What Makes a Dad

By Leisa Luis-Grill

One clear August day in 1971 my sister and I sat in the imposing mahogany silence of judges’ chambers. That day my stepfather became our father by law, and we added our childlike scrawls to the list of official signatures. Our birth certificates would hereafter reflect no trace of my biological father, as though he’d never existed. There was an odd comfort in the finality of that. Even at 12 I knew that my mother’s courage to choose divorce in an era that stigmatized divorcees would make every difference in the course of my future. The memories of my father bear that out, and I have no regrets. Neither does she, though it required sacrifices that I didn’t comprehend until adulthood. That’s true for most of us seeing our parents through childhood’s prism. Any “self” they had before us wasn’t even a blip on our juvenile radar. It took me years to appreciate the magnitude of my stepfather’s decision to marry my mother. He wasn’t just committing to her, but to us as well. He was a lifelong bachelor in his forties and I can imagine that even serving on a destroyer in WWII hadn’t prepared him to navigate this dangerous sea of estrogen. “Even the DOG is a girl,” he’d moan, eyes twinkling. To our irrepressible joy, my sister, Laura, was born when I was 13. Dad was never so happy to be outnumbered once again. He embraced the challenges of family with hard work and humor and love, and we knew we were lucky to have had a part in choosing him just as he’d chosen us. He was proof that fatherhood requires no more than jumbles of DNA and willing body parts. Biology didn’t make him a “dad,” nor did a piece of paper. His behavior did, and he made us a family in a way we had never been before. Dad wouldn’t be considered sensitive by today’s standards. Words like “inclusiveness” would have puzzled him. Like his hero, John Wayne, he was a man of few words. Emotions weren’t meant for public display. However, his imposing figure held a tender heart and a moral compass that was simple, straight and true. His favorite reading material was the latest Racing Form, yet it was he who introduced me to Dostoyevsky and Tolstoy, I and “The Three Musketeers.” Dad loved Bach and Johnny Cash equally. The big kid in him did “doughnuts” in snow-filled parking lots just to hear us squeal with laughter, while the adult protected his “girls” from his private worry-filled world. These contradictions were made poignantly clear to me after his death in 2003. In his desk I found a small wooden box, filled with odd scraps of paper. As I read them, I realized that they were quotations that Dad had clipped and saved as sources of insight and inspiration. Dad was like that box simple and sturdy, harboring a wealth of thoughtful complexities just beneath an unassuming lid. One of these quotes struck me as particularly fitting. It is attributed to Helen Hayes:

“The truth is that there is only one terminal dignity love. And the story of a love is not important. What is important is that one is capable of love. It is perhaps the only glimpse we are permitted of eternity.”

Thank you, Dad, for adopting us and for showing us that loving glimpse.

Leisa Luis-Grill is a Registered Nurse, artist and actress. She lives in Rochester with her husband, Rob.