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Jun. 1st, 2005 12:03 amMore stories...
On the day my dad died, we found a number of interesting things in his wallet. Most important for me was a scrap of paper and a lock of hair. The lock was a blond curl -- mine. It was with a small square of paper with a child's stick figure drawing of a man with a cowboy hat and the word "dad" on it. You see, Johnny didn't start out as my dad. He was my mother's best friend and then lover. He met my mother when I was two. He married my mother a week before my 7th birthday.
Since my mother's first husband, Larry, had been abusive, I was not too trusting of the category "father." Yet, Johnny was smart. He didn't just propse to my mother. He actually asked my permission to marry my mom and become my dad. It meant a lot to me that he asked. But it didn't keep me from being ambivalent and untrusting at first. I think I was afraid that now that he was my father, he would become abusive like the other one. Apparently the first time I ever called him dad was in that drawing. We moved to Oklahoma the week after the ceremony. Johnny bought a cowboy hat. In the school drawing of the "dad," I drew a man with a cowboy hat. Larry had never worn one. Only Johnny. So that was the first time he was ever called Dad. It meant so much to him that he carried the drawing in his wallet with a lock of my hair, even six years later.
When Rowan was four, I explained how I was not his biological mother but that it was my love of him that made me his mother. He smiled and said he understood. He laid one hand on my heart and his other on his own heart and said, "MamaDawn, you are my heart-mother." Oh, yes, did he understand. The same way I understood that my "John-John" was and always will be my heart-daddy. He chose me to be his and it meant as much to him as it does to me.
On the day my dad died, we found a number of interesting things in his wallet. Most important for me was a scrap of paper and a lock of hair. The lock was a blond curl -- mine. It was with a small square of paper with a child's stick figure drawing of a man with a cowboy hat and the word "dad" on it. You see, Johnny didn't start out as my dad. He was my mother's best friend and then lover. He met my mother when I was two. He married my mother a week before my 7th birthday.
Since my mother's first husband, Larry, had been abusive, I was not too trusting of the category "father." Yet, Johnny was smart. He didn't just propse to my mother. He actually asked my permission to marry my mom and become my dad. It meant a lot to me that he asked. But it didn't keep me from being ambivalent and untrusting at first. I think I was afraid that now that he was my father, he would become abusive like the other one. Apparently the first time I ever called him dad was in that drawing. We moved to Oklahoma the week after the ceremony. Johnny bought a cowboy hat. In the school drawing of the "dad," I drew a man with a cowboy hat. Larry had never worn one. Only Johnny. So that was the first time he was ever called Dad. It meant so much to him that he carried the drawing in his wallet with a lock of my hair, even six years later.
When Rowan was four, I explained how I was not his biological mother but that it was my love of him that made me his mother. He smiled and said he understood. He laid one hand on my heart and his other on his own heart and said, "MamaDawn, you are my heart-mother." Oh, yes, did he understand. The same way I understood that my "John-John" was and always will be my heart-daddy. He chose me to be his and it meant as much to him as it does to me.
