Father's Day

It's odd to think about Father's Day in January on the heels of New Year's, but the two holidays have been linked in my heart and mind for about three years now.

My phone rang as we stepped off the ferry in San Francisco that beautiful June day in 2010. I love The City and we were on a trip from Utah to see friends, and as it turned out, family. I'm so sure I didn't sound like myself as I answered his number and I bet he'd say the same now, too. It was another phone call in our dance of getting to know one another. Each call was a little more familiar, but there were always more questions, too. When I got off the phone I told Rod, "OK, we're on - Sunday at noon at a restaurant in Santa Rosa." The next few days filled with our favorite places and people until we came upon the moment of leaving Evie and Dave's house for the rendezvous in Santa Rosa. My dear friend, Evie, said to call her when we got to Mendocino because she just had to know if it was him or not.

The short drive north on Highway 101 seemed quite long that Sunday, but soon enough we were in the parking lot as I looked for the very farthest parking space. My gut told me that a nice long walk to and from the restaurant would be in order. Obviously, my gut and my soul had consulted each other, because as we drove past the restaurant we both said at the same time, "Is that him? Do you think it's him?" I parked and as we made our initial strides towards the sidewalk, he came towards us. My stomach dropped a full flight of stairs and I felt queasy as my eyes sent the data to my brain. My heart and my mind knew in that instance that the tall man walking towards me, whom I'd never met, had my Dad's walk. He walked just like my Dad, who died in 2001. Dad's steps were halted by his failed heart and mine were tested in that parking lot by my own heart trying to open wide enough for the man walking towards me, with Dad's frame and gait.

The lunch we shared was tense with sneak peaks at the other person's eyes, hands, hair, shoulders, etc. It was tense with questions and broken with some laughter. I took a long walk to the car to get the camera and to the restroom so Rod would have a good longtime with him to come to his own conclusion. I knew, though. Having never had the experience of looking at myself in someone else's eyes or seeing my Dad's knuckles on another man's hands or watching another person walk just like him, I still knew. As soon as we got back into our car I asked Rod, "Well?" "It's him alright. It's him."

I met my older brother, Michael, on Father's Day, in 2010.

Moving ahead to just a few days after New Year's January, 2011, I came home for lunch to find a big envelope sticking out of the mailbox. I was expecting it as Michael called to say he'd mailed it. Inside were documents he'd worked three years to extract from the State of California adoption archives. (His aging mother didn't tell him until he was 56 that the father he'd grown up with wasn't his biological father.)  There was one paper in particular that all along I'd said I really needed to see and there it was. And there was Dad's signature, too. My hand hit the dining room table as I let out a loud, "No!" in protest over the aged print in my hands. He did it. My Dad gave up his parental rights to Michael in a Los Angeles court room in January, 1955.  He conceded them to his ex-wife and her new husband. After two and a half years of dutifully paying child support he let go of Michael.

He never saw Michael again. I do believe he thought about him all the time. How could he not? The story in our little family of four about my Dad's first marriage and "the child" was never true, never honest. The questions I have about the lifelong denial of Michael's existence are beyond number and for another day.

Last June, in 2012, we met Michael a second time for lunch at another restaurant off of Highway 101. I brought him two gifts for his 60th birthday and they were the first birthday gifts I'd ever given him. One was the handmade wooden level our Dad used all of his life and the other was a framed picture I took of Dad in his vineyard in 1994. Michael never got to see Dad use the level or work in the vineyard. But, Michael does get to see him every time he looks in the mirror, looks at his own hands, or catches the reflection of his stride.

There's no telling what I'd give for a family Christmas photo in the 1960's or 70's with my two brothers, Mark and Michael. But, someone else's heart far more important and powerful than that of a child's made that decision and it never came to be.

I do hope for a photo of the three of us now. Albeit not so young and trim as we once all were, but still family. And perhaps, Sarah, will join us. She's my niece I never knew I had until Michael found me and as a twist of fate would have it, she's my Dad's only grandchild. The child he left is the only one who carried on his DNA. She's a lovely young lady. As it should be, because in the end my Dad, our Dad, was always a gentleman. Perhaps the choice he made in 1955 is what ex-husbands did back then. Perhaps he thought it was no different than his own father sending him to an orphanage because he didn't know what to do with a little boy after his wife took off.  Perhaps he always thought there'd be time to find Michael and make amends. Perhaps he thought he could explain all of this to Mark and I some day.

I will always be grateful, though, for having met my older brother on Father's Day. Perhaps Dad brought us together after all.