Two Dads, One Love

I didn’t grow up with my biological Dad. I didn’t get bedtime stories from him or walk hand-in-hand to school. I didn’t get to hear his laugh echo through my childhood or watch him age into a man I could call “Dad” in real time. He passed before I ever got the chance to know him in my adult life. But here’s the thing—he still gave me love. Even in his absence, he gave me something sacred: life. And because of this he gave me a family I adore and a sense of belonging that pulses through my blood.

I’ve felt his love in the gaps—in the questions I asked my aunties, in the stories that trickled down through cousins, in the strange comfort I felt standing in the places he once stood. I’ve never stopped wishing I could have known him longer. But I’ve also never stopped being grateful that he existed at all.

And then—there’s my Dad. John D.

Not the one who gave me life. The one who raised me.

The one who showed up. Who stayed. Who took a kid that wasn’t his and loved her hard. The one who taught me how to be strong without being cruel. Who taught me to never half-ass anything, to stand up for people, and to keep my word. The one who made me laugh when I wanted to disappear and who gave me the kind of safety I didn’t even know I needed until I was grown enough to look back and realize what he’d done.

You didn’t have to be my dad. But you were. And you are.

You’re the reason I know what love that chooses you looks like.

To both of my dads—the one who gave me life and the one who gave me everything else—I carry your lessons in my bones. I carry your love like armor. I’m who I am because of you. And I’m thankful for that every single day.

Happy Father’s Day.

~smy