My dad raised me by himself after my birth mother abandoned me. On the day I graduated, she unexpectedly emerged from the crowd, pointed at him, and declared, “There’s something you need to know about the man you call ‘father.’” What followed made me question everything I believed about the man who had raised me.
The most meaningful photograph in our home hangs above the couch. One corner of the glass is cracked from the time I accidentally knocked it off the wall with a foam soccer ball when I was eight.
Dad stared at it for a moment and said, “Well… I survived that day. I can survive this.”
In the photo, a thin teenage boy stands on a football field wearing a crooked graduation cap. He looks completely overwhelmed. In his arms is a baby wrapped in a blanket. Me.
“Well… I survived that day. I can survive this.”
