Usher reconnected with his father decades after he left their family, but their reunion was short-lived. The singer told the Mirror that his mother advised him against reuniting with him, but he was at a crossroads when his father fell ill. “She never wanted me to meet my dad but as a man I had to make my own decision. What if he died and I never got the chance to meet him?” he questioned. He ultimately reached out, a decision he didn’t regret. “I was happy that I did, happy that I got closure, happy that I forgave him for not being there and that I knew he really did love me.”
The singer’s reunion with his father came at a difficult time, with the elder recently being admitted to the hospital in need of a liver transplant. Usher told Oprah that he ended up paying for the surgery, but his father ended up in a coma during the procedure. “The hardest part of this story is the fact that, within the process of making the decision of whether my father lives or dies, if they take him off of the [breathing] machine, my son is across town just being born,” he revealed.
Usher had to leave the hospital for the birth of his son, but he later returned to share some final moments with his father. “… I remember showing a picture of my son to my father, who was unconscious, saying ‘Look at this, this is Usher. This is the continuation of us,'” he told the Daily Mail.
