Father’s Day 2015
The photo with this blog is of my husband, Jonathon, and our daughter, Trinity. Sometimes I forget how very small she was when I divorced and was suddenly dating again. Jonathon was the only boyfriend I ever introduced her to, because he was the only one I was ever serious about. I think we married within a year of this picture. My second, his first, and he became a stepdad before he was ever a dad. He became Daddy-Jon because Trinity wanted a way to keep her two dads separate when she talked about them, so it was Daddy-Jon and Daddy-G. Trinity truly feels she has two fathers, and Jon felt that he had a great kid and there was no need for a second one, because biology doesn’t make you a dad. Being there daily makes you a dad. Jonathon watched the Barbie Nutcracker movie twelve times in a row when Trinity had the flu once. Only a parent does that for his sick kid. He taught her how to fence using boffer weapons so that she was so deadly in stage combat at drama camp that she had to bow out. “The other girl just kept dropping her guard, mom, I couldn’t help myself.” A dad is the person who comes limping in with the limping child after that infamous bicycle riding lesson. A dad is all that and so much more.
It is through watching first my ex, and then Jonathon, with Trinity that I began to understand what a father does because I never had one of my own. I was a fatherless child, and by age six I was a motherless one, too. My grandmother raised me without any men around the house, so I had no clue what a father, or a husband for that matter, was supposed to do. I always felt very left out on this holiday as a child. I think it was one of the reasons I worked hard to make sure my ex stayed invested in Trinity’s life, so that she had two dads where I’d had none. The three of us even went to parent-teacher conferences for Trinity. There was no fighting amongst us at school events, because my ex-husband and I both agreed that our daughter didn’t divorce anyone, that was us, so we vowed never to bad mouth each other in front of her and to act like civilized grownups at school functions or anything that involved our child. I am happy to say that with almost no exceptions we accomplished that. Was it easy? No. Was it worth it for our kid? Yes.
Trinity is twenty now, but she still has two dads for Father’s Day. I’ve now watched dear friends dance with their fathers at their weddings, and thanks to Genevieve and her father, I’m learning that even when you’re very grownup, a dad is still important to a daughter. Thanks to Jonathon and Spike I’m learning about sons and fathers, too. A dad is someone you can turn to for advice, someone you just want to keep involved in your life, because you love them.
People keep asking me why I haven’t shown my fictional character Anita Blake on stage with her dad, and the honest answer is because I didn’t know what a dad was for, or how a grown child interacts with one. I would take my character Jason back to visit his father in Blood Noir, but that father was dying of cancer and their relationship was strained at best, so it didn’t really force me to show a healthy father/child relationship. Then in Affliction we went back home with Micah and it was his father who was dying in the hospital of a mysterious disease. Micah loved his father, but the dad spent most of the book unconscious, so I didn’t have to deal with it on stage much. It would take me a year after I wrote Affliction and had fans complaining that I had another father in hospital like Jason’s father, before I both realized that it was similar and understood why I’d done it. The short answer is that I don’t know what a father is for, and I certainly don’t know what a healthy father/daughter relationship is supposed to be. I realize now that is why Anita’s family has never been on stage. I don’t know what a family is for like that, not a dad-mom-sibling kind of family, because I never had one of those. Maybe as Trinity gets older, I’ll understand it more. Maybe watching Jonathon, Spike, and Genevieve interact with their families as adults will help me understand what it’s supposed to be like to be a grown woman that still has a relationship with their family of birth – the family that raised them.
21 thoughts on “Father’s Day 2015”
Comments are closed.
I can totally relate.
Growing up, I longed, more than anything, to be that Daddy’s Girl I read about, dreamed about. I was jealous of Laura on Little House on the Prairie (tells you how old I am, LOL!) And I had a (step) Dad in the house.
But.
My daughters? They’re Daddy’s Girls. (And like Trinity, my eldest dd didn’t meet her Dad until she was 4) Our sons adore their Dad. Watching Wolf (my husband) be the Dad I always wanted, has been healing for me. It’s been tricky for him, b/c he didn’t have a Dad growing up, so didn’t have an example or cautionary tale to guide him.
I have to say that I was lucky in someways as a child. My dad came into my life when I was very young around 5 or 6. He was my dad by choice and not biology. He adopted me not very long after and was with me until I was almost 14 when he passed from Cancer. It just shows that when someone chooses to be a dad they don’t have to be related by blood. Your daughter is very lucky to have 2 amazing dads in her life.
Happy Fathers day to your husband and the men in your life who are fathers. I too, was a fatherless child so I can appreciate your struggle with writing that relationship. Fathers included or not, your books are entertaining reads. Thank you for writing.
