Yes, my dad is alive and kicking. I want to take the opportunity to embarrass him while I can. It’s not often we get our own personal heroes, but I have one, a fact that has become even more emphatically clear during my struggle with Lyme. Dad and I are extraordinarily close, our relationship uncomplicated, unlike the relationship I had with Mom. Maybe that’s the nature of fathers and daughters, but more likely it’s because our personalities simply mesh. His 89th birthday is next month. He hates his birthday. His office once threw him an unbirthday party because he assiduously and purposefully withheld the date for years. He is going to kill me for writing this. I know it. That’s okay, Dad. You know you love me.

I was adopted on the sixth day of my life. I didn’t know until this year that mom and dad adopted me because I was a “hard to place” child, because I am half-Hispanic. This fact rattled me a bit. Hard to place? Moi? That’s because Mom never shared this tidbit with me, and I don’t think it ever occurred to Dad to even mention it, until I asked.

Dad was raised in a world of women. His dad traveled for work, and eventually divorced his mom when Dad was twelve. Dad credits his decidedly egalitarian views towards women (an anomaly for his generation) to this upbringing. I realized he was different from a lot of other dads early on. Other kids weren’t canoeing with their fathers. Other kids weren’t playing ping-pong, tennis, or just talking to their fathers. I rarely heard of friends’ fathers vacuuming, cleaning windows, or washing dishes. He did all these things and more without complaint. I complained enough for the whole family. Mom went back to work full-time when I was in the sixth grade with his blessing (I hesitate to state it that way, because he fully supported her choices). In his mid-fifties, he moved to Memphis for her job and commuted to Denver two weeks every month because she had interrupted her career to move for his. He took care of Mom for the last ten years of her life, putting aside nearly everything for her.

One of the things I love most about Dad is his absolute, unwavering unconditional love for those fortunate to be in his orbit. He wants nothing but good things and happiness for you. This used to intimidate and frighten me: could I live up to such a fierce love? Now I see that I do the same to Katie. There are worse things in life to know you are someone’s sun, moon and stars. He spoiled me a bit, but again, there are worse things. He has supported me unequivocally throughout grad school (he used the proceeds from Mom’s cello and bow to pay for it) and through my ordeal with Lyme disease. I do the same for Katie, and we do what we can for him. It’s a happy circle of unconditional love that I wish everyone could experience.

Dad was not a pushover, however. I tested plenty of boundaries. My brothers didn’t know what boundaries were. Dad has questioned his (and Mom’s—they were a team, 100%) choices on how he raised us. This is both endearing and annoying, because there were maybe four or five times, tops, where the punishment was unwarranted. He likes to remember differently, but some of his punishments were downright genius. One of my favorite stories (and his least, probably because it reflects poorly on me) is the time I was caught completely bombed on Quaaludes (thank goodness the guys’ parents came home, because we were literally on our knees howling with laughter because we couldn’t get the car keys in the door to unlock the car). Dad grounded me for six months. He said we were going to be spending a LOT of time together and signed me up for tennis lessons with Kingwood’s new tennis pro, Jim Rombeau. To this day Dad and I share an abiding love for tennis. This didn’t solve all of my misbehaving, but it brought us much closer together.

There was a time when it used to irk me that old boyfriends (really, all of my friends) always asked how Dad was doing, to the point where I suspected they liked him more than me. Now I see it for what it is, a huge compliment to him. He’s nonjudgemental and listens, no matter your sex or age. I remember discussions about news, books and life as early as nine or ten. When I was twelve, or maybe thirteen, I announced I was atheist. He asked me how I came to that conclusion and we began a discussion on belief and faith that continues to this day.

Dad won a lawsuit against an oil company known for stiffing independent exploration geologists who’d done work for them, largely because the jury found him an impeccably honest and moral witness. He once told me he’d rather see an honest F than a cheater’s A. He embarrassed me and my cousin Ginger at the movie theater by doing a spot-on imitation of Tevye singing “If I were a Rich Man” during intermission. He got thrown into the pool regularly because he was that dad, a good sport who liked to have fun. He likes to solve the world’s problems over a few drinks. He makes his granddaughter feel like she’s the center of his universe.

Whew. All these compliments! Lest you think he’s perfect, he can’t dance. His singing is abysmal. His ‘cooking’ is utilitarian at best, popcorn and wine at worst. He hates to wait. He can barely sit through a movie. He hates most holidays. He never feels like he gives good gifts (this is nonsense, he gives the BEST gifts).  He gets mad when Katie and I fuss over him. Too bad, Dad. We will fuss over you forever. Many friends who know him joke about letting him adopt them, too. He picked me, a hard-to-place monkey-faced baby. I’m not nearly as nice as he is, so too bad, he’s mine, and I’m not sharing.