Thoughts on Father’s Day

The man that I call Daddy is not my real dad. He’s actually my uncle. My biological father died of heart attack when I was two. I don’t really remember him that much. After I was born, I was given to my aunt (my biological father’s sister) and her husband. I grew up with them as my parents. And they were, and still are, the best parents.

I didn’t know I was adopted until I was 13, and frankly, I didn’t care that much either. I was so thankful that I became their daughter and was bothered about how things would’ve been different if I weren’t given to them. My parents never made me feel like I was adopted. They gave me everything, sent me to the most expensive schools, brought me to expensive hospitals even when I just had a fever, reared me up in church -they did their best for me. They still do.

It was expected from my my mom, she was, after all, my aunt, my biological father’s sister. But my dad and I don’t even share one drop of blood and yet he treated me like I was very much his own. It’s funny when other people tell us that I look like him, since we really don’t have blood relations.

When I was a toddler, it was my dad who taught me how to stand. My mom would fuss every time I fell after trying to walk, but my dad would just let me land on my bum and then reached out his hand (he was a few feet away!) and make me strive to walk toward him.

While I was growing up, I didn’t spend that much time with my dad because he was busy with work, but he made sure that the fridge was stocked with all of my favorite things. No wonder I was fat child. If I asked him to bring me home a big of cracker nuts, he’d bring a dozen bags of cracker nuts. Even when I didn’t ask for money, he’d always give me. When Mommy says “No.”, I’d ask permission from him instead and he’d say “Okay.”

He wasn’t a disciplinarian, maybe because he wasn’t very disciplined himself. My dad was one of those people who never gave the future much thought. His motto was probably YOLO. My mom always nagged him about his lack of correct prioritization. But he’s a very caring, supportive, lenient, generous and loving man. Even our neighbors love him because he was so kind to them.

My dad is also sentimental. Unlike my mom, my dad had kept every single card I made for him in his old briefcase. He cherished the days gone by that I trot after him like a little puppy. Even when I was older, like when I was in college, my dad was the one who made sure I had food to eat and clothes to wear because my mom was busy with grad school.

I think my dad loves being a dad, and he has only one chance for that, so even now that I’m all grown up, he’s still very paternal, like I still can’t take care of myself. I think it would break his heart when he realizes one day that I don’t need to be taken care of anymore, that I’m not a baby and I haven’t been for a long time. I kind of can picture my parents still fussing over me even when they’re incredibly old and wrinkled. 

I am so blessed to have a good father in my life. I’ve been to plenty of schools, and I know several people who grew up without one or with an abusive one. We may take our dads for granted, thinking about how very natural it is to have one, but then I meet some people and I realize that it’s not like that for everybody.So every day I am grateful that there is this wonderful man who adopted me and treated me like I was his own flesh and blood.