Laurell, in site of not having a family of origin type of upbringing you did amazingly well with it in “Affliction”. Also our children, no matter how old they become can always help us learn. THANK YOU for writing your word and sharing them with us. I learn much from your books and how I think. In fact have changed so many things in my head and it made my past so much less threatening. Good luck to you and your family of choice. They are so much better. I was adopted at 27 by a group of wonderful people who called themselves family. They helped me raise my daughter to a happy and healthy adult. She became a Navy rescue swimmer/helo mech/crew chief and now works fostering shelter dogs so they can be adopted. As long as your heart is happy so will your children be. But you already know that. Take care and Blessed Be.
I lost my dad when I was four. He was killed in a bar, and as a major Daddy’s girl, I was devastated. Neither of my step fathers could compare and one of them gave me major trust issues toward men (dirty pervert), but my ex showed me what a dad should be, by doing an excellent job helping me raise my kids. I totally understand the difficulty of being able to write about that special relationship when you don’t have the experience first hand.
My father was not around much while growing up, he thinks he was but he was a better father to my step brother than he ever was for my sister and me. At a young age he was sent to a boys home, so I can understand why he doesn’t have a good sense for family. He got into drugs before he and my mother met, and when I was 9 she kicked him out after he was caught with another woman again. He stayed with the other woman and helped raise her son, we saw him once or twice a year after that. He never fought for us or fought to be with us, it was not his home or his money. I have the hardest time forgiving him for that.
I too grew up without a dad or a father. My mother dated men and women and they were always in and out of our lives. My daughter’s father was extremely abusive and I had to take him out of our lives. As a writer I know it is hard to talk about the things we do not ourselves fully understand. It is now, after four years of a very happy poly relationship that I am learning what it is like to have a father figure around, not only for my daughter but for me too. My partners’s families are awesome and loving and caring and are slowly teaching me that not all “fathers” are monsters. Happy Father’s Dad to Jonathan.
I know how you feel for sure not having a normal family. My father whom I don’t talk to or see is an alcoholic and has numerous mental problems and my mother passed in March she was also an alcoholic and was very sick. All my life my brother and I took care of the normal day to day items and if it weren’t for the best grandparents on the planet we would not have known any form of normalcy.. I know have a 3 year old and I am learning just as you are what a true parent child relationship. I wish you the best on your journey in this and I hope we both find out what normal really should be.
Happy Father’s Day to the men in your life and in your books. I think you may know more than you think about what a father is for. A lot of it growing up was trial and error so I’m told, and a lot like any other relationship. Love, trust, and dependability. All traits which shine through the poly group surrounding Anita. Xo
I was blessed with an amazing father. Doubly so since he didn’t have a father for much of his growing up years – he didn’t develop a relationship with him until he was 19 or 20. My Dad was my mentor, my sounding board, my hero and the man I measured all the men I had in my life, against. Some measured up for a while – some failed miserably. I find, in my writing, that the ‘good guys’ have a lot of my Dad’s qualities in them, and his wisdom. The ‘bad guys’ fail to have Dad’s wisdom and heart.
I lost my Dad two years ago to cancer – and I still think of him every day. I changed – dramatically – even at age 50 – when I lost my Dad. I left my friends and the city I was living in, to move to a secluded cabin in the mountains. To find a way of life that was closer to living and less existing. To do what made my heart happy and my soul feel alive. I just wish I’d made those changes before he died, so he could see me this happy.
You know, to be honest, even when you have a good relationship with your father, as you become an adult your parents become less and less of a necessity. But they definitely become a relationship you enjoy more than you did as a child. You don’t really NEED their support the way a child does – but if you have a good relationship with them, you want it. It becomes a choice to involve them in your life, and the relationship becomes more like a friend relationship – except that friend has known you literally your entire life and seen you in pretty much every state you can be in (except some, obvs.). Someone who really knows you and your history and where you came from. You don’t have to explain as much as you do with just friends, because you already have a shared vocabulary. And good dads are protective enough that you know they care, but not so protective that they get in your way – whatever that means to you. You get to enjoy your shared interests more, too. So I guess your dad becomes more like…a friend with a sort of extra bond built in there. Someone with whom you can be a different kind of vulnerable. I mean think about your relationship with Trinity – a good father/daughter relationship isn’t that different than a good mother/daughter one. Except in some ways it’s less (negatively) complex, because fathers tend not to do that thing where they spend your adolescence treating you like a reflection of themselves (I think that’s more a father/son thing.), so you don’t really have those issues. They are more about enjoying you for the person you’ve become. IMHO anyway.
Such emotion and openness in this blog. Thank you Laurell for sharing and continuing to bring such beauty and intelligence to the world through your words.
