My dad died when I was 4. I didn’t know much, but I knew I wanted someone to be my Daddy. Plus, my mom looked like she could use some help with me and my two sisters. So I began searching.
Back in the early 1960s, I found some TV dads who looked promising. They were everything a girl could ask for: tall, handsome, wise, good providers, stern but fair, and often funny. And, oh, they loved their kids. I wanted a dad like Beaver Cleaver’s or Opie Taylor’s dad, and I spent most of my childhood in search of the kind of father who only existed when the black-and-white television was on and the reception was good.
My father probably wouldn’t have been the best Daddy. He killed himself so that my mom could find a better husband, at least that’s what he said in his suicide note. He must have thought he wasn’t meant to be a father. But maybe he did fine in the protecting-his-family department — an important job for any dad. Just ask Ward Cleaver or Andy Taylor.
But I wanted a father who could ace every requirement of Daddy Duty. And so my search continued. Grandfathers were out of the running because they were too old and already taken. My uncles had way too many kids of their own, so I scratched them off the list.
I had a sixth-grade teacher who was a real possibility until I found out he was engaged to a woman with a beehive hairdo and more make-up than Tammy Faye Bakker at a cosmetics convention. I figured my mom, with her understated beauty and flat hair, wasn’t his type.
When I was well into adulthood, I realized that my quest for a father was never necessary. Mom had soured on the concept of marriage but hadn’t told me. She was fine with being both a mother and a father to my sisters and me. She may not have been particularly tall, but she was strong, courageous, patient, generous and kind. Just like the best TV and real fathers, she exuded quiet authority, protected her girls and worked at a demanding job so that we had what we needed for a secure and stable home.
She was a single mother when having a husband defined a woman. And I thought I had it rough because I didn’t have a father.
I send my mother a Father’s Day card every year and thank her for her many years of amazing double-duty.
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