My dad raised me alone after my birth mother abandoned me. On my graduation day, she suddenly appeared in the crowd, pointed at him, and said, “There’s something you need to know about the man you call ‘father.'” The truth left me questioning everything I thought I knew about the man who raised me.
The most important photo in our house hangs right above the couch.
The glass has a thin crack in one corner from when I knocked it off the wall with a foam soccer ball when I was eight.
Dad stared at it for a second and said, “Well… I survived that day. I can survive this.”
In the picture, a skinny teenage boy stands on a football field wearing a crooked graduation cap. He looks terrified. In his arms, he holds a baby wrapped in a blanket.
Me.
He holds a baby wrapped in a blanket.
I used to joke that he looked like I might shatter if he breathed wrong.
“Seriously,” I told him once, pointing at the photo. “You look like you would’ve dropped me out of pure panic if I sneezed.”
“I would not have dropped you. I was just… nervous. I thought I was going to break you.” Then he gave that little shrug he does when he wants to dodge being emotional. “But apparently I did okay.”
He did more than okay.
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