He wasn’t there for my first steps. He wasn’t there when the training wheels came off my bike or when I scraped my knee for the first time. He wasn’t there to see me off for my first date or high school prom.
As I sat there in a cold, creaky hotel room in February 2013, with my mother and brother; I was accepting my reality that for my someday college graduation or wedding, I’d walk with my mother and brother and without a father.
However, he’s the kind of guy that restores your faith in humanity. My (adopted) father came into my life almost four years ago, when I was 18 years-old, after my biological father physically walked out of my life. I guess what they say is true: we wear who stays in our life and those who leave on our skin forever.
He uprooted his life and traveled across the state of Nebraska simply to love my mother, brother, and I with the purest of intentions, but he scared the hell out of me. I thought to myself, “My flesh and blood, biological father walked out of my life without batting an eye. We weren’t even enough for him (my biological father) to stay, so how could we be enough for this man to stay?” It just seemed too good to be true.
He arrived in Scottsbluff to a strong, beautiful mother of two anxious, insecure and confused children, caught up in bitter court battles. He had his work more than cut out for him, but over the past four years, he’s never been one to shy away from a challenge. He’s the kind of person you go to war beside, not against.
As I write, I get a little choked up thinking about how much I wish he could have been in my life for all of those first moments. But while he wasn’t there for my brother and I’s ‘firsts’ he was there for the more important moments–the moments that shaped my brother and I into the people we are today.
He was there for the court hearings, nursing us through the panic attacks and roller coaster emotions. He was there through my grandfather’s death which tore me up, because my grandfather was the only father figure I had really known growing up. He was there through my mother’s major surgery when I lost it in the hospital lobby, thinking about the complications that could arise. He held my hand and promised me, no matter the outcome of the surgery, he wasn’t leaving and for all intents and purposes–my brother and I are his son and daughter. He was staying and he wasn’t going anywhere. Roughly two years after that day, in November 2016, we found ourselves back in court again, but for happier reasons. My brother and I legally became his son and daughter.
Of course, he’s been there for the exciting milestones as well of cheering my brother and I on when my brother came home with a 4.0 his first year of high school and I came home with a Bachelor’s degree—alongside several other events that honestly, I don’t have the space to write in this article.
Of all these things, I’ve learned more about life these past four years from him, than ever before. He’s proven that to be family and be there for each other, you don’t have to be blood. He’s also living proof that you’re not what happened to you, but how you chose to react and where you’ll go from there.
Above all, he’s shown my brother how to be an upstanding young man and defined the expectations I have for whomever is crazy enough to settle down with me someday. My mother is the type of person who just expects a few stars, but my father gives her the entire galaxy in the way he loves her and chooses her every single day; which means more to me than I’ll ever be able to express.
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