This past week my mom and siblings have been out of town, which left me and my dad to fend for ourselves at home. During this time, I have had time to think and I’ve come to realize just how grateful I am for Michael Page.

One thing that shocks so many people who haven’t known our family for long is that my dad is not my biological father. Apparently we look alike and have the same mannerisms, so it throws people off. Dad married my mom when I was four years old and took both me and my younger brother in as his own children, even when he already had his own daughter. When I was 9 or 10 he adopted me and I legally became his daughter and my name was changed to Holly Ellis-Page. In my head though, I felt bad to acknowledge him as my father in a sense, yes I still called him dad (because he raised me) but deep down I felt like I was betraying my biological father. It wasn’t until my biological father passed away that I began to feel the guilt of considering Michael my dad fade away. Looking back now, I think it’s silly that it took me that long to acknowledge his role in my life, because I now see that he was and is more of a father to me than my birth dad ever would have been.

My dad is actively involved in every aspect of my life. Last year, he drove me to almost every soccer practice and game that I had, now this may not seem like a big deal, but trust me it was. Considering the place that I played soccer was over 30 minutes away and practices were 3 times a week and then I would have games that would sometimes be at least an hour away. That’s a lot of time that he could have been working on a project at home or relaxing, but instead he chose to invest in that part of my life. I think that’s pretty neat. That’s just one example, he always makes sure to read my articles and ask about my classes at Lee. He always tries to explain to me how things work when my curiosity takes over, but usually he uses big complicated words and I don’t really understand completely what he’s talking about, but sometimes I get the gist. The fact that he tries is what matters most, right? Not everyone has that.

Rudy Michael Page is the master of all dad and “your mom” jokes. If one of us kids makes a comment like, “man, this seatbelt is freaking hot”, he’ll immediately reply with the expected, “your momma is freaking hot’. Sometimes we will try to say something to get him to say something funny about mom like, “man, it really smells weird in here”, and then we wait expectantly for the mom joke to follow, but sadly he never falls for it. Most of his jokes just make us roll our eyes, but every once in a while he’ll find one on the internet and it end up becoming a family go-to. (What’s a pirate’s favorite letter?) He’s also basically a superhero. If you don’t already know, over the past year and a half my dad has saved a sea turtle and busted an online thief while helping an undercover cop. How many kids can say that? Let me tell you how many, four. There are only four kids who can say that their dad is a sea turtle saving, crime busting, undercover cop helping, superhero. That’s pretty dang cool guys.

This is all over the place, but I honestly really don’t know how to arrange my thoughts at the moment, so I hope this is somewhat readable and my point vaguely comes across. What I am trying to portray in this post is that I am thankful. I am thankful for the love of my biological father, Billy Ellis, for giving up his legal title and passing the baton over to my dad. I am thankful for the love of my dad, for wanting to adopt me and choosing to raise me and my siblings. I am thankful for the love of my heavenly Father, for he had a perfect plan for all of our lives and piece by piece brought us all together as a family. He knew that by having Michael Page adopt me, I would eventually desire to adopt when I am older, because it’s the perfect example of our relationship with the Lord. And I just think it’s so cool when we can see how the craziness of our lives all comes together in a perfect plan.