By Stacey Patton

It was early November 2009. Steve, my biological father, was going to be dead before the end of the month. I was 420 miles away, bracing for his impending death and grieving. Not for him. But for the death of all my hopes, dreams and fantasies of what could have been.

My father was 59 and suffering from fourth-stage lung cancer brought on by either years of smoking, or inhaling the noxious plumes that billowed above the centuries-old hulking paper mill in Franklin, Virginia, where he worked for 25 years as a crane operator before taking an early retirement. The day before I got the phone call that he had little time left, the doctor had discharged him with a bottle of cough medicine, a case of vanilla-flavored Ensure, a ventilator, and morphine. There would be no use putting him through chemo or surgery. The doctor said to keep him comfortable, give him morphine for the pain, and wait.

My father lived out the rest of his days propped up in his worn out recliner with a skinny oxygen tube plugged into his nostrils and wound tight behind his flared earlobes. He passed the time picking lottery numbers, playing scratch-off games, and watching football, while his wife, my twin brothers and young brother prayed for a miracle, or at least, more time.

I took the 8-hour drive from New York City to Franklin so that I could meet my father for the first time in my life and say goodbye at the same time. For the last 31 years, I was my father’s secret; a bundle he left behind in Montclair, New Jersey when he picked up in 1978 and began a whole new life and family in Virginia. He never purchased a diaper, a stitch of clothing or birthday presents, nothing. He never witnessed my first steps or heard my first word. We never shared a hug or a kiss.

Like so many of my young fatherless black female friends, I grew up thinking that a father wasn’t necessary. To me, my dad was just a sperm donor, just one in many legions of black men who have used women’s bodies as vectors to produce children and then walk away.

As an orphan, and later as an adopted child, I used to close my eyes at night and try to draw him on that blank canvas in my mind. I painted him tall, handsome, brown-skinned like me, and gave him strong arms and hands. I imagined he was intelligent, verbal, full of purpose, useful and protected women and children. But eventually, my fantasies and hopes of finding Steve began to fade.

When I reached adulthood, I felt like I didn’t miss anything, and I grew accustomed to having low expectations of the males in my life. Because I grew up without my father, I did not allow myself to become emotionally vulnerable to men or depend on them for money, shelter, protection, or to fulfill my sense of self-worth. Luckily, there were other men from various walks of life who stepped in and played (and continue to play) the role of a nurturing father figure for me. Those men, my small village of fathers and mentors, have helped soothe the disappointment, anger and bitterness I walked around with for much of my young life.

When I arrive at Steve’s home, I found a broken-down, old looking man who couldn’t muster up the courage to look me in my eyes. That first day we spent together, sitting less than ten feet apart, the only thing we said to each other was, “Hi.” We watched back-to-back college football games. Every now and then I traced his frail body with my eyes and tried to figure out why I couldn’t yell at him, cry, or tell him how his absence impacted my life. I had to set aside my feelings and be sensitive to the fact that he was a dying man. It all seems so unfair to me, the child in the situation.

Steve’s wife did all the talking, digging for photographs, and educating me about the family genealogy. Funny, Steve kept me a secret from her for 31 years because he thought she’d be mad and leave him if she found out about me. Turns out, she was thrilled to have a stepdaughter! She and the rest of the family were actually upset with him for depriving them of a relationship they could have had with me all those years.

The next day Steve and I finally had a talk. I got to ask every question that had been marinating in my head for years. He answered some and stared silently at his lap for others. He told me how he met my mother, that she was beautiful and that I look just like her. He remembered hearing that she had committed suicide in August 1982. He said he didn’t know that I had been given up for adoption and said that other women in my family wouldn’t allow him to come around and be a father.

When my questions got to be too much for him, Steve turned his wobbly head towards me, mustered up one big breath and said, “I’m sorry. I’m really, really sorry.”

A comfortable silence fell over the room, soothing us both. There was nothing more Steve could say, nothing more needed to be said. To have my father apologize to me was a powerfully redemptive moment. His words validated all of my feelings I had been carrying with me. In his apology, he gave recognition and took responsibility for the terrible unfairness his absence caused. In that moment, just days before his death, he helped me let go of a lot of emotional poison and turmoil. And I helped free him, too.

It was too late for Steve to try to be my father. We had no time to make up for lost time. But he gave a special gift, a pair of old dusty black work boots that I picked out from a pile of others heaped in the corner by the television. I’ve heard that a man’s shoes are a direct sign of how he takes care of his life and how he takes care of a woman and his family. So I consciously chose the strongest and sturdiest pair – the black Timberlands. Perhaps my choice reveals that the little girl in me still wanted her fantasy of a strong, handsome, and useful father. I had to settle for his boots – fossils of my old man’s life and journeys.

As I rode back to New York City I held those boots against my stomach, toyed with the blackened strings and was careful not to knock too much dust of the surface. I decided what kind of relationship I was going to have with them. I would never step inside them or walk in them. I’d let that one dirty polyester sock stay balled up inside the toe of the left boot. Today, I keep those boots in the back of my walk-in closet, in plain view, perched up on a decorative box. They are a simple memorial to the man who literally walked out of my life, but also gave me the life-long gift of redemption so that I could move forward with less emotional baggage.

This is the first time in my adult life that I’m celebrating Father’s Day. Before now, that third Sunday of every June was simply another day. I hardly gave a fleeting thought to the concept of fatherhood or took the time to think about the man who was responsible for my existence. I hope that other fatherless daughters and sons can summon the audacity to track down their fathers if possible, to figuratively step into their shoes, ask the hard questions and embrace all the facts that led up to the lost relationship. More importantly, I hope that all those men out there who walked away will have the courage to man up and make things right with their children before it’s too late.

Stacey Patton is the Senior Editor of The Defenders Online and a writer for The NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund.