Father’s Day just passed, and I want to write about my old boyfriend, Tyrin. Tyrin passed away on December 5, 2022. That’s a day I will never forget. I’ll write more about him later, but today I want to talk about how great of a father he was and how I’m still trying to understand God’s plans for me in all of this.
Tyrin took really good care of my baby. We started talking and dating when I was barely pregnant, and he had just graduated high school. It's a little embarrassing to admit, since I’m six years older than him and obviously, I was already pregnant when we met. But from the very beginning, I told him straight up that I was pregnant. His exact words were: “That’s not stopping my program.” And it didn’t.
I had just left a horrible relationship literally the day before I found out I was pregnant. That relationship was so toxic I’ll have to tell that story another day. I told my mom I was pregnant, and she was conflicted. She wanted me to have her grandchild so badly, but she also knew what I’d already been through.
I’d already gone through preterm labor twice before, had to be induced, which is painfully traumatic, and had to deliver babies that didn’t have a fighting chance unless I was at a Catholic hospital. I told my mom I didn’t want to keep the pregnancy. I scheduled an abortion.
The night before the appointment, I stayed at my mom’s house. She ended up calling my abusive ex over, and he hid my car keys. I ended up missing the appointment. I was livid. I rescheduled for another day, but I didn’t make it to that appointment either. My mom kept pushing me to keep the pregnancy. She said she was getting older and didn’t have much time left on this earth. I knew this pregnancy was going to be hard and I knew I’d be doing it alone.
I had to go through two surgical procedures just to make the pregnancy viable. After 16 weeks, I had to go to the hospital every single week.
My child’s biological father never came to one appointment. That wasn’t surprising, I didn't want to be around him, but I did extend the offer. Tyrin offered to come with me, but morally, I didn’t feel right about it. Still, he’d call during my ultrasounds to check-in. He took me on dates with my big belly and made me feel seen when I felt odd and unsure. I needed those dates more than I knew.
When I went into labor, I called Tyrin. He wanted to come, but I told him it was court-ordered that the biological father be there. Tyrin texted me throughout the whole process. A week after she was born, he came to my house, held her, and took pictures. I lost those photos because I didn’t back up my phone before it broke. That still hurts.
Tyrin would pick me and my baby up late at night just to drive across town for food. I loved Berry’s lobster pizza, and he made sure I got it. He took us to doctor’s appointments. He was just always there.
Eventually, he moved in with me because he was always around anyway. At the time, he was working as an electrician apprentice at SoFi Stadium. He ended up leaving that job to spend time with his brother, who had just gotten out of prison. From there, things slowly started spiraling. He hit some bumps in the road that I won’t get into now, but they had a real impact on his life. He eventually got a job cleaning airplanes and started school again for welding right before he passed.
As a father, Tyrin was amazing. I trusted him with my daughter and as a mother of a girl, that’s huge. Especially as someone who was molested as a child and had seen things I shouldn’t have. I had visible cameras in my house, not just for peace of mind but also because of the lifestyle Tyrin was living. He was walking a line between being an active gang member and a man trying to live right.
Tyrin took my daughter to daycare nearly every day and stayed home with her at night while I worked. I went to class once a week and did the rest of my schooling online, and he helped with everything. Even when we broke up for a few days or a week, he still came in the morning to take her to daycare. He spent more time with my baby from birth than her biological father ever has even now, nearly three years after Tyrin’s death.
He went to every fundraiser at her daycare, took her to dentist appointments by himself, played with her, let her paint his nails and have tea parties. He told me, “That’s my kid.” And how could I argue? He was doing all the fatherly things and more.
One day he asked if it would be weird to get her name tattooed. I said no, but told him not to especially since he wanted it on his face. I reminded him about his goals. He wanted to join the army, but the recruiter said he’d have to remove the tattoo on his hairline his sister’s name. So he didn’t go through with the face tattoo. That didn’t change how he felt about her. She was his baby.
In February 2022, I got pregnant again. I never told him I had been pregnant by him before when my daughter was almost a year old I miscarried at home. But this time I told him. He was excited. He wanted a child so badly. But I couldn’t do it. I told him he was too deep in the streets, and I didn’t want to raise a baby alone. As great as he was with my daughter, he was still straddling the fence. Gangbanging, getting into trouble. I thought he’d end up in jail or dead.
He’d cheated on me too, and I didn’t want the added stress during pregnancy. He promised he’d get it together. Eventually, we agreed that I would get an abortion, but after he finished welding school in March 2023, we’d have a baby. He already had names picked out. One of them was “Amillion.” He had another, but it didn’t stick with me like that one did.
