My Two Fathers

My Two Fathers

The experts say that lightening doesn't strike twice in the same place. I think they're wrong. This pain that rips like wildfire through my chest is just as painful as before. One man was my biological father: one was not. And yet, their common thread was the love they had for me. I was luckier than most kids I guess. You hear on the news all kinds of horrible things a father does to his children. I shudder at today's image of a stepfather, especially if he marries a woman with young girls. Thank God I was spared either of those modern day nightmares.
My biological father was a tall god of a man with burnished gold hair and murky green eyes. His name was Ernest, but most people called him Ernie. Except my grandmother, who only called him by his full name. He was her firstborn, and how she loved him. She loved all her children, but he held a special place in her heart. He was called Sonny as a child, and that's what he made my days.
I can't tell you what he did to ensure that my days were filled with sunshine and roses. He simply did it. he taught me to cook when I was seven. He made sure I could load, shoot, and clean a gun by the time I was ten. His exact words were "Men are pigs. You need to know how to defend yourself. No woman should rely on a man for anything, especially if she's going to live or die."
He passed on his love of the written word and baseball to me. According to him, I could point out Al Kaline by age 2, and read by 3. I don't know if that's true or not, but his word was law, so I beleived him. He only spanked me once in my life and said it would hurt him more than it would me.
He was married twice before he married my mother, and they were divorced when I was four. he had other children, but rarely saw them. I've often wondered if we were so close because he had a hand in raising me; something he didn't have with his other children.
He was generous to a fault. If he saw someone down on their luck, he simply took them in until they were back on their feet. That's pretty unheard of in today's world. It's too dangerous now, but times were different then. He bought me my first typewriter when I was 10, and I spent hours typing and racing out of my room to take him the pages. I remember how proud I was when he told me how good it was.
Whenever I have put off working on my book, I can see him standing there clear as day. He would be wearing jeans, a cowboy shirt, cowboy boots, and a scowl. His arms would be crossed, and he would not be happy. He would say, "God didn't give you that talent to waste it, girl. You'd best be doing something with it."
All my life I wished I had his coloring. What brunette doesn't want to be blond? No matter how much I wished it, my hair didn't turn light, or my dark eyes green. I did learn to accept what I looked like.
For all his good points, he did have one vice: drinking. Alcoholism ran in our family, and the monster had ahold of him in the worst way. I hated his drinking. He was never mean or cruel to me, but I still hated it. Sometimes he would forget I was there, and fall asleep in his shirt and underwear on the couch. He would forget to eat. So, it's agood thing I knew how to cook at an early age. His drink of choice was beer, and screwdrivers. To this day, I abhor the sight of either one. He tried to quit drinking more times than I can count. he would shake so bad, he could barely hold a glass of water. But he tried. There was times he would go abstain for weeks, even months. i know he mainly tried to quit for me. Unfortunately, the bottle won in the end.
Every summer, we would climb in his Ford pickup, and drive from Michigan to Wisconsin, his home state. My grandmother came from a family of 13, so I had lots of cousins. I always hated when summer was over, and it was time to go back home.Even though I missed my family back home, my Wisconsin family was everything to me.
The summer I was 12, my dad insisted we go by bus, and not take his truck. He never gave me a reason. He also told me to pack a dress. I remember arguing with him over that. I was a tomboy, and didn't wear dresses. But I packed the dress, swearing I would never wear it. All he did was give me a sad smile. Little did I know I would be wearing the dress sooner than I planned.
The day he had his heart attack, we were alone. My grandparents had went to town. I recall seeing him fall to the ground, and rushing out to the yard. he told me to go next door and get Tracy, who was a nurse. She came right away, and called an ambulance. I was terrified, and she stayed with me until my grandparents came home. My father's brother, Freddy, was visiting the same time we were, and it was he who went to the hospital. Despite the doctor's efforts, we lost him that day. My grandmother threw herself on her bed, where I happened to be, And we cried and cried.
My second father was called Chuck. He came into my life when I was 6. He had a white Ford, and would pull into the yard. I would yell to my mom, "That guy in the white ford is here again." I can still hear her insisiting she told him to not come back. It was a good thing he was a stubborn, patient man. A year later, he and my mother were married. A year after that, my baby brother Jason was born. He was the light of my life. But that's another story.
My Mom had 7 children when they married, he had two of his own, then they had Jason. And yet, he loved us all like we were his own. he would go to work, and come home and work. Usually, his work wasn't done until the sun went down.
he held me when my father died, and was as much my father as my biological one was. He taught me my values in my teenage years. If I went out and did something wrong, as long as I told him what I did, I didn't get in any trouble. But if I lied about it and he found out the truth, then I wa sin big trouble. The first thing he would do when he grounded me was take my phone priveledges. And that punishment is something I carried with me when I became a parent. It was the first thing I have always taken from my children when they are in trouble.
He taught me to drive, and bought me my first car, which was a Ford of course. He showed me how to work on vehicles, and he also lectured me on my writing. he wished he could write like that.
I married my first husband very young, and he didn't like him. Apparently his judgement was sound, since he was abusive. I remember when he walked me down the aisle, he told me it wasn't too late to change my mind. I have wished many times that I had listened. I did finally wake up and divorce the jerk.
When I was 16, he was diagnosed with throat cancer. It was a simple surgery to remove it. The cancer came back 2 years later. This time it was in his chest, and it took radiation to get rid of the monster. We all really thought it was gone for good. A couple years later, it was lung cancer. He had served in Vietnam many years before, and they beleived that was the cause. The doctor gave him 6 months to live, and he lived 8.
He died at home; that was what he wanted. The nurse said he was gone. I heard uncontrollable sobbing, and realized it was me. His Aunt Vera pulled me in her arms and held me, assuring me his suffering was over.
As you can see, both my fathers instilled in me family values, and the love of Fords.
Sometimes, I sit outside on the porch and stare at the stars, and wonder if they are watching me. I hope so. I also hope I have made them proud. Cause I was, and still am, proud to be their daughter.