Once Little: I am his champion.

It all comes out in one sentence, with no commas: "My Mom got married and had my three brothers then divorced and met my Dad and had me but my parents were never married." This is the condensed, concise summary of how I ended up the only girl with three older half brothers who never felt like "half" of anything.

I remember when I was really little, my brothers would sometimes visit their Dad on the weekends and a couple of times I even went along. Their Dad remarried not long after he split with my Mom and I know the divorce was hard on everyone, especially my brothers. Their Dad is a good guy; I've gotten to know him more as I've grown up, and especially since my brothers Keith and Kevin passed away. I always knew my brothers' Dad wasn't my Dad, but I will never forget the time when I visited him with my brothers and called him "Daddy". I remember the look on his face and the awkwardness of the moment and how uncomfortable his new wife was, how disapproving. It was really just a test on my part, something I said and did to see what the reaction would be. My brothers' Dad carefully explained that he was not my father and I told him that I understood. But I don't think I was prepared for how confused it would end up making me feel, because well... it stung. I wasn't scarred by it or anything, and I never held it against my brothers' Dad, but I never wanted to feel that way again. Well, I kinda held it against his wife. You could just tell she never had kids of her own and she just sort of tolerated the whole "step-kids" situation. She's a nice woman and I get along with her and I know she genuinely cares about me, but to this day when I see her I can't help but see that disapproving look on her face, all those years ago.

My real Dad was a mystery to me all through my childhood. He would visit periodically for a few days here and there and I could always see how much my Mom loved him. I could also always see how much my brothers, Keith in particular, didn't like him. I never spoke to Keith about my Dad and why he didn't like him, but I'm sure it was just a protective, big-brother thing. I have very murky memories of my Dad when I was quite small. I remember he had really, really curly hair, like afro-curly. He had weathered skin and a stubbly chin. He had a stocky build, not fat at all, but broad shouldered. His eyes were very blue. His hands were rough; any living he made, he made using his hands. He smelled like Old Spice (I still adore the smell of Old Spice).

My Mom told me that my Dad was very artistic and that's where I got my "artistic flair" from. One time when I was around or eleven or twelve, I was drawing a picture when my Dad was visiting. He took an interest and started talking to me about it, asking what I was drawing. I think I was drawing some sort of landscape scene, with water and mountains and clouds and birds flying. I drew some birds that looked like letter 'm's and he laughed out loud and said, "What kind of birds are those? They look like vultures!" I was embarrassed, because they weren't vultures, they were supposed to be sea gulls. He showed me how to draw them so that they looked lighter, less vulture-like. I never drew a letter 'm' sea gull again. I also never visited with my Dad again.

The truth about my Dad has depended on who I've spoken with. I've heard one major detail of my Dad's life described in all of these ways: he was a drunk; he had a drinking problem; he was a binge drinker who only had a problem during his binges and was otherwise a really great guy; he was an alcoholic in denial. I only know that he drank and when he drank he wasn't the same guy my Mom loved. She made a choice for her family that didn't include his drinking and got full custody of me when I was a baby. As far as I know, my Dad didn't contest it.

When I was a little older, my Mom told me that my Dad had been married and had a daughter and son with his first wife. It was strange to think that somewhere out there I had another brother and a sister. It was really difficult to imagine having a sister, since I had only ever had brothers. They never tried to contact me, and I never tried to contact them. I think I figured that if they wanted to see me, they would find a way to see me.

I didn't speak to or see my Dad for years. One day I got on a bus to go home and as I was walking down the aisle to find a seat, I passed my Dad. I sat a few rows behind him and stared at the back of his head the entire trip. I had to walk past him again to exit the bus and it was then that he recognized me. He made eye contact with me as the bus pulled away. I was around fourteen. It was surreal. My Dad never called or visited and I didn't tell my Mom until much later because I didn't know how to feel about it. I mean, I had formed an idea of him in my mind as an alcoholic who was too busy drinking to see me. Deep down I knew that I had made up all the details; I didn't know for sure why my Dad wasn't part of my life, so it was easier to make something up.