On the day of the abortion, he sat with me in the waiting room for hours. He begged me to change my mind. He said, “You shouldn’t be doing this to your body.” But mentally, I couldn’t do it. I was already stressing myself out, always checking the Citizen app to make sure he was safe. The only time I felt peace was when he was home or had my baby with him. After the procedure, I had a panic attack. The worst one I’ve ever had. I didn’t want him to see me cry, so I waited to call him to pick me up. I felt horrible. I felt like I killed the baby that could’ve changed his life but something in my spirit told me to forgive myself.
After the abortion, something in him shifted. He had his demons. He confided in me. We prayed together. He thanked me for letting him be a father to my daughter. He stayed consistent, reminding me he was getting ready for March. He wanted to leave LA. He always wanted to do family things. He asked me to marry him after his uncle’s wedding which was supposed to be the following year. I thought he was too young. I told him marriage isn’t supposed to be what he’s seen. I didn’t want to be cheated on. But he promised me it would be different.
Still, being cheated on makes you question everything.
My last memories of Tyrin are with my baby. He took her to a Halloween party at Baldwin Hills Park. They played games, got face paint, we ate carnival food. After that, he went to work. He was finally getting it together.
On her birthday in November, he got paid that day, bought her gold hoop earrings, and took her to get fancy waffles in Long Beach. She didn’t have a party, but I got her a cake and we sang happy birthday at my mom’s bedside at her house. I wanted my mom to feel included.
Tyrin and my mom had been getting close. He’d see her a few times a week after picking up the baby and dropping her off. They talked on the phone often. One day she told me, “You’re not getting out of that relationship. That’s that killer love.” I asked what she meant. She said, “Only death will break that up.” Her words haunt me to this day.
Tyrin was killed nine days after my daughter’s birthday.
The night before he died, he told me he was getting my name tattooed on his neck. I didn’t believe him at first. He came home late with my name swollen on his neck, but something felt eerie that morning. He told me we’d spend the whole day together. He picked up his best friend and another homie, then dropped me off at physical therapy.
I told him it would be a while, and he said he’d drop them off and come back. My cousin hit me up, saying she was in LA and wanted to get food. I told Tyrin he did not have to come back to get me, and he didn’t like that. He said, “She didn’t even come to Sunday’s birthday why are you going out with her?” He had a point, but I just didn’t want to be around his friends.
At the restaurant, I was telling my cousin how much I love him and how he has changed so much for the better. I told her that I'm going to forgive him and leave the past in the past especially since he got my name tattooed on his neck. He FaceTimed me while we were eating, showing off his tattoo. He looked so happy cheesing from ear to ear. He told me to grab his gun from the house before I came back to him. I forgot to grab it. He didn’t answer my text, so we headed downtown without it.
By the time I got from my house in the Jungles to Denker and King, his mom called me and said, “What happened?” I thought it was about the tattoo. I said, “What you mean?” Then she said, calmly, “Tyrin is dead.”
I screamed.
I looked at his location he was on Normandie. By the grace of God, traffic was empty on the opposite side of the street. My cousin flew down Normandie. We got to Slauson and saw the yellow tape. I ran through the alley. His sister was coming from the other side. We collapsed in each other’s arms.
His body was under a sheet. I saw his shoes. A part of me died right there.
How could this happen? He didn’t have his gun, but he was in his own hood. Why was he the only one shot if he was with his homies? When I found out that it wasn't a drive-by, why wasn't the shooter shot dead as well!? I had so many questions and not enough answers. Not enough bandwidth to fully comprehend what happened. The love of my life is gone just when he was getting himself together!
He died almost exactly nine months after my abortion. That destroyed me. I didn’t eat for days. I kept vomiting, I was hoping I was pregnant again, just to have a piece of him left. I wasn’t. I was sick with grief. I lost 8 pounds in a couple of days.
I used to wonder if I’d had the baby, would things be different? Would I have survived losing him and my mom five months later? Or would I have broken under the pressure?
I don’t have the answers. But I do believe our lives are written in a way. We just have to trust God and trust the process. There’s no way all that happened by chance. I don’t think I could’ve handled it all if I’d had another child too.
I don’t know what God has planned for me. But I know God won’t put more on me than I can handle. I’ve learned to forgive myself for what I didn’t do, and for doing what I thought was right at the time.
Tyrin was the best father I’ve ever seen for someone his age. I thank God for letting me go through the good, the bad, and the hard with him. That relationship taught me so much. He set the blueprint for what a father and a stepfather should be at the very least.
I hope in another lifetime; Tyrin gets to live a long happy life and become the man and father he always wanted to be.
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