Family Man

My early childhood is a bit of a disaster. From the beginning it

seemed I had nowhere to belong. I had been put up for adoption, and
one of my sets of grandparents drove across the country to pick me up
and fought the adoption. Then they also put me up for adoption, then I
was adopted and those parents got divorced and then I was shuffled
back and forth between them for years until I finally broke down. After
a childhood like this, I was done with family, because I really hadnt
had one. Papa was the opposite of me: his blood tore through his veins
screaming family and moving him to dedicate his life to it. One day

as we sat at his kitchen table months before his death, he told me this
story.
Papa had served in the Air Force in Vietnam, something he never
spoke of, and after he returned he started seeing Nana, who was 19,
and promptly got her pregnant. My mother was their first child, and
after her they had four more daughters. Before he died, Papa was
considered a family man, well-respected and even revered for his
dedication to his family, something I had never understood, family to
me had always been a weight. But as it turned out, Papa had felt the
same way at one time. When Nana got pregnant, Papa spiraled, his life
was over and he hadnt even lived it yet. Every evening he had to talk
himself out of suicide on his way home from work. He was angry, he
felt robbed, like he had been forced to marry a woman and raise a
child, both things he hadnt wanted.
Finally he told his new wife that he was suicidal, and she took
him straight to the priest at their Catholic church. All he was told was
that suicide was wrong and he should read the Bible more, he took his
wife and left that meeting, never to return to that church again. For
reasons that were not divulged to me, they chose to seek a new
church. They found a church that my grandfather fell in love with, he
dedicated his life to God and became one of the most well-respected,
sought-after role-models that I have ever known.

The last time I spoke with my Papa before he lost coherency, I sat
beside his bed and watched him roll around restlessly and constantly
change positions trying to get comfortable. As the cancer spread
through his body un-medicated, un-treated, and unstoppable, he could
feel his body swelling with tumors.
He was thin, pale, frail, and wheezing in his bed, being cared for
by his wife. Papa spoke with me, he talked about his youngest
grandsons and how he wanted to read the Bible with them before he
died, and how he wanted me to make sure his daughters knew the
truth about God and not just their versions of him. When he was done,
it was my turn to speak and I told him the truth, for once in my life, I
said something and meant every single word,
All of my life, all anyone ever wanted was for me to go away, I
was an adopted freak and treated like a helpless infant or treated like a
pariah. But not from you, you were the only one who truly wanted me,
you treated my like I was worth just as much as everyone else, no pity,
no disgust. You just loved me. Thank you.
My grandfather laid there in bed and reached out for me, I leaned
forward and he latched onto me, and he cried into my shoulder,
leaving a wet puddle on my shoulder bawling louder than any child I
had ever heard cry. He cried for me and for my pain, he cried because I
told him he was the only one who truly loved me, he cried because

that was someone I was about to lose. He said,

I only could do it because of Jesus.
Over the span of these two conversations and the months in
between, something changed. Papa had always taken my little cousins
fishing, now Im the one doing it, I dont know why, but its important. I
dont know everything about God and I dont know everything about
the universe. But the Bible says that when someone comes to believe
in God they receive a piece of him called the Holy Spirit, and it is
common to believe that the Holy Spirit does things through people like
act like Jesus, pray, read the Bible, preach to churches full of people,
and even write the Bible. I dont know what I believe: at the core Im
just as lost as anyone else. But I am left to wonder, if God lives inside
of people, who was loving me? Who needed to be held and cry into my
shoulder about how much pain I was in? Who did I really lose when my
grandfather died?