Disconnect

Earlier today, I spoke to my stepfather for the first time in several years - and likely for the last time in this life.

The reasons for our estrangement aren't appropriate fodder for this blog. I regret the estrangement. I expect he did too.

But he was my stepfather. He was my Dad. He gave me his name.

I always distinguished between my father, who died more than seven years ago, and my dad. My father begat me. My dad raised me.

I hasten to add that I don't begrudge my father his absence. In those days, it's what non-custodial fathers did. They disappeared.

But my dad was there, from even before he married my mother. And after my brother was born, I never saw that he ever made a distinction between us. We were both his sons, equally and regardless of blood.

So I thanked him for that. I thanked him for being my dad when I needed a dad, for having treated me as his own.

He could not respond. He is apparently beyond responding. But my brother assures me that he heard me and reacted.

There will be no funeral per se. He has, apparently, willed his body to medical research. In due course the University of Saskatchewan will see to the cremation of his earthly remains. And his family - my family by adoption and grace - will have a party to remember him in a more amenable season.

Go forth from this world, Carol.

And thank you.

St. Joseph

Patron of Step Parents