FATHER FIGURE

I'm seeing all the annual dad posts & it's hard because my father was mostly absent. I guess this is why I had to develop resilience & self sufficiency, although at times I wish I wasn't so much that way. I know my dad did the best he could under his difficult growing up circumstances. He fought many demons. When he was about 6, his mother took him & his twin brother to a boys school in Philadelphia. My grandma was raising them alone after their dad died prior to their birth. The school offered a scholarship for their education. But they didn't tell the boys what was going on, & my dad remembered being in a fenced yard & then seeing his mother & grandmother walking away outside just leaving them there. It was not a happy place for him. He did the best he could as a father who didn't know how or wasn't able to father.  But I did have a wonderful male mentor growing up who showed such love & patience to me & to his own daughter who had Down's Syndrome. Homer nurtured my art, took me for my first plane ride in his little plane & was at my wedding. Happy Father's Day to all the amazing men who fill these roles & shoes... they are truly extraordinary.