What makes a father?

 I have been taking stock in what it means to be a parent and have landed on the question of what makes a father? I recognize it would be easy to take the smart ass way out and just say, well, when a woman and a man get together and get busy... but that is just procreation, that does not make a father. It's the actions after the fact that make a father, and it's the lifelong work of a father that makes them a good one. I have a really great one, although this year definitely rattled the cages. I was told this year that a secret had been kept from me for most of my life. I am the product of the first cohort of IVF in the province of Ontario, and my father is not genetically my dad. Admittedly, genetics shouldn't matter, but they do in different ways. It was a way for me to console myself, thinking that I am like my grandma Ada, whom I had never met. It softened the blow from being so different than the rest of my cousins, from my sister. I am extroverted, I am artistic in different ways, and my blonde hair always seemed to set me apart when I so desperately wanted to fit into the family of redheads. I was always jealous, always wanting to be apart, instead of separate from. I knew that my dad's family had blondes, so it was easy to see myself on that side of the fence, and when I was told this one day in November, while out with my sister in Costco, because this is where we trauma dump, I rapidly went through all of the feelings. I was ragey, I was in denial, I was fucking spiraling. Then I thought of my dad. The man who had been my world from day on,e and I couldn't feel angry. I felt depressed. I felt lost and not sure of how to process all of this. I called Doug and dropped the bomb on him while he was traveling to a conference, and then we both started to research like mad... I spoke to Andy, and the three of us agreed to take a DNA test to figure this out. Andy and Doug agreed that they would do it with me, so I wasn't alone. I felt a crippling sense of not knowing who I was or what the fucking I had done with my life. I went through this spiral so deep and visceral that I got lost in the void the further and further I went down. I still had to be mom as Doug was away, but this day was a new core memory, and I felt it all. After my sister left, I called the person who I knew would tell me everything they could remember. I called Sarah and Kerry. Keepers of part of my history, I cannot remember they filled me in... and I yelled. I was furious. I was angry... I went up one side of them and down the other. The part that tipped me off the hardest was that EVERYONE KNEW. It was common knowledge except for the one person who should have known, me. I was told that everyone in my parents' sphere, everyone that I had trusted my entire life, was fully aware that what I was living was a lie. It was horrific. Some family members even called to tell me that it was brought up and discussed anytime I did something that came out of left field to them... that it must have been a trait I got from my "donor". That left a sour taste in my mouth. What was worse is that my mother had lied to me, made my father get medical testing done to affirm things... lied on medical and legal documents, and then destroyed legal documents so we would never find out. I have a lot of anger towards my mother... none of it can be resolved beyond saying, shit that happened; it's not like I can confront her and tell her exactly what I feel because, there she sits in an urn, what she's going to do, collect more fucking dust? That is dark, but honestly, from what my sister has told me, she thinks it would be the final nail in the coffin that is our relationship. To be honest, I had cut her off before she had gotten cancer for several months. She was brutal to me when growing up, and that really hadn't changed as I had moved into adulthood. My sister's perception of our relationship is why she was so critical of my anger towards mom, but honestly, she was the perceived "wanted child". Carly was the one she was perpetually proud of. I was "the fuck up" (her words, not mine). We had a rough relationship... but this isn't about that... this is about the lie and about the man who raised me... My father is still my father, but as I go down this road of figuring out who I am in relation to where these things that always kept me separate and apart from my own family, I have decided to open this up and share my experience of discovering what has been kept from me for forty years and where I sit now. My father is an incredible father... and what I have learned from the last year of figuring this out is that genetics do not make a parent... if they did, my mother would have been a better one to me... My father will always be my father, and language is important. He is the best father and has been through every stage of my life, meeting me where I am at. 

If you want to follow along on this journey... buckle up it is a ride.