Some of my earliest memories with my dad: Climbing on tire stacks in the warehouse of his business. Pretending to be his secretary and talking in Spanish to one of his customers. Camping. A pizza baked with the cardboard under it on one of our first weekends with him after the divorce. Playing basketball in our driveway and never being treated like just a girl. When I was maybe 11, we were playing around with a football in the front of our house and I kicked the shit out of the ball, sailing it through our yard. “You could be a punter” my dad said. I believed him. I had no desire to be a punter. Or break barriers in football—later he told me I had a great spiral— although it is a sport I love to this day because of him. But in that moment my dad told me I could do anything. I would not be invisible.
Later: I was riding a boogie board and hit my head on a rock, passing out in the process. I woke up in a lifeguard’s arms. The first thing I heard was my dad screaming my name, a desperate cry, a plea. And then there I was, alert, asking “What??” Annoyed. Unbothered. I’m fine, I don’t need you.
Later Still: I had a really bad breakup. With a woman. Not exactly something my Dad approved of at the time. A card arrived from him that said you’re going to be ok, and I love you. And I was.
Later Later : My dad calls me while I am at work. He is driving himself to the hospital because he can’t feel his legs. I leave Maryland immediately and drive to Pennsylvania. Many hours later, I will be rubbing my stepmom’s back as she cries when the doctor says he is pretty sure my dad has Parkinson’s.
I have a stepdad who sometimes infuriated me, but he was the first person to make me appreciate music. We would sit for hours in the basement listening to The Doors, drinking beers from the mini fridge, a few years shy of me legally being able to drink them. We went spotting for deer at night and he made a killer steak on the grill.
We pretended I didn’t call him The Warden when I was growing up.
Later: A police officer shows up at my stepdad’s door and tells him his ex-wife was murdered. They have come here because that is the address on her license. He calls my sister first. My sister waits a few hours to call me, intentionally giving me a few more hours to sleep before my life shatters.
Later Still: My stepdad fields media calls regarding a woman he was no longer in a relationship with. I stand in the basement of my childhood home and eventually after the fifth or sixth call I yell “Just give me the phone” and I talk to the first of many reporters I will speak to.
Later Later : We sit in the coroner’s office. Just the two of us. I’ve been in the news enough by now that I am not uncomfortable here, this is just Pam, whom I’ve spoken to previously, not “The Coroner”. My stepdad says, “what happens to the gun?” He wants to make sure he doesn’t accidentally buy the gun that killed the woman he spent twenty plus years with. “Did she feel any pain?” is the only question I want answered. The autopsy report says she likely died in seconds, which means he slit her throat after he shot her. Sadistic bastard, I say and my stepdad agrees.
Pam asks if we want to see pictures, we decline. Many years later I will want to see them but will never have the courage to contact her. When we leave, we move uncomfortably around each other. What do we do now. What do we say.
We hug and get into our respective cars. Our relationship is never the same without the woman that tethered us.
It is no surprise almost all of my favorite men are dads ( and my Uncle Dave is basically like my second dad, he treats me more like a daughter than a niece).
I jokingly (?) refer to my sexuality as Softball Lesbians and Hot Dads. I’m sure I could unpack why this is— my own hang ups about not being a parent, men being emotional idiots and then you see them with their kid and it’s like hold up! You do have feelings! Share some of that with me!— but I’m just gonna let it be what it is. Dads are hot. Especially when they are dad-ing.
My dad and I used to play tennis together with some regularity. It’s been years now since the last time we played but I know we will never play again. I wish I could remember the last time, I wish I would have known it was the last time. I play with my cousin’s husband ( also a dad!) when I go to Florida though and I feel incredibly lucky that the men in my family love me so well.
The adage that women look for men like their dads has always seemed weird to me. Maybe it’s just a straight woman thing ( or a thing some psychologist decided a million years ago and it just became fact through osmosis ) but that’s never felt true for me with one exception— you have to show up for me. Small, Big and everything in between.
Right after my mom died, I was struggling in my interactions with her brother. He wasn’t helping with their sister, whom I was the primary caregiver of. I was just casually bitching to my dad one day, crying from frustration. Later I found out that when my dad got off the phone with me, he drove to my uncle’s house and said “you are not going to talk to my daughter that way, you are not going to make her cry and you better step up.”
So fellas, y’all can be a lot of things but John’s daughter knows what it’s like to have someone have her back and she’d never settle for anything less.
Everyone always tells me I look like my mom but this is what I got from my dad : my sense of humor, my olive skin that turns golden brown in the summer without even trying, my love of football and a lifelong devotion to a team that just refuses to win, being an excellent hugger, my affinity for board games and camping and most importantly, my compassion.
All the good parts. ❤️
I love this 💜