Romal Tune - I Wish My Dad: The Power of Vulnerable Conversations Between Fathers and Sons

Praise for I Wish My Dad: The Power of Vulnerable Conversations between Fathers and Sons

As a father and the product of a fatherless home, I can say: this book is gold. We need tools, roadmaps, and sage wisdom to become who we were made to be and reinvest in the next generation. The heartfelt transparency of the stories in I Wish My Dad gives men permission to share their truth, heal, and learn the emotional skills needed for healthy father-and-son relationships.

LeCrae , Grammy Awardwinning hip-hop artist and New York Times bestselling author

Healthy and vulnerable spaces for men and their sons are a necessity in todays culture. The stories shared by fathers and sons in I Wish My Dad allow readers a glimpse into the emotional needs of men that few rarely get to express. This book shares truths that need to be heard.

David Michael Wyatt , singer and songwriter

I Wish My Dad serves as the model for men to have conversations, leading to healing and strengthening of father-and-son relationships that will have a positive impact for generations.

Nicole L. Cammack , PhD, licensed clinical psychologist, and president and CEO of Black Mental Wellness

Romal Tunes authenticity and genuine desire to be a better father, combined with the strength and courage of his son, gives us a powerful, honest, humble, and hopeful invitation to become better together through honesty, openness, and love. The stories shared by men in this book will change your life and your relationships.

Danielle Strickland , author, speaker, and advocate

Vulnerability is a contagious cure. Tune models that with every page in this book. I Wish My Dad has the potential to cure us from our despair and free us to hope again.

John Onwuchekwa , pastor of Cornerstone Church and cofounder of Portrait Coffee

I Wish My Dad is more than a right-on-time read; it is an invitation for fathers and sons to be the curators of the change they are seeking to see in themselves and in their families. The stories in this love-offering of a book will help to heal hearts, homes, and relationships between fathers and sons.

Shawn Dove , founder of Corporation for Black Male Achievement and managing partner of New Profit

I Wish My Dad is emotional, insightful, humbling, palatable, challenging, and needed; you will come away not only rooting for these men, but believing there is hope for yourself.

A. D. Lumkile Thomason , author and filmmaker

Romal and Jordan masterfully invite us not only into the struggles of father-and-son relationships, but they give a voice to the endless possibilities that can heal those broken relationships. I Wish My Dad shines a light on the art of listening and the hope we have when we truly hear each other.

Preston Perry , poet, teacher, and apologist

Hearing these mens stories has given me access to the conversations my father and I have yet to share. I am more tender, more compassionate now toward my father. There is healing within these pages for sons no doubt, and daughters as well.

Juanita Rasmus , author of Learning to Be: Finding Your Center after the Bottom Falls Out

I Wish My Dad

I Wish My Dad

The Power of Vulnerable Conversations between Fathers and Sons

Romal Tune

with Jordan Tune

Broadleaf Books

Minneapolis

I WISH MY DAD

The Power of Vulnerable Conversations between Fathers and Sons

Copyright 2022 Romal Tune. Printed by Broadleaf Books, an imprint of 1517 Media. All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in critical articles or reviews, no part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without prior written permission from the publisher. Email copyright@1517.media or write to Permissions, Broadleaf Books, PO Box 1209, Minneapolis, MN 55440-1209.

Some of the names in this book have been changed to respect the privacy of the individuals involved.

Cover photo: Sheretta Danielle Photography

Cover design: 1517 Media

Print ISBN: 978-1-5064-8157-9

eBook ISBN: 978-1-5064-8158-6

I have felt for my father a longing that was almost physical, something passionate... It has bewildered me, even thrown me into depression. It is mysterious to me exactly what it is I wanted from my father. I have seen this longing in other menand see it now in my own sons, their longing for me. I think that I have glimpsed it once or twice in my fathers feelings about his father. What surprises me is how angry a man becomes sometimes in the grip of what is, in essence, an unrequited passion.

Lance Morrow, The Chief

If trauma can be passed down through generations, then so can healing.

Matthew Williams

Ernest

Phil

Michael-Ray

Joe

Max

Daniel

Hodari

Kevin

Vance

Andre

Rudy

Simon

Rob

Jorge

Isaac

Kamasi

Andy

I did not grow up with my dad. He had a relationship with my mother for a time, but when they broke up, he vanished. I never knew why they didnt make it; neither he nor my mother shared many details. I heard snippets here and there, but the full story never came together.

I was raised in California, by my mom, along with the help of my grandparents. My mom and I moved frequentlysometimes because we didnt have money and sometimes because my mom felt a neighborhood was too dangerous. As a result, I attended a different school every year from elementary up until the eleventh grade, when I met my dad.

Before I met my dad, I had the worst thoughts about him, including wishing he were dead. As much as I tried to ignore his existence, I couldnt. The disdain grew as I got older, and it festered in me. So when I first met my father when I was fifteen years old, it was awkwardfor both of us. I had developed a personality and habits shaped by the struggles of growing up in poverty and being surrounded by crime and addiction. Survival was all I knew. My dad hadnt been there to protect me from dangers or to help me understand what it means to be a good man.

A year after meeting him, I moved in with him, his wife, and their three sons for two years. They lived in a world I had only seen on television: a spacious home with a white picket fence in the suburbs of New Jersey, while I had been moving from place to place with my mom just trying to survive. Once I moved there, however, our true personalities emerged and often clashed. I detested the idea of chores. He drank too much. I skipped school. He had a volatile temper. I rebelled. He cursed at me. I consorted with the wrong crowd. He got angrier. In the end, after two years of conflict, I moved in with my grandparents before heading off to basic training and the army. My relationship with my father returned to what it had been before that time: nothing.

For the next fifteen years we were estranged, a period of time in which the original feelings of abandonment, confusion, disappointment, and anger reemerged. I was not paralyzed by my fathers absenceI went on with my life. But I was, in a way, haunted by it. I served in the army for four years, and then became a student at Howard University. A year after graduating from Howard, I attended Duke University School of Divinity. Both of my children, Aman and Jordan, were born during that time.