1EQQ8ZzGD

when I was a month old, my mother left my biological father.
At something like when I was nine months old, my mother
met my dad and as far as both of them tell me, I instantly considered
him my dad. The other guy wasn't around, and when
he finally showed his face, I'd already bonded with my dad.
The other guy was just a sperm donor.
My dad was there through it all. When I was attacked by
dogs, he stayed with me through the surgeries. When we were
in a car accident and my mother was killed, he was our rock.
When I struggled in my early teen years with letting go of my
mother, he held out and gave love to this irascible, splenetic
teenage boy. And while he wasn't a perfect dad (and who the
hell gets to put that kind of pressure on father? How dare I
make that demand as a kid, as if I could ever do better), he
was a great dad to a less than great kid.
Biology.
And so much is made of biology, like our connections are
defined by chemical similarities within our cells and not by
shared experiences and shared pains and time-well-spent together.
In my head, I'd convinced myself that I wasn't "really
one of his," that he'd written me off. He wouldn't care. Why
would he, after all I've done? He had his "real" kids (and never
did he ever, eVeR make that distinction between any of us).
none of you have any clue what it means to know what a
dad is until you've pushed that relationship so far; sullied it;
cursed it; insulted it; belittled it; lied to it; used it; pissed and
shit on it; defiled it in ways that rightly IT SHoULD noT
Be THeRe, that rightly you should have been left rotting
in a ditch for what you'd done . . . only to turn around and
find a granite block of unmovable, unbending, unstoppable
love . . . and arms wrapped so tightly around you that for the
first time in years, you realize you were never alone and that
you'd never fall.
And my dad caught me before I hit the ground.
† I kept a journal for a period of four years of my life
throughout my drug use — yeah, VeRY Basketball Diaries
— and I tracked with intricate detail the pills I took.
First pill was a "Pink elephant."
407