My Daddy's Kiss

ARTICLE My Daddy's Kiss Jeannie Dotson I embraced my daddy's kiss each night before he went to work at Chisholm Coal Company in Pike County, Kentucky. It was our goodbye -to-daddy routine to gather together at the front door around ten o'clock each night. My mom kissed Daddy and handed him his black dinner bucket along with his silver-topped thermos filled with fresh, piping hot coffee, while I stood on the arm of the leather couch in my pink pajamas waiting to kiss him on the cheek. I can still see him standing there wearing his short-sleeved navy blue work shirt and feel his dark mustache tickle my skin. Each night while I lay fast asleep in my warm cozy bed, my daddy was a mile or so deep inside a mountain crawling on his hands and knees so we could have a better life. "I'll see you in the morning," he whispered in my ear each night. "Maybe I'll get off this third shift soon, and we can all go to bed at the same time." I knew the mine was dangerous, so before going to bed each night, I said a prayer for my dad. "God, please keep my daddy safe inside the coal mine." "After all," my mom often said, "this mine in Kentucky is much safer than the one in West Virginia where he used to work." I knew it wasn't safe because I remember one summer day my dad came home early from work because a man had been killed, and he said all the miners were sent home. Mom and I were scared at night without him being home, but we always managed to stay safe. Mom usually stayed up late listening to oldies music while she swept and mopped the kitchen floor. Sometimes she wrote letters to our relatives up in Chicago that we hadn't seen in ages. Happily, I used this situation to my advantage. I looked forward to taking Daddy's spot in bed with Mom; however, just before 7:00 am, I had to get in my own cold, stiff bed in order for him to have the bed to himself and get some rest. We were usually asleep when Daddy came home from work. When Mom woke me up for school, I'd see his black van parked in the 81 driveway while I waited for the school bus, and that's how I knew God had answered my prayers. When school was over, I walked to our flower shop which was a short distance from my elementary school. This was my parents' family business. It was called Jerry's Floral; named after my dad, Jerry. The building was old and smelled musty, but they fixed it up the best they could. Today, when I go to funerals or flower shops and smell the live flowers, I am taken back to that old white building with the hardwood floors and the huge glass windows in the front. My parents bought the shop because my dad had a dream of building an A-frame house on a small piece of property he bought in West Virginia. One evening, my little sister and I were playing in the back of the flower shop behind a white partition that separated the showcase of flowers that were for sale from the work area where my parents made their flower arrangements. My dad was taking a nap in a twin bed that was on the other side of the partition, as he often did. I was about eight, and my sister, Valerie, was just an infant, barely walking. For some odd reason, she leaned over and bit me on the back, and I screamed so loud that I woke him up. I just knew I was going to get in major trouble. Being in trouble with my mom was not that scary, but I feared my daddy's anger more than anything else. All of a sudden, he jumped up out of bed, ran over and picked her up and then spanked with his own hands became the flowTers that decorated his grave? Not...