by Brooks Brown

By the grace of God, one spring day in 2000, as I walked through the Beverly Center in Los Angeles, California, a tall, light-skinned brother with a Mack-daddy right side part in his curly dark hair and a plaster cast on his left leg approached me. I had all but given up on meeting anyone decent in L.A.’s cesspool of fake and phony Black men driving expensive cars, lying about jobs and education they didn’t have, all while boldly attempting to convince me that “kickin’ it” was the new millennium dating trend whether they had girlfriends, wives, and/or even boyfriends.

That morning, I had already decided that my seven-month visit to Los Scandalous was quickly nearing an end since the job at Walt Disney had fell through. I was down to the last six thousand dollars of my 401K money, the hundred or so people I had met weren’t friendly and seemingly suffered from obvious mental and moral deficiencies I couldn’t even begin to comprehend, and quite frankly, I really missed my family and the beauty and comfort of southern living. I had pretty much decided making new female friends before I ran screaming from this nightmare was a moot point, and making new male friends was strictly off limits, unless I immediately needed a kidney or heart transplant.

 Darryl George Brown, a native of Philadelphia by way of Virginia, was not convinced by my “ignore him he’ll go away” attitude as I hurriedly walked right past him without so much as an eye blink as he yelled, “Excuse me, excuse me”. He hobbled a few feet after me before screaming, “Excuse me, I know you hear me” one last time at the top of his lungs. Of course, at that instant, I felt pretty foolish ignoring a crippled man desperately chasing after me in public, so I stopped long enough to exchange introductions, inform him I would be on my way back to Texas in a few weeks, and that I didn’t enjoy long distance relationships. He insisted that I take his phone number, attempted without success to get mine, introduced me to his twelve year old daughter, who incidentally made it clear after walking up to us and joining our conversation that she didn’t like the looks of me and that was that. 

I remember walking away thinking, “I will never call this man”. I’ve never been extremely attracted to light complexioned men, I didn’t date men with children or ex-wives, and honestly, after being in L.A. for almost a year and watching the nightly news, the LAPD was not to be trusted. I had acquired a foul taste in my mouth for the corrupt officers running rampant in the LAPD; I could only grossly imagine the temptations placed before Black men with guns and badges, so I knew with utmost certainty, I didn’t want anything to do with Officer Brown.  

To make a long story short and eating crow even shorter, on New Year’s Eve 2001, I married the sweetest, kindest, most caring, and highly intelligent man, I have ever known. We have been married now for 2 1⁄2 years and our relationship just keeps getting better by the minute. We have countless disagreements and often, against all the great advice and free counseling from Okra and Dr. Phil, we do go to bed angry with one another but there is something about true love that truly conquers all that always gets us past the rough patches and wakes us feeling blessed that we have each other every morning. 

Darryl is the epitome of what every good mother wants in a son and what every good father wants for their daughter. He is respectful and considerate of my needs, he has always encouraged my dreams and aspirations, and he is truly “a man” in every sense of the word with regard to being a responsible and loving adult. He is a man of genuine strength of character and integrity in both his professional and personal life. He served as an Air Force pilot for nine years before embarking on his sixteen-year career as a peace officer. While achieving success in both fields was never an easy task for a man of color, he never fails to share his knowledge and appreciation of what hard work, education, and opportunity has afforded him, despite institutionalized prejudice and discrimination.  

Though he and his ex-wife are not on the best of terms, his love for his daughter is unparalleled. There is nothing in this world that he would not do and has not done for her comfort and safety and he cherishes every moment he spends with her, which he never feels is enough. The media and often the Black community portray Black men in a negative light with regard to their relationships with their children and their ability to financially provide for them. At times, he comments that he doesn’t know from where his conviction stems but he says he could never allow any child with his blood flowing through their veins to ever go without simply because things didn’t work out between himself and the mother. His eyes light up whenever his daughter is around or even mentioned and his heart is noticeably broken whenever she is not with him. 

Darryl doesn’t just believe in love, he honestly practices his belief every day. I was extremely skeptical when we first began dating because he constantly told me how much he loved me. I wasn’t used to men acknowledging their love for me so openly and frequently; I assumed he was another crack pot. Now, I wait impatiently for my five to ten a day “I love you” dosage. He tells me I’m beautiful every day and I am not exaggerating. When you are told that you are beautiful every day you slowly but surely begin to believe it and he tells me so much on my longest and worst day with bad breath and even worse bad hair, I am overly confident that I am an extremely phenomenal Nubian goddess.

We are by no means wealthy but I can’t remember a time since I have known him that I mentioned wanting or needing something that he didn’t soon provide. I could go on and on about the wonderful things he says and does that constantly remind me how blessed I truly am to have him in my life but that could take days and enough pages to easily fill a short novel. He has great credit and unbelievable job security but his most impressive financial accomplishment is his ability to responsibly manage his budget, which always includes paying every bill on time, yearly vacations and monthly outings with his daughter and me. Financial success should never be measured by how much money you have but what you do with it.  

I will conclude my story about my very real “Mr. Right” by informing those who read this article that “Mr. Right” is also looking for “Ms. Right” and if you should happen to bump into him in an elevator, on a bus, or even at a mall and he insists on just meeting you, recognize that there may be a spiritual reason for that insistence. Neither he nor I knew at the time of our meeting that only God would make a man hobble in pain after a heart-broken, rude and obviously full of herself, skeptical little know it all who wouldn’t even give him her number. Every negative thought I ever had about divorced policemen with teen-age daughters and ex-wives I’d rather not deal with has totally been replaced with what can only be called “the most completely fulfilling relationship I have ever had with another human being”.  

Darryl Brown didn’t change my life, he became my life, and he taught me to open myself up to all that love has to offer and to share that love as much as I possibly can. And believe it or not, before marrying me, he told me practically the same thing about me opening him up to love. I sometimes wonder what our lives might be like had I not called him three weeks after our first meeting, and he quickly reminds me that our lives would be exactly the same because God would have made certain our paths crossed again because he was and will always be my “Mr. Right”.  Brooks Brown is a writer and editor, residing in Tarzana, California with her loving husband, Darryl Brown. 

Brooks Brown