This one's for the dudes...

A number of stories have been shared with me about conversations that were had at our wedding over the past five years since we got hitched. I always smile when I hear them (I’ve yet to hear a bad one…so far), and consider them to be little gifts to remind me of the joy brought together on December 9, 2006.

One of my favorite stories is the one of my Dad and Aunt Julie finally making peace. My Dad is an amazing man. My Aunt Julie is an amazing woman. They just never got along, even when my parents were married. The thing about my Aunt Julie is that you love her or you don’t. She is fiercely loyal to those who are loyal to her, she’s driven, she speaks her mind, and she’s full of beans and spunk. She makes no apologies about who she is, and I happen to think she’s fantastic. Did I mention she’s a Leo, just like Miss P? Uf, we might be in trouble. Did I also mention that Dad is very much the same way? Anyway, Julie’s strong personality can sometimes be tough to go up against, even more so for an in-law. So she and Dad were never the best of friends, and that’s probably putting it mildly.

Apparently, on the night of my wedding, both Dad and Julie’s hearts softened towards one another and they shared a moment. The story goes Julie told Dad that she thought he’d done a great job raising me. Dad responded that it takes a whole community to raise a child, essentially giving credit to Julie in the role she had played in my upbringing, too. Peace. 

Dad was right, and it’s fitting that I only understand this now that I have children of my own. It does take a community to raise a child, and if you are raising a girl, it takes a community of strong females, but especially strong males. We are finding out more and more in our culture just how important the presence of fathers and father figures are in raising a girl to respect and love herself. Daddy-os and other strong males play a pivotal role in the development of a girl’s psyche. Tina Fey said it best in her hilariously poignant book, Bossypants: “Let’s review the cost-free techniques that we’ve learned so far for raising an achievement-oriented, obedient, drug-free, virgin adult: Calamity, Praise, Local Theater and flat feet. Another key element is: “Strong Father Figure/Fear Thereof.” Nicely said, Tina.

I consider myself a very happy and fairly well-adjusted adult female—though it’s taken, well, a lifetime to get here. And for that I have the following community of men to thank on this Father’s Day:

Mr. Bouman. You were the first person to teach me it was not just okay, but cool, to be an adult nerd. I hope you take that with the spirit with which it was written: admiration and respect. While I didn’t care much for the content of British Lit, I admired my teacher of it beyond words. I mean, who else has the courage to do a medieval rap of the Canterbury Tales in a high school classroom full of sophomore girls who are too cool for school? You instilled in me a passion for humanities, a hatred for Beowulf, and a love of literature. Even though I didn’t always like what we were reading (sorry, British Lit is not my thing, Mr. B), I appreciated that you taught me how to analyze what I was reading—to see the meaning beyond the meaning. I also respected that you were at nearly all of our basketball games, honoring our talents out of the classroom just as much as our merits in the classroom. It has been one of the highlights of my career so far to go back to MMH and talk to your class about what I do—in doing so, you valued my choice to follow my heart in my career, and not the dollar signs. I hope that my children, especially my girl, have a teacher like you in their future. Thanks for being an inspiration.

Mr. Bley. “Work, now, work!” That mantra will never leave my head. You (along with Ms. Huismann) taught me the hard-nosed discipline and work ethic that one can only learn from committing oneself to an activity wholeheartedly. You coached us with a tenacity that got your blood boiling on a daily basis, but that drove us to success in three of my four years on MMH’s varsity team. But what I took away from you as my coach on the court paled in comparison to what I took away from you off the court. Thank you for teaching me how to be magnanimous. And thank you for making me look up what that word meant as a dopey 15 year old freshman playing varsity.

Uncle Chris. I know that as the years have gone on, we don’t see each other as much and lead different lives, but you have always had a special place in my heart. I have such fond memories of hanging out with you and Aunt Julie growing up on Childs Avenue, including the impressive fart sandwich you and Julie made, with me right in the middle. And there is one thing I will never forget that you said to me at a very impressionable age. I must have been in first or second grade, the period of time when I was a butterball/chub-chub, still hanging on to my baby fat and just learning to feel self-conscious about it. I was at Mamaw’s house agonizing over the fact that the next day in gym class they were going to be weighing each student (I don’t remember why this practice was even in place…how traumatizing!). You told me to remember that what matters about a person is what’s on the inside. Then you told me you’d love me no matter what the number on that stupid scale was. Even today on my fat days, when I look in the mirror and wonder what in the hell happened to my body after my two kids wreaked havoc on it, I hear your voice in my head and remember that it’s what’s inside that counts. Thank you for saying that to me and really meaning it. Those words are hard to come by nowadays, so I’m grateful you uttered them and that they echo in my mind still.

