My dad. Mahlon Boop. Adopted me at birth. Raised me to be a good man and to love God. I don’t know that I ever lived totally up to that expectation. Died when I was 19 in my arms.
My step-dad. Antoine DelMenico. We rarely saw eye-to-eye on anything because of our very different backgrounds. I took care of him the last years of his life. Realized only afterward how much an impact he’d had on me.
My ex-father in law. Darrell Rogeness. I didn’t really know him. I wish I had. He was important to my ex-wife in ways I didn’t understand until after he was gone. I was still too naive to make that connection.
My bio-father: Robert “Goldie” Goldberg. Only found him five years before he passed. Complicated man with a even darker past, that i ended up loving despite that. Didn’t have enough time.
I had other “spiritual fathers” but these are the four that legally were my dads. I was so focused on becoming me that I didn’t take enough time to discover how they’d become them. Some can be blamed on autism. Most can be blamed on selfishness on my part. I think each one tried in their own way to be a father to me, but I didn’t make it easy on any of them.
Make sure you take the time, while you have it, to know how they became who they are: good or bad. Some are bastards. Some are saints. They don’t have to be blood. but try to know who they are before it becomes who they were.