I am in the store buying father’s day cards – one for my step-dad, one for my husband, one for my daughter’s significant other and a few other dads I know – when I begin looking for one to give to my father, who I met back in February after his absence in my life for 50+ years. I don’t find what I’m looking for in a card. (I didn’t find what I was looking for in a father, either.) None of the platitudes on the cards are appropriate.
Where’s the card that says – I acknowledge you as my father, my seed? Thank you for your part in my creation.
I don’t find one. There’s a business opportunity in this I also think. A memory bubbles up from a few years ago when I jotted down titles and categories for a line of mean cards that should be written. This Father’s Day card would be one of them. It’s not that the cards are mean necessarily, but they are direct. Not sugar coated. No Hallmark sentiments.
Having met Saturnino, I feel a need to acknowledge him. Having seen his face, I realize that although I look like my mother a whole bunch, I also look like him. Our voices have a similar inflection. We both have big feet. We both have….well…one could go on listing for quite a while…suffice it to say that DNA don’t lie even when it is no longer relevant.
(Saturnino & Me, Feb. 2011)
My father seeded me. I met him. Now what?
Based on my experience, one doesn’t get to have a father at age 56. Days go by…weeks even when he doesn’t even cross my mind. The hole where he should have been has long been filled and paved. The longing squelched. When he does come to mind it’s because of a holiday and the urge to buy a card.
Happy Father’s Day to the man who wasn’t a part of my life but without whose seed I would not have been. I have to acknowledge and thank him for that.
Related:
DNA Don’t Lie (El Niño, El Niño)