Everyone needs an Uncle Chris in their lives.

Pawpaw. You are the funniest and most quick-witted man I know. I can’t imagine how frustrating it must be for you now, for your mind to be working faster than your mouth and to not be able to express yourself as you would like; for your body and your motor skills to abandon you and have to be taken care of like a child. But know that every time I see you and look at you, that’s not who I see. Instead, I see the Pawpaw that helped raise me, the one who always put a smile on my face when I saw him, despite whatever plans you had to embarrass me (do you remember driving me to school at Dulles in that maroon Omni with all of the Wizard of Oz paraphernalia on it?). I see the Pawpaw who introduced me to some of my favorite things as a child and teenager: the Wizard of Oz (I still can’t watch that movie without thinking of your lessons on courage and my Wizard of Oz-themed birthday party in which you made ALL of us dress up as a character from the movie); the 12 days of Christmas, The Other Wiseman, planting the tree downtown and about a zillion other Christmas traditions; Neapolitan ice cream (Mamaw used to buy the square blocks of it, and you’d just take it out of the square and dump it on a plate in the middle of the kitchen table for us to eat from—I never touched the strawberry, but loved the chocolate, still true to this day); Cold Mountain (you used to talk about that book every winter with me). 

Four generations of love. All because Mamaw said 'yes!'

You are the only grandpa that I have ever known. As Lauren said about her grandpa: 'Having you as my only grandpa my whole life is better than having two lesser men.' Truer words were never spoken. I am so glad that my children have known your love. Thank you for making me laugh always, and for being, along with Mamaw, the heart and soul of our big Italian brood. Please don’t ever stop reminding me that all of the craziness that is our family would have never been “had she not said ‘yes!’” And please know that if we ever get brave enough to have another child, and if that child is a boy, his middle name will be Albert after the most gentle and faith-filled man I know—you.

Bill. We’ve had a long, hard road. Ours is a relationship that can be best compared to a rich wine: it has gotten better with the passing of time (and a side of Manchego cheese with some olives). In the beginning, I knew you as a strict stepparent, whom it felt like I could never please (though I always tried my damndest!...bringing the keg up the basement stairs comes to mind here!). When you came into my life, I was so young. And not at all cool with you taking up so much of my mom’s time. Poor guy, you always had an uphill battle with me—I didn’t understand my jealousy of and acted out a lot in response. I didn’t understand why you were so strict with me (you were just trying to teach me responsibility and accountability) and thought you were just out to get me. As I got older, I opened up to you more, but still kept you at a distance just to be safe, still unsure if I was willing to let you in all the way. 

It was not until I was engaged and was able to look back on my childhood and teenage years with greater perspective and some distance that I was able to see how integral you were in shaping my path to adulthood. I have much to thank you for. Thank you for making Mom happy and for showing me (along with her) what a happy relationship should be like. Thank you for never trying to replace my Dad—as a Dad yourself, you know Dads cannot be replaced in their daughters’ hearts. Thank you for pushing me to be an independent woman—in my thinking, in my career and in my finances—I’m thankful for those lessons every day (and so is Colleen, I am sure of it) and would not be where I am in my professional life without your guidance and support. Thank you for being instrumental in every major decision I’ve ever made in my life—heaven knows I wouldn’t have gone to Mercy, Spain, Ecuador or grad school without you both advocating on my behalf and pushing me all the while. You are a fantastic man, the most well-intentioned individual I know. Thank you for loving me as you would your own daughter, even if I resisted some of the time—I never meant to and I certainly don't resist now. We are at our best yet nowadays and every year that passes, we grow closer and closer and understand each other more and more.  

