Today is Raya’s Birthday
My oldest daughter Raya was born today, her mother and I had a passionate stormy short relationship. I loved her Mother very much. Raya was born in Flagstaff AZ, her mother had come there to give our relationship another try. We settled down and got a modest place, I got a job as a baker and continued my career as a musician. I had been a political activist working on Native American struggles. I stopped that and focused on being in the relationship. I wasn’t ready and and all the baggage I carried was just too much and after losing my cool and temper one too many times I decided it would be best to leave the relationship, that was when Raya’s mother told me she was pregnant. I remember I was in my van loaded with my stuff and about to drive away when she told me. I turned off the van looked at her and asked what do you want and she said stay. I did and after a time Raya was born. I remember her mother had a long and difficult labor, after 36 hours and only five centimeters, we transported. At the hospital we waited in a room and Raya’s mother rested, at one point an older Doctor (male) walked in and suddenly broke Heidi’s water, to induce labor. As always things happen, after a long vigil over Heidi I was tired and hungry so I offered to go out for food for the midwives and myself. Shortly after I left things happened, when I got back the baby had stressed and a C section was done. Back then Doctor’s were far more patronizing and had very little regard for the needs or wants of patients (Doctor knows best). We later decided that when the doctor broke the water Raya laid on her cord and hence the stressing (so much for medical wisdom).
After a time we spent several days in after birth bliss and wondered what to name our baby girl. Let me go back to the birth. During Heidi’s labor there had been an incredible lighting storm and much like our relationship it had been very stormy. As we bantered names about I said how about Raya (lightning bolt in Spanish) Heidi loved it and so it was. Our little lightning bolt was born and named. After a year of up and down we parted after one last very stormy argument, I lost my temper one too many times and I lost my little family.
Heidi decided to leave Flagstaff and nothing I could do would convince here otherwise. One day I watched them drive away and saw the face of my year old baby girl looking back at me as she drove away. After a few communications I respected Heidi’s wishes to stay away from Raya and her.
That was the last time I ever saw her except for pictures, and since Raya and I have communicated over the years off and on. I became nothing more than a biological father to her and I became less pained over the years. She may never know but I carry that day with me always and will never forget, having only one regret, that I’ve never been there for her on birthdays and special moments when she has discovered something new with wonder in her eye’s, or to wipe away tears from her face when she has been hurt, or to here her call me Daddy. She is now a woman and a very beautiful one like her mother, Happy birthday Raya, may you always be blessed with love.
I am a child of the 50’s/60’s and most people are unaware of the fact that without Bo Diddley the Rolling Stones wouldn’t have their sound. Many famous rockers of the sixties copied Bo and to tell the truth there wasn’t anyone like him before he came around. A cantankarous but humourous man, He will be missed!! His passing marks the end of an era in the Music World.

