Find The Cost Of Freedom

** I wrote this back in September just after I found the news out. I have bumped it to the front page to share comments with all carnival readers and non carnival readers.**

I got a call from my mom while I was home last week with some news. Not quite sure how to describe it. I am still processing it and frankly I can't come up with an adjective that works without sounding overwrought or flippant.

My dad is my dad in every sense of the word other than genetically. I am the product of my mom's first marriage. She wanted a baby, he didn't. She pretty much went on a black ops mission to get pregnant and voila, Baby Me.

This was the 60's. Tail end of it at the very least. And contrary to pop culture myths it wasn't all peace love dove. Mom was a hippie, biological dad was a hippie. They had varying degrees of commitment to the causes and the recreational "mind expanding" drugs out there. She was Students For A Democratic Society whereas he was a Weatherman. Differing ideologies is an understatement. She was into pot, he was into everything. The inevitable happened and they split up. I was about 15 months. She met my now dad when I was about 17 months. We did the hippie thang (complete with living in a school bus and communes) for another 2 or so years. They married when I was around 4 and Dad adopted me a year later. So Dad is Dad. The biological dad never showed up at the adoption hearing.

So here I am, 37 years old, and have never met the biological Dad, aka Brad aka The Sperm Donor. That nickname implied he willingly donated, when of course he didn't. Which is why I never held it against him, especially after I had my own kid. Never fancied a tearful Oprah meeting moment. I have a dad, ya know?

But let's be honest, I would have to have the intellectual curiosity of a slug if I never pondered the man, right? According to my parents (yes Dad knew him too) I am a poster child for Nature vs Nurture. My rants, my sarcasm, my natural inclination to get involved with seemingly lost causes. Gotta give the man a nod for my intelligence. His IQ was off the charts. The US Navy does not try to head hunt you at 15 for the nuclear physics program if you are the village idiot.

So given that I have spent my entire life being told how much I look like him, and how much alike we are personality wise, of course I was curious about him. Not in a sappy "Lassie Come Home" kinda way. Just curious.

Too bad, so sad. Mom called me in tears last week and announced that he had died. His obituary was in the SLC papers. A cousin called.

So here I am. Processing. On the one hand, I have a dad and get pretty bent when people hear the history and refers to him as not being my "real" dad. On the other hand, it sure as hell closes the door on any kind of lookie loo, now doesn't it? No first hand look at this person I am like. No comparison of personality traits. Seriously, I am not sure what my reaction to this should be. Never having met him or lacked a dad, I can't fake tears. On the other hand, it really is just so very final.

So I would like to take this moment to simply acknowledge him and the contributions he made, willingly or not, to my existence and my personality. Thanks. I like my sense of humor. I like my sarcasm. I like "sticking it to the man." So wherever you are, thanks.

"Find the cost of freedom
Buried in the ground
Mother Earth will swallow you
Lay your body down"
CSNY