DAD is the first word that comes to mind.
The day I was born he signed my birth certificate although he is not my biological father but had fallen in love with my mother who was his nurse on the ship Huddleston, returning from Germany after WWII ended.
They made up a story, that June 8th was their wedding anniversary, to cover up my mother’s shame of being five months pregnant after having been raped.
The anniversary of dad’s death, October 6th, 1977, and his birth May 4th, 1917, I have always recognized greatfully as I placed flowers on his gravesite twice a year, but more so by feeling his unqualified and unspeakable and enduring love. Through primal therapy in the 1990s, I learned to allow my tears of grief, which increased my visits to dad’s weeping cherry tree to monthly, to honor our love.
My mother had wanted to abort me, but the doctor said she was too far along, then adoption was considered, but my DAD said he wanted to keep me. That is the anniversary I will treasure, and as silly as it may sound, when I make my bed daily, I press my pointer finger to daddy’s chest in a photo that hangs close to my pillow, saying I love you and thank you for loving me the best.
Especially now, as Roe vs. Wade was overturned a few days ago, June 24th, 2022, me being aware – as a Feminist for Life – I can be grateful to be alive while knowing women have the fundamental right to choose an abortion, to have autonomy of their own bodies at this point in our human development. Roe vs. Wade had struck down the Texas abortion ban as unconstitutional. Now it is the opposite? Who can determine or interpret “correctly” what is constitutional?
Norma McCorvey, aka Jane Roe admitted in 2017 that she was paid by the evangelical group Operation Rescue to change her stance from pro-abortion to anti-abortion, becoming pro-abortion again before she died.
Who can I trust as much as my dad and his anniversary? I miss him more every day as my loving tears display.