In memory of Laverne Cleveland, my daddy
*July 25, 1951 to June 26, 2023*
He would have turned 75 this year.
I keep sitting with that number. Seventy-five. And instead I’m the one still here, replaying his words like a voicemail I can’t bring myself to delete.
My daddy wanted me to shine. To be the best that I could be. He used to say it like it was the simplest thing in the world — “No one can stop you but you.”
For years I thought I understood that sentence. Now I’m not so sure I do. Because it leaves you with a question that doesn’t have an easy answer.
What is your best?
Sit with that for a second before you keep reading. Not what you think it should be. What it actually is, on the days you’re actually living.
For me, some days my best is just holding myself above water. Not drowning. Not going under. Just — staying up, breathing, showing up for the day in front of me. That’s it. That’s the whole best I have that day.
Other days my best is reaching for something amazing, and actually getting it. The thing I worked for. The thing I almost talked myself out of trying for.
And some days — rare days — my best feels like the top of the world.
And then there are the days when I wasn’t my best at all. Days I’m not proud of. Days I fell short of what I know I’m capable of. I have to name those too, because pretending they didn’t happen isn’t honesty — it’s just a different kind of hiding.
I used to think those were different women — the one barely treading water, the one reaching, the one on the mountain, and the one who missed the mark entirely. That none of them could possibly be the same person. But they’re all me, on different days, doing what I could with what I had that day — or not doing it at all. My daddy never asked me to pick one and stay there. He just asked me to keep shining, however that showed up, and to keep coming back even on the days I didn’t.
What about you — which one are you today? Above water? Reaching? On top? Or not your best, and still worthy of coming back?
How I Know
Here’s how I know my daddy meant what he said, and wasn’t just handing me a nice line.
I know because he went through it. He didn’t hand me a lesson from the sidelines — he lived his own fall and his own rise, right in front of me. I witnessed my daddy’s triumphs and his tribulations. Not the polished version. The real one.
And my Mommy, Evelyn Jean Cleveland, knew him even longer than that. She married him August 18, 1972. Fifty-plus years and more of knowing him. Loving him through all of it. She saw the whole man, start to finish, longer than anyone.
I’ve had my own falls too. In my younger days, I lied. I cheated. I gossiped. I’ve done it all — every ugly thing that doesn’t make it into the highlight reel of a life. And I’ve been finding my way back to me ever since. Still on my way.
I’m not writing that for sympathy. I’m writing it because it’s true, and because my daddy saw me do some of it, and loved me anyway. Not blindly — he saw it, the good and the bad, the same way I saw his. That’s what made his belief in me mean something. It wasn’t blind faith. It was faith that had watched the whole thing and stayed.
Have you let anyone see your whole thing — the fall, not just the rise? Has anyone stayed?
Good, Bad, Ugly, Raw, Real
I love my daddy for all of it. Not just the parts of him that were easy to love. The good, the bad, the ugly. The raw. The real.
That’s the inheritance he left me — not money, not a lesson wrapped up in a neat bow, but permission. Permission to be the woman who’s sometimes just above water and sometimes on top of the world and sometimes not her best at all, and to know all of those women are worthy of shining. Permission to let someone witness the whole thing, and love you anyway.
No one can stop me but me, Daddy. I’m still working on believing that most days. But I’m working on it because you went through it first, and you asked me to.
So I’ll ask you what he asked me: what’s stopping you from your best today — and is it really anyone but you?
Much joy,
Tawnja