A few years later when I was eighteen, my brother Kevin was dying of AIDS and I was spending as much time with him as I could, taking the bus into Vancouver almost every day. I was emotionally exhausted and was trying to finish school and it felt like life was throwing me a huge curveball. And this happened to be the time when my Dad decided to start calling me. I think it might have been great to talk with him during this time, if he had been sober. He would call at random times and talk to me about things he remembered about me when I was a baby and when I was a little girl. I could hear him slurring his words. The next time he called, he would talk about the exact same memories, with the exact same slur. I dreaded his calls. My Mom didn't know what to do and I could tell she was upset. Kevin was so sick by this point and we all knew it was a matter of days until he would die. When my Dad called again, I had had it. I told him to please call back when he was sober, because I couldn't take it anymore. He got angry and denied he had been drinking and I told him I could hear it in his voice. He lost it. He told me I was ungrateful and spoiled and a few other things I've forgotten. I hung up on him, mid-rant. That was the last time I spoke with him.

I've thought about my last conversation with my Dad several times over the years, at first with a sense of justification and self-righteousness. After awhile, I began to wonder just how justified I was. I began to recognize that even if my Dad had been drunk when he called me, at least he called. That doesn't mean I didn't have a right to feel uncomfortable and awkward, it just means that I never really took the time to see that if he called, he cared. When I finally saw things in that light, I knew I had to try to find my Dad and apologize. But somehow I sensed I was too late. My Mom told me she knew my Dad had three brothers and a sister. She gave me one of his brothers' names and told me where she thought he lived. I looked him up and called the number and I could barely hear the voice on the other end of the phone over my pounding heartbeat. I ended up talking with a few members of my Dad's family, including a cousin (none of them knew that I even existed) and I learned that my Dad had passed away from cancer about five years earlier. He was quite a few years older than my Mom, so I knew there was a chance he was already gone. But even though I had had a feeling he was gone, it has still been hard to think back on our last conversation and know that I will never be able to tell him that I love him and that I'm happy he reached out.

I knew that when I started looking for my Dad that it would inevitably lead to finding my sister and my brother. I realized that finding them made me more nervous than anything else. I found my brother Gene on Facebook and that was a pretty crazy day. He was so excited to hear from me, even though he had woken up that morning not knowing he had another sister out there. He told my sister Brenda about me and she was equally surprised and excited. Both Brenda and Gene had grown up in Calgary, but at the time that I contacted him, Gene was living in Vancouver and was coincidentally coming to Victoria to see a band play. We met for breakfast and it was pretty incredible. He moved back to Calgary soon afterward. I passed through Calgary just before Peter and I married and I got to meet my sister Brenda and her family (she has a daughter and a son). Brenda and her family also came to Victoria and visited later that summer. I don't talk very much with Brenda and Gene, but I am so glad to finally have them in my life. It's funny looking back to when I assumed they knew about me and wondered why they never took the time to contact me. It was up to me all along.

I attended a family reunion in the summer of 2009 and met a whole bunch of my Dad's family. He was the youngest of his siblings, so my aunt and uncles are all old enough to be my grandparents. My cousins are old enough to be my parents. It's a far cry form my Mom's side of the family, where all of my cousins are younger than me. While at the reunion, I heard many stories and opinions about my Dad. One of my cousins seems to have a lot of bottled-up resentment about my Dad and I don't know the reason, but he was very vocal about his views and I had to stop myself from asking him to shut up. Another of my cousins took me aside to let me know that she loved my Dad unconditionally and that she missed him terribly.

There is such a dichotomy between the opinions about my Dad and I've come to accept that I will never truly know who he was; I will only have people's impressions of him to draw upon. But he is a part of me, my DNA is partly his, I am his legacy, I am his champion. Anything negative that happened within his life turns positive for the simple fact that his children and grandchildren live on.

I have been wanting to write this post for the last week or so, but I have waited because I am desperately trying to find the only photo I have of my Dad and me together. I was a baby and we were sitting together on a couch. If and when I find it, I will post it. I have to find it...

Until then, here's a few of me as a kid.