My girlfriend asked me about my father today. I mentioned that I didn’t have one and she reminded me that I did. I suppose she is right. I’ve had three fathers in my life. One by blood, one by bond and one by marriage. The first I didn’t even know until the second died. I knew of him, the way you know about legends or things that go bump in the night. He existed on the fringe of things and I was terrified of who he could be. He wasn’t a terrible man, just a cold one. I like to think of myself as a warm and loving soul. I got that from my father by bond. He was the man who loved my mother; the man who raised me. He died when I was twelve and I grew up a little then. I think that all kids who are asked to grow up early are in some ways arrested at the age of their ascension. Those who know me would agree I am eternally twelve. If there is a heaven and we are sent back to that perfect age I believe it would be twelve and in the months before he took ill and left us forever.
My third father was my then wife’s step-father. I loved him and respected him. I wanted to have him move in with us and live here and grow old under our care. If my dad taught me how to be loving then her dad taught me how to be strong. It is a lesson I came into late in life and one I carry with me to this day.
All three men meant something different to me. They carried aspects of what it means to be a dad. I believe I carry a great deal of what they taught in me today. I try to give it to my kids, to show them how to be men, to love, to be strong, even to be feared or at the very least to fear me. All of this is what I took from them. Now that I am no longer married my ex will find a new love and the boys a second father. I hope what they gain from him is a kind of strength I haven’t given them. I hope it is good and pure and filled with the possibility of a better world and being better people.
I also hope it isn’t half as cheesy as I am.