I met an old man when I was 22-years-old. Standing a few inches taller, and more than a few inches rounder than me, he could have been a look into my own future. He wore generous swatches of gray in his black hair and thin frame glasses on his round face. Even those glasses did nothing to add a hard line to the soft features of his face. What caught me most was his smile. It’s an expression so subtle it might even be easy to miss. Except for his eyes. He smiles with his eyes. The old man’s name is Jose Luis Lozano: my biological father.

My parents split when I was two years old and a little over a year later my mother met my dad. I can’t call Jose Luis my dad or father without having to add “biological” to his title. It's a matter of respect for the man who raised me and spent countless nights standing vigil by my sickbed. Once, at the age of 7, I came down with a stomach virus so severe I vomited in my sleep. My motor-reflexes sat me up before I could choke, which sadly created a terrible mess. I still remember the guilt I felt as my dad collected the covers and blankets, flipped my bed on its side and, sleep deprived and work-worn, set to cleaning up my room. My dad’s name is Miguel Cedillo.

He’s a hard man: hard-working, hard-thinking. When he smiles, the expression takes over his entire face as though he just can’t contain his happiness. His smile is all teeth.

The thing is, I spent the better part of a decade with a less than healthy relationship with both of these men. Despite that, I feel love (and resentment) for both of my fathers.

After he split with my mother, I had heard from Jose Luis twice before meeting him. The first time was when I was six years old and he came to Denver on tour with his band. When I met him I recognized him as little more than estranged family. I folded the $300 in cash he handed me for a brand new Power Wheels that I wanted and put it in his breast pocket. I told him I was content with what my parents could provide me and that Miguel was the father who put food on the table and clothes on my back. I don’t remember the speech, and apparently I barely stopped eating french fries long enough to give it, but it’s hard to believe I had that gall in grade school.

I know where it came from though. My dad, Miguel, had always made sure to build my character. When my uncles came to visit Colorado, we went to the mountains to see the kind of snowfall they’d only dreamt of in Mexico. Dad (Miguel) taught me to make snowballs by taking off my gloves, packing the snow tight and spinning it in my palm. My eyes teared up when he hit me with one. It didn’t break… the damn thing didn’t even crack. When I whined to my dad that it hurt, he said, “Of course it hurts, Mijo, that’s why you dodge”

"You have to dodge?"

My dad answered by pelting me in the stomach with another ice-ball, “That’s right, Mijo, you have to dodge.” Now as an adult, I’m not sure how I missed such a basic premise, but I did.

I received a letter from Jose Luis many years later when I turned 19. I’m sorry to say I don’t even remember what he wrote. I had lived my life without his presence and I knew allowing him back in would only bring more complications. More possibilities for pain. So I did what I was taught to do, I dodged the pain. I barely glanced at the email before deleting it.

As it was, I was having enough trouble maintaining a less-than-healthy relationship with the dad I already did know. I had grown nearly accustomed, but never fully willing, to participating in his character-building ways. I had been helping with the lawn since I was eleven. Once, I got stung by a wasp and my wrist swelled so much I couldn’t bend it. My dad decided to be nice and help me by mowing the lawn "this time" but made sure that I still had to empty the mower and bag the clippings with my good hand. He had me changing diapers when I was barely 13. I lost many good t-shirts to my little brothers propensity for bad timing and good aim. I hated the fact I had to depend on his money for college because it made me feel weak. I worked nearly 30 hours a week, went to school full time, and somehow he still wanted me to wash the dishes, do the landscaping at the house (front and back lawn with a terraced rose garden) and be both babysitter and mentor to my infant siblings. Dad never stopped pushing me.

I honestly wasn’t sure which was worse. The man who completely and utterly abandoned me or the one who never stopped demanding more and more from me.

But then a funny thing happened. I started making my own mistakes in life. A lot of them. Worse yet, I had to fix them myself. Time and again I would get myself into tight spots, binds and whatnots, with little recourse other than to “tighten my belt and get to it” (one of my dad’s favorite sayings).

That’s when I looked at the two men in a new light. The old man, the hard man. They were both just human. Jose Luis left because he didn’t want to always be the other man. The one who would be my reason to fight with the father who was raising me. He wanted my mom to be happy. Right or wrong, he was in a crappy situation and made the best choice he could. My dad, Miguel, the man who never let up on me? He was just training me because he knew better than most, LIFE never lets up. You keep going or you get dragged along. There is no stopping.

I saw the both of them for what they truly are. Flawed and imperfect human beings trying to make the best choices possible in a world full of problems and painfully difficult options. It was easy to realize I would never forgive them, because there is nothing to forgive. There is no offense present to allow me to put on a benevolent face and grant them pardon. I hold within me no grace to bestow unto them which they do not already have. Any grace I do hold came FROM them. When you look at another and recognize the face of a messed up human being just trying to sort themselves out as best they can, forgiveness is easy. Forgiveness is a given. Forgiveness becomes the least we can afford, because isn’t that just what we all are: a little messed up and hoping those we love can forgive us for loving them the only way we know how?