I can remember being in middle school and living in a house where one room was off limits to me and my siblings. My dad always seemed to be preoccupied in this room and it was common for other people to come to our home and stay in this room with my dad for hours. At that age, I had no idea what went on in that room.

All I knew were two things: the room had a weird smell and my dad always emerged as a different person, one I did not particularly like.

Fast forward a few years to my sophomore year of high school. At this point, I had gained some knowledge of who my father was and what he did. I knew he was a hardworking man that would be gone for days at a time, providing for our family. I knew he loved me, my brother, my sister, and my mother. I knew he tried very hard to keep his head above water in a world where drowning in negativity is common. I also knew that my father produced, distributed and consumed drugs, crystal methamphetamine to be specific. It was in that off-limits room that I dare not enter where it all happened.

In between the years of being totally in the dark about what he did and the years in which I was completely aware of my dad's sins, there were many difficult moments that I will never be able to forget. There was the time that my father was pulled over and arrested on the way to taking me to my softball game. There was the time that I woke up in the middle of the night to my dad telling me to be quiet as police pounded on our door. There was the time that he was arrested yet again and we had to move as the police ransacked our home. I never understood the reason behind these arrests. I just knew that my dad was not being the man my family needed him to be.

Every time my dad was taken away, my first thought would always run to my family and how we would survive without the man that held us together.

This thought haunted me for days the final time my dad was arrested. I remember being woken up very early in the morning on a school day. I can still feel my dad's hand on my back and his breath on my cheek as he told me that he was going to prison and it would be a while before he was home again. It was so early and I was so tired, which is my only excuse as to why all I could do was muster up a soft, "I love you." Then I rolled back over and went to sleep as if it were a dream.

When I woke again to get ready for school, I realized that my dad's goodbye was no dream at all. It was, in fact, a living nightmare that I would have to endure for the next five years of my life. When my father's face and his crime appeared on the front of the newspaper, I had never felt more hurt in my life. At that point, I was seen as the daughter of a drug dealer. The only thing I felt at that moment was disappointment.

In all honesty, I felt disappointed in my dad for the next few months. When I first went to visit him, I could not even look him in the eyes without crying. I felt betrayed. When I wrote him letters, I called him by his name instead of his title as my father.

Then, I realized that I was not seeing the situation for what it truly was: a blessing.

My father going to prison was the best thing that could have happened for him and for our family. He accomplished so much within those prison walls that he could never have done in the outside world. He became sober; he worked hard and obtained his GED; he completed the RDAP program; he learned about and accepted the word of God, and so much more.

He became the man that my family and I needed him to be.

My father was released in 2017. He got to see my brother graduate from high school. He and my mother bought and now own a beautiful home together that I love to visit. He works for an amazing and accepting company as a welder. Most importantly, he constantly shows his love for our family and how he will never go back to a world in which he cannot be with us every day. I know that when I walk across that stage in May 2019 to officially graduate, my dad is going to be standing in the crowd shouting my name, and I would not want to have it any other way.

My father has gone to prison and he is listed as a felon, but it does not define him. He is a wonderful father, a loving husband, a devoted son, and an amazing human that I am so blessed to have in my life.