Father's Day Post

I wanna say Happy Father's Day to father figureheads.

Y'all know my story with my dad - a man who had interest in my sister and brother but never in me. I worked through a lot of the abandonment that I experienced because of my belief I was worth abandoning. It was a hell of a kick in the teeth when, at almost 30, I realized I had worked hard to be abandoned because I thought I was worthless. But I digress.

I invited my dad to my wedding in 2010.

You can see my dad in the background, there. White shirt, khaki pants, striped tie. He was there in the capacity of my father, nothing more. My brother gave me away. There was a good reason for that. To this day, I cannot talk on the phone with my dad without him being drunk or without arguing with him and it is better for my mental health to not talk to him at all. Building bridges has been attempted. Crossing the old rickety one, falling apart from misuse, was a struggle, but I tried. When I got to the other side, I found a man that insists on reminding me that he simply has no ability or want to love me as much as he loves my siblings. That's it. There's no more.

Part of me wants to call him. Part of me wants to say happy father's day to the man who is my biological father, without whom I wouldn't have Reneé and Matthew (arguably the best siblings ever). But I know it's not worth it. It's just not.

I had men that were /sort of/ in my life that showed me what dads were supposed to be like by interacting with their own kids. I'm not gonna tag them because it makes me anxious but their dads were clear reminders that mine wasn't doing the right thing.

Then we have men like Alan Matthews [William Russ (Boy Meets World)], Dill [Stanley Tucci (Easy A)], Mel Horowitz [Dan Hedaya (Clueless)]. It's men like them who allowed me to expand my expectation for the man I would marry and have children with. They're (a little) weird, hardworking men who love their children fiercely even if they were figments of someone's imagination. That was important to me.

I didn't have a father. I didn't have a father figure. I had men who weren't real. I had watching-from-the-sidelines-as-my-friends-interacted-with-their-dads.

I had my mom. I had a woman who was fiercely protective of us, a woman who worked her ass off to keep the roof over our heads.

But no man. It just wasn't meant to be.

Ellie is 3. Kain will be 6 months soon. The man I married is a father, not just in the figurehead sense of the term. He's a boo-boo kisser. He's a shoe-putter-onner. He's a makes-a-bottle and doesn't-call-it-"babysitting"-when-he-watches-his-own-children kind of guy. He's the kind of father I prayed for as a kid back when I thought God was listening. He's a "let's-give-them-a-great-Christmas" kind of father and a "Well-let's-go-see-what-you-saw" kind of father. He's even a great father to our fur baby.

So Happy Father's Day to the uncles, the grand-dads, the family friends. Happy father's day to the imaginary and the real, the Thomas Wayne and the 2nd-grade-best-friend's dad (I remember you). Happy father's day to the step-dads and the uncles-by-marriage and the men who love and protect children that weren't theirs. Happy father's day to the teachers who are like dads to kids who don't have them -- I remember you, too.

And Happy Father's day to my husband, who is the best father a girl could ask for for her children. Turns out the Universe was listening and took its dear sweet time.