About my dads

This morning I am taking time for Stream of Consciousness Sunday over at Jana's Thinking Place. I already wrote a long, thoughtful blog post this morning about my dad but I'm also very much in favor of the occasional "brain dump" so I'm doing this as well.

Since I wrote almost an hour on my other post, this is the required, 5 minute, timed and unedited Father's Day edition!

My Dads

As an adopted child, the word parents, dad, and mom take on so many extra layers. There's so much meaning, so much left out, so much missing and so much extra to the words that so many people take for granted. I get to live first hand the nature v. nurture debate every day of my life. I will never know who my biological father is, or if I look like him, walk like him or act like him. I will never know if he is an artist or a writer or athlete (doubtful) or a postal clerk, cpa, or english professor.

But what I do know is that I've had two men in my lifetime who have been fathers to me. One is the dad I grew up with and the second is my husband's father, who treated me like a daughter from the moment I met him.

My dad, a salesman, taught me how to bargain, how to adapt and change to fit in, and how to get up and go to work every day. He taught me to appreciate and even crave more in life and to want nice things and be willing to bust my ass to get them.

My late father-in-law taught me that dads can be hands on, working around the house, going out and farming, hugging on their kids, demonstrative, emotional, fun loving people.

I have to great and very different examples of fatherhood before me and for that I am eternally grateful. Who could ask for more?