so close due to their actions.
I can say that it never crossed my mind that I would be doing decades in prison for a second-degree murder I committed for drugs, territory and unchecked fear that I’d be gunned down first. My motivation and focus was to provide for my family and protect my daughter.
That’s why, even before she was even born, I made a list of truths to tell her when she got older: There was no tooth fairy. There was no Santa Claus. It was dangerous to sit on a strange man’s lap. She should respect her parents, do well in school and learn about her heritage. The list grew longer as I kept thinking about it. I saw every evil thing lurking from afar. What I didn’t see was that my own behavior problems and my toxic masculinity could cause damage.
One major point on my protect-my-daughter list was to talk normally — no baby talk. I didn’t want anyone speaking gibberish to her because she’d expect people in the world to do the same. Even when she was in her mother’s belly, I would say, “We don’t baby talk. You gotta get used to a language that people will try to destroy you with.” I thought it was my responsibility to give my daughter the cheat code to the game we called life.
This didn’t last. Two weeks out of the hospital, she was in one of her crying fits. I fed her, rocked her and changed her. I talked to her like a grown person, saying, “Stop all that crying. The world don’t take no shorts. I need you to be strong!” She looked at me, gurgled, fussed — and kept crying for another hour.
Then I remembered how we became one at the hospital. I picked her up and rocked her in my arms, reconnecting us. “It’s OK, lil baby,” I told her. “You just sheepy, lil momma.” The baby talk worked: My daughter cooed and nibbled on my shirt as I lay on the floor. I patted her back as her little legs tucked under her, against my chest. And for the first time, she smiled.
Today my oldest daughter is 16. Our connection is broken because I made a horrible choice that affected her entire life. Baby talking got me far when she was an infant, but by the time she was 2, I was in prison. As she got older, we’d talk on and off, but only for a couple minutes.
In June 2022, when she was 12, I did get a chance to have a real conversation with her. She’d sent me her number through JPay, one of the messaging systems incarcerated people use. I called her from the yard and after four rings, she picked up. Immediately, I reassured her of how important she was to me.
“You know I love you, right?” I said.
“Yeah. I know,” she replied.
“When I get out, imma come get you and we gonna be a family,” I promised.
“We can catch up,” she said, “but why did you leave us?”
I froze. I could have told her that I didn’t know the truth about the world I was trying to protect her from. I could have told her that I didn’t really know my own father because he was too busy with the army to connect with me. I could have been honest and said that I was selfish, prideful and abusive to her mother.
But I settled for, “I was trying to figure a way for us not to be poor.”
“I guess you did by leaving us,” she shot back.
I froze up again, thinking about how I left her in the world. I ended the conversation with, “Imma send you some money,” then I added, “We’ll talk again tomorrow.”
While I did send her money, we didn’t talk.
A week later, I got a JPay message from her saying she didn’t want to speak to me ever again. She said her stepdad had been her father, and that I need not worry about her.
Suddenly, I was teary-eyed in front of the JPay machine. I thought of our first connection, how we shared energy. I decided to make another list, one of how to recreate a father-daughter bond: “Be patient,” I wrote. “Listen without judgement. Tell her you love her every chance you get.”
I haven’t given up — and I won’t — because for me, part of being a father is understanding my child’s pain and respecting her emotions. But it breaks me. My little girl is hurting, and while I tried to protect her from the world, I ended up being the one causing her hurt. No list can change that fact.
Demetrius “Meech” Buckley is a 2026 Haymarket Freedom Fellow. He has earned multiple writing honors, including a 2024 Editor’s Choice Award in CRAFT magazine’s Memoir Excerpt & Essay Contest. Buckley's work has appeared in The Yale Review, The Rumpus and PRISM, among other publications. He is also an editor for Apogee Journal’s Freedom Meridian, and he works with Empowerment Avenue. He is serving a 20- to 30-year sentence for second-degree murder.