MEMORIES OF MY FATHER
It was 1986, I was 14 years old and my Father picked me up for a visit because I lived with my grandparents.
“We got in the car, and I said I needed to stop for something to eat,”
“By the time I came back out, he was gone.”
So, I called my father’s new wife, Lonnie, and said, “Daddy left me up here. I don’t know why he left me.” She said she’d tell him as soon as he arrived home.
“Daddy turned the car around and came back to pick me up,” He said: “I ‘Daddy, why did you leave me?’ He said, ‘I kind of forgot you were in the car.’ ”
That was the first time I actually realized something was wrong with him,” he said.
I wished before my dad got really sick, I could have had that father-son relationship, but that’s impossible now. I wish I could have made up for lost time. But it doesn’t break my heart anymore. It’s been broken so many times, I’m used to it by now.
I dont remember ever enjoying a family meal together. Mostly, my grandparents raised me, As his father was busy boxing and my mom was acting in films.
I grew up with three sisters — Maryum and twins Jamillah and Rasheda, when they were infants, I still remember fondly the days when we saw our dad.
“My father used to do magic tricks. He’d have a handkerchief that he’d make into a cane; he’d then make it disappear. His card tricks were really good. He was such a comical person. My father liked to wear masks and scare people. He liked to have people on the edge of their seats.
“We used to go to Pennsylvania where he had a training camp, and he’d do tricks on stage. We all went. It was all the family, including my stepsisters Leila and Hana. We’d get on the Bluebird Winnebago bus and go up to see him,” Muhammad Jr. says.
“We stayed in log cabins, rode horses, watched him train, jump ropes and eat all the time as a family. He was a great cook.
“But I never went to any boxing matches apart from one when he fought Leon Spinks, and I just remember he kept on smiling even though he was getting hit a lot.
“He never wanted me to be a fighter. He said, ‘Don’t get into it if you don’t know what you’re doing, as it’s dangerous.’
Muahammad Ali Quotes