Meet Pop

I have been remiss in introducing the newest member of the circus. Y’all need to meet Pop.

I don’t have a huge amount of childhood memories of my dad. He worked a union job with no overtime, so I know he was around. But my mom was such a huge presence that she overshadowed everything and everyone else. (Mom says that’s a fat joke, and it isn’t, but hey…) My early memories of mom aren’t great – she was bipolar and unmedicated – and I guess they were big enough to block Dad out altogether. As an adult, our relationship was solid, but we didn’t talk a lot. I’d call and Dad would manage maybe five minutes before handing me off to Mom.

And then Mom got sick and everything changed.

I discovered that Dad and I make a really good team. We approach the world in the same way, we’re both comfortable having hard conversations and we both expect the best from ourselves. We don’t stop until the thing is done. We both value the same things – honesty, integrity, compassion, selflessness and hard work – and we both love with our entire selves. It suddenly made sense to me that Mom and I got along so well, because I am a female version of her favorite person. It seems silly that I’d never realized it before, but the kaleidoscope twist of life with mom in the hospital and eventually gone revealed a plethora of truths I’d never seen before.

I keep expecting this transition, this blending of two families, to get hard or weird. It just hasn’t. Dad and I get along really well, and since Melissa understands me, she already knows a lot about the way Pop works, too. The kids are so happy here and watching their love for my dad blossom and grow brings me more joy than I’d ever dreamed possible. He’s not just a peripheral figure in their lives now – he’s here for the day-to-day. I know in my soul that this was the right move for our family, even if it was complicated and exhausting. This dynamic just works.

It’s 8am on a Saturday and Pop is currently working on the brush pile in the back acre. There’s a fire and a saw to chop wood into manageable pieces and a truckbed full of detritus. Pop hates the cold, so even though a it’s 55° here he’s got a jacket and gloves and a stocking cap and I’d be willing to bet there are long johns under his jeans. He’s a sissy about the cold and I love that about him. He’s tough about nearly everything else.

Welcome to the circus, Pop. You fit right in here.