Wish I could share my Dad with all of you. He was and is a great man. Now a great friend as well as my daddy. Need any tips on writing about that relationship I’d be happy to help. I have had some ideas of my own about Anita and her Dad’s relationship. Haven’t read the new book yet but love your work. Thanks for sharing this world with us.
I found this was very moving. I was lucky enough to have my dad in my life when I was growing up. When I was 8, he almost died in a fire. He spent weeks in a coma, and when he finally awoke he had lost huge gaps in his memory. To this day, he has trouble with when things happened, and can easily lose short term memory. Before his injury, I remember dad being scary, and grumpy, but now, he’s so nice, kind, and protective of me, his little girl. (Even now, at nearly 70 he once threatened someone with his oxygen tank for getting handsy with me)
When Micah’s dad woke, I wondered, and looked forward to, the renewal of the relationship. Everyone uses their own experience, and that’s mine.
Dear Laurell,
I can tell you want a good dad is. A good dad does Everything he can to love and support and provide for his family. A good dad teaches you right from wrong. Plays with you as a child, makes you a bit crazy as a teen and is proud of the who and what you are as an adult. Mostly a good dad never lets you forget that he loves you, no matter what. And they all do it in different ways. Every family is different. Some work better than others. Some are nightmares. But a good parent all shares one thing. They love their kids. I hope that you can learn what you need to to write the books. It sounds like another research project and more learning to come. Sharing this with us will let us know when you do finally write those scenes how hard it was for you. Hopefully it will also bring you some peace. Happy fathers day to the fathers in your life be they haters to your children, spouses or other.
We should all try to learn something new every day, sometimes that is just finding out what we don’t know. Sometimes that can be both the hardest and the best thing to learn.
Love of any kind should be treated and the most valuable gift you will ever get, because it is!
I couldn’t imagine not having my dad in my life even though he died just after my 20th birthday. He gave me such a solid foundation to be who I am today. I loved my mom too but she gave me different gifts. My dad gave me the ability to just accept people the way they are since he did. That is a great gift to pass along to your children.
I was very fortunate to have my Dad in my life, until he died in January 1999. He had Alzhiemers. We knew he loved us, even though it was almost never mentioned. It was through he actions. He was self-employed and worked long hours, almost every day. When I lost him, it was like a big chunk of my life was gone. But I would never want him to suffer like he did. Any guy I dated I would compare against my Daddy and most would come up short. When I did marry, got one of the last good guys and have married for 42 years. One son and two grandchildren later, I consider my life complete. Hubby and son are very tight and would not have it any other way. So keep writing and with the examples in your life, you will be able to write about how a real father is for his family.
I read your father’s day post and had to let it percolate, the way that monumentally life altering events do. I’ve always been a reader, and I always felt very conflicted about writing. I’ve felt simultaneously compelled to write and unable to compose, and I never understood why, until now. I’ve always wanted to write the stories of characters where the guy gets the girl or vise versa… But I’ve been unable to get my thoughts to form how they get together and stay together in any positive manner. I now realize that’s because the relationships that should have set the examples for me have all been broken. My own 24 year dysfunctional marriage has been perpetuated beyond all sane reason.
I can’t thank you enough for inspiring my personal revelation. Goddess bless you.
Ms Hamilton I must disagree! You know exactlly what a dad is you’ve watched Johnathan and Trinity for almost 2 decades. A daddy is some one who loves their child without reservation. Some one who watches a Barbie movie until his eyes bleed then watches it again with a smile that goes all the way to his eyes. My wife once told me any one who can produce sperm can be a father, it takes a real man to be daddy. Trinity is blessed to have 2 real men in her life.
Dear Laurell
Kathy Napolitano hit it the nail on the head. I can’t really relate to people who had awesome fathers. I’m like anita a little bit. I have one but we don’t talk. After a horrible falling out when he sided with his girlfriend’s son rapped me and called me a liar I was broken. I grew up thinking I was a daddy’s girl. But when I was 15 and being rapped and threatened he hurt m dad I thought I was protecting him. And when I was 17 and no longer afraid of him I came out about it . But my daddy sided with them and it broke my heart when he rejected me. I’ve tried to extend the olive branch when me and my husband were getting married to invite him. But he refused because didn’t invite his girlfriend who bad mouthed me behind my back calling me a liar. It broke my heart again to have my father reject me a second time when it was so hard to over come the pain to invite him in the first place. I’ve seen what a good father is because like your husband Jonathon I’m a step parent too. I know it’s so late to reply to this blog but I just had to comment. But you did write about a fathers love well with Micah. You even wrote about a fathers love and acceptance with an alternative life style. Which everyone who has an alternative lifestyle wishes their a parent’s acceptance of. You’ve wrote well of a fathers love. Granted anita has a very estranged father so it would be hard to write about him. Not a whole lot of love to build off of with him. I relate to anita on that topic.
Mary