The Way of the Dad, Part II

There are good things and bad things about having two fathers. Thankfully, for me, almost all of the bad things happened in the distant past, when I hadn’t yet grown up enough to learn that being an adult does not necessarily correlate with knowing what to do — especially if you’re a very young adult, like my parents were.

The good things are all about having two completely different, delightful guys to appreciate in a daughterly way. My last post was all about my first dad, so here’s what I want to say about Jay, who came into my life when I was about nine years old:

If there’s ever a serious crisis, like someone getting sick or dying, Jay is the person you want to be near. When you get within a few feet of him, the whole world gets steadier. He just doesn’t freak out. Even when I was sixteen and drove his Toyota Celica Supra onto the median strip in downtown Sausalito because a bee flew in the window, he remained calm. Everyone knows this about Jay, even animals, who follow him around because he feeds them until they are fat and then lets them sleep on him. In fact, as a human, you have to be downright wily to be around Jay and not get fat, because he will cook for you and feed you good food nonstop until you can hardly move.

True, he doesn’t complete building and maintenance tasks with quite the speed and efficiency of my biological dad. But he will, without flagging, take about twenty-three trips to the hardware store to install a backyard irrigation system for you, even with two women (that would be my mom and me) carping at him. And he will, someday, finish installing the wood flooring in the entryway of the house, which has simply become well-seasoned in the years since the project began. If he loves you and you give him a good sandwich, he will happily do almost anything for you.

And even if I accidentally call him a dozen times in one day because I keep sitting on my cell phone’s speed dial button, he is always happy to hear from me.

Happy Father’s Day, Jay. Life wouldn’t be right without you.