As many of you know - and I know you know, because you tell me - I am a bona fide daddy's girl. Fine. I'll take it. I don't think that makes me spoiled; it just makes me... special. The difference is appreciation, and not a one of you could tell me (or would tell me, I hope) that I don't appreciate my exceptional, blessed life. But I was my mom and dad's only kid, and when they divorced - I was five - I stayed behind with dad, where it remained me and him for the next decade. We had a living room with no furniture (just a stereo and a bay window that doubled as a full-sized mirror, making for one bad ass dance studio), we ate a lot of McDonald's, we had a pretty good run, me and him.
But what a lot of you may not know is that he's not my only dad. Nope. I have an extra one. Like a bonus dad.
When I was eleven, my mom married my stepfather, Ric.With that, I became a big sister to my three younger siblings, and I learned how to share everything from attention to personal space, how to babysit, how to gang up on authority figures, and how to care, fiercely, for a big, loud, raucous, wayward group of people who were, in every sense of the word, my family. It was a different sense of family from what I was used to, but it was family nonetheless.
And he was our fearless leader. He was our calm. He was our center.
We're all grownups now, more or less, and he still is.
Let me tell you a little about Ric, because he'll be mortified if I tell you more than that.
He's in his early 60s, and he still runs bizarrely long distances.
He has had the same long hippie hair since the moment I met him.
He loves the mountains, especially the ones surrounding Lake Lure, North Carolina.
He has maybe the most contagious laugh ever, and when someone says something really funny, he repeats it.
He absolutely hates it when my mom buys him ties and shirts for Christmas, which she does every single year.
He loves my mom. He is so very, very good for her, because she is exactly like me and we need men in our life who can figure out how to accommodate us, put us in our place, tolerate us, and adore us, all in equal measure.
He is an exceptional father, which his children prove just by how they live their own lives.
He is an exceptional stepfather, and I take pride in being the only girl in the world who can attest to that. It's a designation unique to me. From early on, he figured out how to be there for me, while never overstepping bounds and boundaries. I already had a dad, one he respects very much I think, and not a lot of kids need extra people telling them what to do. Not even a bonus parent. So he just loved me, and accepted me, hung out with me, and figured out how to make me part of the family without making a big deal out of it.
And tomorrow, he starts radiation and chemo for stage three lymphoma, which came out of nowhere and blindsided the fuck out of us all. He cried about it I'm guessing four times - each time he called his children to tell them about the diagnosis - and by the next day, was pretty much ready to "knock this mofo out" (mom's words).
Which he will, because that's what he does. No fuss, no drama. Just feet to the pavement, running on.
You are loved, Ric. You are appreciated. You are your children's hero, and you are an ass-kicker. Go get it done.
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