Great Dads Don't Need DNA

A dad is a guy who tells his daughter how to handle boys. He teaches her the responsibilities of driving a car, insisting that she demonstrate to him her ability to change a flat tire without assistance.


A dad is a man who delights in his daughter's every triumph. He brags shamelessly to his cronies and carries her picture in his wallet.

A dad sends the evil-eye across the room to her waiting date as she descends the stairs after four hours of preparation. He's the one who talks her mother into allowing the red lipstick, but is silently daring the poor guy to even THINK about kissing those cherry ripe lips.

A dad calls his daughter back into the house for just a second so he can give her an extra $20 for cab fare in case what'shisname gets *fresh.*

Not all dads are fathers and not all fathers are dads.

My dad was not my father. My birth father was divorced by my mother when I was four and he was barred from seeing me. And so he didn't. A dad would have fought tooth and nail, done whatever it took to see his little girl.

My dad was my mother's husband. They married when I was already 17 years old. He was crazy about my mother, had been for many years, and soon he was crazy about my younger sister and me, too.

Not long after they married, I went off to Ripon College. It was legal for 18 year-olds to drink beer in Wisconsin. When I came home for the first Christmas break, my dad surprised me with a six-pack of Heineken's, a huge step up from the Old Milwaukee I drank to save money. The two of us sat at the kitchen table until well into the next morning, doing what we both loved to do --arguing about philosophy, women's lib, politics, religion, books--and drinking beer. He was the most well-educated man I've ever known, and he never finished high school.

I never called my dad Dad. It's complicated, but I just couldn't do it at that stage of my life. He never minded that. He introduced me to his friends as My Daughter. He cried in the audience as I became the first person in my entire family to graduate from college. He walked me down the aisle at my wedding. I'll always remember the sound of his rich bass voice when he answered the priest's query "Who gives this woman in marriage?" "Her mother and I do," he boomed.

He cheered me on during my career, beaming whenever I did something notable. He held my hand while I cried about my marriage breaking up. He said, " I don't care who wins, as long as it's you."

My dad is gone now. It was I who rubbed Capsaicin on his joints to try to ease the pain he endured from end-stage bone cancer. I don't carry his genes. No DNA test will ever confirm that we were related. He was not my father. But he was the best dad a girl could ask for.