“Children have never been very good at listening to their elders, but they have never failed to imitate them.” - James Baldwin
A lot of great things come in two's: chopsticks, contacts, lungs. Weekends, brake pads, and Twix bars. Parents, though in my case, sometimes there's an extra one or two thrown in the mix, leaving you surprised and excited that you got more than you had expected.
Every time someone meets my mother for the first time, they marvel in the fact that we look nothing alike (as if that's a prerequisite for parenthood, or something), to which I am able to respond that I get my looks (and personality, for that matter) from my father: skin that turns a crisp, golden brown with enough sunlight, hazel eyes, and dark hair. The physical and emotional connections are what drove me to be a daddy's girl, taking interest in things he liked (NASCAR and country music. I had so many phases.) and running to him at the first sight of a problem. I love(d) my dad more than anything, which is why, when my parents got a divorce while I was at the ripe age of 6, I was devastated.
Even more so, my mom was making us move in with her new boyfriend, in a town hours away from all the friends I had made at school and, most importantly, the only man I wanted to be a part of my life. I had no idea at that time that things could (and would) get much worse.
Mom's new boyfriend was great; not only was he taking in a woman with three young children, but he was feeding us and inviting us into his family, even though we technically had no real ties to him at all. But it was awesome: All of his family lived within half an hour of his house, and even though I was missing my dad terribly, we were getting a crash course in the extended family category (all of our blood-relatives lived out of state and really weren't seen too often. Which sucked, but que sera sera, no?). It wasn't until it was announced that we would be moving to Kentucky, a far cry from our Pennsylvania roots, that I realized what was happening. And to be honest, at the time, I had no clue how hard it would be to keep up a long distance relationship with my father.
Roughly a year after moving to Kentucky, my little sister and I went back to Pennsylvania to stay with our dad for two weeks. I remember it being the best two weeks of my life, up to that point, because my dad wasn't really my dad anymore, at least not to me. I had a mom and a stepdad, and they made all the rules, and since my dad only had us for two weeks, surely he'd let us do whatever we wanted. He didn't. In fact, he was stricter in those two weeks than I could ever remember him being, but leaving him at the end of that time was the hardest thing I'd ever have to do.
I spent a lot of time resenting my mom for not working it out with my dad, and for replacing him with a newer model. But I spent a lot of time, also, in the past 11 years accepting that there is a reason for everything, and that my stepdad wasn't trying to replace anyone. He was my extra dad, a man whom I admire greatly to this day and whom I love with all my heart. He's taught me a lot, and sacrificed a lot for my family, and I'm always gonna love him for that, just like I'm always gonna be sad that my dad didn't get to watch my sisters and me grow up.
But I can't change that. I can only try to make sure they both know how much they mean to me, and that growing up with two dads, where some have none at all, has been more of a blessing than a curse.