And of course, Dad. I’ve already got tears in my eyes and a lump in my throat, afraid that my words to you will not do justice. I’m your girl and you’re my Dad…what is left to say? And more importantly, what could be better than that? We never really lived together my whole life after you and Mom got divorced—so that meant I looked forward to all of our time together, no matter how much or how little. Zoo visits on Sunday (with trips to Wendy’s on the way there—single with cheese, ketchup only! You used to tell me I was going to turn into a tomato from eating so much ketchup.)—we knew that place backwards and forwards. To this day I could get myself around the Cincinnati Zoo blindfolded thanks to our weekly trips there. Wednesday night visits during the week—you’d play sneaky Pete on the way over the Big Mac bridge and we’d have dinner, watch The Wonder Years, and we’d play ‘Riddly diddly I-dee-dee’ or spelling games on the way back home to the west side. Occasionally in the spring and summer time, we would see fireworks on the way home if the Reds would win their ball games or hit a home run. We listened to WEBN or 700 WLW, windows down. Christmas time—our visits to Larry and Doug’s, checking in on your Krogers’ stores, going to you and Gaile’s in Loveland for schnecken, cheesy potatoes and mimosas. I cherished those times with you, I hope you know.

In high school you never, ever missed a basketball game. I loved to hear your voice (“Good defense, number thirty-four”—you always called me by number so I knew it was you) encouraging me, or getting on the refs’ asses if they made a bad call. In college you might have questioned some of my choices, but like a good Dad, you always let me make them for myself and ultimately supported them. I remember when you took me to visit Pitt when I was applying to grad schools—one of our many road trips together (remember going to Washington, DC when I was in eighth grade? One of my favoritest vacations ever, and perhaps my only with just you and I. Remember going to visit OU and our car broke down on the way back? That was my first trip to Athens and I thought of that trip every day when I was on campus during my four years there). Shortly after arriving, I had a brief impromptu interview in your presence, in which I had to speak only Spanish. Had you not been there, I would have panicked, but I knew you’d have my back no matter what, and that gave me all the assurance I needed. I remember seeing you beaming out of the corner of my eye as the interview was taking place. When I was finished, you told the man interviewing me how impressed you were that I could carry myself with such confidence in Spanish. That was one of my proudest moments as an adult. Similarly, when I got my first job out of grad school and you told me how proud you were of me over the phone…I blushed. A little girl (no matter how grown) lives to hear things like that from her Dad. I’ll never forget you saying that to me, even though it was just one of our routine little telephone calls.

My Dad in his greatest role yet: Pappy

One of the days in which I was proudest of you was on my wedding day. You faced a lot of heartache on that day, but one would never know it the way you courageously walked me down that aisle (with that beautiful bracelet on that you gave me only nights before), gave me away to a man that I know you respect, like, and love, even though I’m sure it was the hardest thing you’ve ever done, toasted to our life together with your gregarious and charismatic nature, danced with me to our dad and daughter anthem, “Be Ever Wonderful,” and, yes, made peace with Aunt Julie. You were perfect on that day, just perfect. Have I ever told you that?   

Dad, thank you. Thank you for being honest with me on your own time about the things I needed to know, I respect you for it all the more. Thank you for for passing along to me your smile, it's my favorite part of me and it's directly from you (and I think P inherited it, too!). Thank you for introducing me to Earth, Wind and Fire. Thank you for not ever feeling threatened by Bill’s presence in my life—a lesser man would have been, and with good reason, as Bill was and still is a great influence on me. Thank you for always touching up the tattoo that reads ‘Steph’ with a star and rainbow over your heart—how sweet is that? Thank you for showering me with love and affection—I love getting big bear hugs from you, and smooches, too. Thank you for always sending me a card for every single holiday, never forgetting a one, and for signing it in one of your signature ways—either ‘I love you this much ßà’ or ‘from the man who loved you first and always will.’ Thank you for being you. Be ever wonderful, Dad, in your own sweet way. And stay as you are.  

So, that’s the community of men I have to thank for helping make me who I am. For the rest of you out there, dads or not, don’t underestimate the impact you could have on one’s life. Especially on the life of a girl who is simply trying to find her way.

Best. Dad. Ever. 

P.S.—Did you all really think I’d forget to mention Jack on Father’s Day? To the father of my children and (yes, here comes the cliché) the love of my life—I chose you as my partner because you are the combined package of all the best qualities of the men who influenced my life that I’ve listed above—you have great faith, passion, a sense of humor not to be matched, tenacity, a heart of gold, and a charisma that still captivates me (and our kiddos) every day. Thanks for being in the front seat of this rollercoaster ride with me. And thanks for choosing me back.