Two Fathers, One Dad

I’m stuck on this.  Today being Father’s Day has me cogitating about the big picture of this statement. Not the idea of having two fathers but that I consider only one of them my Dad. It is just so very complex when you’re adopted.

Last September, my Dad (“Chief” to most of us) succumbed to cancer and joined his God in the afterlife. Dad left behind my Mom whom he had been married to for 63 years, my four siblings and I, our spouses and a slew of grandkids.  My Dad loved all of us fiercely, he loved us gently, and he loved us with laughter and silliness. He loved us with his time.

Second to his family, Chief adored sports. Dad always had a book nearby, he rocked the scrabble board, and he had ice cream every night.  With chocolate sauce and whipped cream. If there existed a lineup of potential men for you to pick from to be your Dad, you would pick Chief.  

Exactly one month ago, the heart of an 81-year-old man in western Illinois seized suddenly and stopped pumping.  I never met this man, my biological father, but because of him I have a curious mind and a parade of freckles. I wasn’t given the chance to call him anything—father, Chuck or sperm donor— because our “no contact’ was by his request.

To his credit, my birth father provided me with several vital things: a completed medical history questionnaire, a younger brother and sister, and the gift of life.  All of which I treasure. I hold no ill feelings towards this other father, but I very much regret not having met him. His sudden death is a door closing, a dashed hope. It is a loss of a different magnitude and on a different scale than the grief I feel for the loss of my Dad.  In truth, I mourn mostly his fleeting role in my life. There was much I had wanted to know about him, to say to him, and to ask him.

Adoption is about relinquishment, rejection and denial.  It is also about being wanted, being loved and feeling like you belong.  I know all these emotions. Intimately. As I write this blog on Father’s Day, I think about both my fathers, my one Dad.  I reflect on how the love I knew from my Dad fills me with belonging, and how that pure love empties out the denial of my other father.  

Even if it weren’t Father’s Day, I would confess that I have room in my heart to love two fathers.  And on this momentous day, I acknowledge the two men who have both influenced the course of my life. While there is only one man that I call Dad, I care about both my fathers.  I love them, think about them, and I grieve their absence in my life.