Father, Dad, and always The Chief

It’s a daunting task to honor my father, the man who raised me, and the only person I will ever call Dad. He and Mom brought my twin sister and me home from St. Vincent’s orphanage when we were three weeks old. From Adoption Day forward, his role in my life was positive, guiding, and impactful. 

In this fourth in a series of essays about dads and father figures, I share two condensed excerpts. The first anecdote is from my adoption search memoir, Twice a Daughter, which released in May. The second piece is from a work-in-progress memoir to be published in 2023. I hope that you enjoy getting to know my father, just as much as I enjoy writing about him.

***

I look over at the door as Dad, dubbed “Chief” by one of my brothers when I was in high school, scuffs into the den. Heaving himself into the recliner, he clears his throat and reaches for the manila folder I hadn’t noticed wedged into his chair. 

“Julie, this is the file I have on your adoption. I made a separate one for Jenny, who’s coming on Sunday. Your mother and I will help in any way we can.” Dad’s clear blue eyes meet mine. Behind his glasses, tears merge with the dark frames.

“Ah, Dad.” I know what’s coming.

“Adopting your sister and you was the best thing that ever happened to your mother and me.” 

I step quickly over to my father’s chair, and he hands me the folder. I draw it to my chest. The weight of it is nothing, but the feel of it is everything. 

I lean over and kiss Dad, and then I massage his shoulder. His dimples deepen, and he reaches up and pats my hand. Ever so slightly, his head nods as if indicating everything is okay and it will be all right going forward. I hover behind Dad, my arm resting along his shoulders. My fingers graze the bare spot in the chair where his head has made an indentation in the fabric. My father’s good hand, the one unscathed from the last series of TIAs, reaches up to mine.

“Dad, do you really think Mom is all right with my digging into all this?” 

“She’ll be fine. We both knew this day might come. Getting at your medical background is important. We understand that. I’m fine with it.” He strokes the back of my hand like it’s a silk scarf.

“Thanks, Dad.”

As I sandwich his withered hand in mine, I note the age spots and throbbing raised veins. These are the same hands that dragged me to swim lessons, that shared a bag of Twizzlers on the cottage porch, and that adeptly placed winning tiles in family Scrabble games.

“Thanks for this.” I lift the prized folder, waving it at him like a winning lottery ticket. “Love you.”

“God bless you,” he says. His good hand lifts, and the palm is toward me, like a high five or a truce or a blessing. Maybe all of them rolled into one.

When he utters those words, “God bless you,” it’s as if I’ve returned to my child-self, the tall, skinny girl with braids whom he tucked into a canopied bed across from my twin sister. Life was simpler when Jenny and I were young. There were no threatening medical concerns. No need to consider a mysterious gene pool, and no tricky adoption search path to navigate. 

***

On March 6th, 1959, several days after Mom received the phone call from Catholic Charities, my adoptive parents pulled their sedan out of the detached garage behind their two-bedroom ranch in Western Springs. Mom fidgeted with the diaper bag, folded, and refolded the identical pink blankets she’d bought for this occasion. She quizzed Dad numerous times about the traffic and how long it would take to reach St. Vincent’s downtown. Throughout Mom’s nervous chatter Dad kept his blue eyes on the road.  As was his way, he offered a corny joke to diffuse Mom’s nerves.

“What do you call twins before they are born?” he quizzed.

“I don’t know, Jack. What?”

“Womb mates.” 

Mom’s giggle was all that my dad needed to pull another jest from his stash of humorous material.

“What do you call twins after they’re born?”

Mom couldn’t help herself. She was already chuckling. 

“I dunno. What?”

“Bosom buddies!”

After the twelve-mile trip east on the chaotic Eisenhower expressway, my parents arrived on the city’s Gold Coast. Dad maneuvered the sedan into the private lot behind the massive, red-brick structure at 721 N. La Salle Street. Mom scooped up the baby gear she’d packed, and they walked hand in hand around to the main entrance. They strolled through the shiny, black-enameled gates, joy etching smiles onto their young faces. Inside the spacious, marble-floored vestibule, they were directed to the elevator. Shivering with new parent nerves, Mom and Dad took the elevator from the lobby to the fifth-floor infant nurseries.

When the elevator doors opened, Sister Mary Alice Rowan, the prioress of St. Vincent’s Infant & Child Home, was waiting for them. The stout, heavily robed nun ushered my soon-to-be parents into her office. She signaled for them to sit in the two chairs facing her large wooden desk, and then she rambled around it, settling her large frame into a chair across from them. Sister’s commanding presence–in her dark robes and white, winged headdress–did not invite questions. In this final interview of the eighteen-month adoption vetting process, Mom committed the ultimate sin of daring to ask Sister Mary Alice a question.

“Sister, can you please tell us a little about the girls’ background?”

Through a thin smile, Sister Mary Alice said, “Do you want these girls or not?”

“Yes, Sister. We desperately want to be the parents of these two baby girls”

“Then there will be no more questions.” 

After that exchange, Mom let Dad do all the talking. Together they signed all the paperwork Sister pushed across the desk towards them. And, when Sister Mary Alice stood, my parents followed her dutifully down the length of a glistening, linoleum hallway to the ‘waiting for adoption’ infant nursery. 

From behind a huge plate glass window, our new parents beamed at the sight of us swaddled in the arms of two nurse’s aides. When Sister Mary Alice nodded to her staff, the young women emerged from the sacred space of the nursery and placed us into our parents’ waiting arms. 

***

Adoption blessed my parents with an instant family. In turn, I was gifted with an amazing father figure. He died in September of 2017, the day after my parents celebrated sixty-four years of marriage. He was funny, possessed an easy-going nature, and when you were with him, he made you feel as if you were the most important person in the room. In the company of family or friends his goal was always to elicit a smile, a giggle, or a deep belly laugh by whipping off a corny joke or riddle. 

Memories of my dad resonate still. Thoughts of him flood in as I pass his photo on the bookshelf in the den, when I free the bedroom pillows from a trunk that once anchored his office, and each time I punch in the digits of my parents’ phone number. The unwavering support he provided me during my adoption searches was indicative both of his strong character and deep affection. 

In thinking about my father, I believe my mother’s words sum it up best: “He was a good man, and I miss him every day.”

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