My Other Father
© 2010 Don Rogers
Like many couples who married during WWII my parents really didn't know each other before they got married. They dated for a month, got engaged, my father shipped out for two months, and when he returned to Virginia Beach, they got married. Not much to build a marriage on.
One day my father woke up and discovered he was the father of six children, had a huge mortgage and his future was not as bright as he once thought. He didn't abandon us. There was no divorce, but he was separate from all of us, until the day he died. He just gave up on us.
My brother, older than me by seven years, became my father. I first noticed this when I was five and he was an old man of twelve. My brother taught me to play ball, took me fishing, and tried to get me interested in football. What a burden it must have been for him to assume these duties as a child. He was my hero.
My father is gone, he died eleven years ago, but my real father, my brother, is still with me. We talk; he shares his wisdom with me and always closes his phone call by saying, "I love you, man." I love him too.