Dear Dad,

Recently, two people, Jess and Sinclair, wrote about their relationships with their male role models, Jess' grandfather, and Sinclair's dad. Even though we as a community have a lot of fun messing with genders, roles, clothes, and expectations, you can't shake off what your family has given you very easily, if you want to shake it off at all.

Billie's mom, my mother-in-law, upon seeing my dad for the first time, said to me "Oh, you favor your father!" I beamed at this. We look a bit alike, we have the same stupid smile, laugh at the same jokes, and watch Westerns and Bond marathons. He taught me how to ski. I have his boxy hands, his soft brown hair, and his build.

Even though he's always been there while I did the business of growing up, I've realized my dad is a great mystery to me. He drinks, he watches sports, works. I don't know his thoughts or feelings on a lot, other than the Cubs and welfare. Did he ever want a son? How does he feel about me, his eldest? What did he really want out of life?

I spent a few years in high school trying to pry secrets out of his past. I looked through old photo albums for pictures from before when my parents were married. Turns out dad was a golfer, a photographer, and grew tomatoes. His dad was a full-blooded Scot who's parents moved here from Glasgow. He spent time in South Africa, and lied about his age to get on a ship back to the US to fight in the war. He was a paratrooper who dropped on the beach at Normandy, living through the battle that took the life of my grandma's (his future wife's) fiance at the time. Grandpa was no hero, though. My aunt says he was abusive, especially towards my dad, the eldest son, but he'll never acknowledge that anything happened. Dad went to UCLA as a math major, skied in Utah and Tahoe with his brother, Bill, chewed tobacco on the ski lifts, and had an old blue Toyota truck with a KLOS sticker on the steering wheel. He played baseball as a kid, and had issues with weight, just like me. He had longish hair and a penchant for denim jackets and plaid shirts that made him look like Eric Clapton in my mind.

Somewhere along the way, in being turned into a husband and father, he lost himself. I hope he finds himself again before it's too late. I think my sister might say that it's already too late, but who knows.

I guess I've learned from him that you make sacrifices and take on burdens for the ones you love, because that's how he knew how to be a man, and how to be a father and husband.* I wonder if I actually learned any masculinity from him. Have I just learned his quirks, his faults, his ways, his karma? I will admit that I feel as though I've been spat out on to the adult world, not knowing what a father provides in a family, or how one should best interact with their wife. Poor Billie. I've got a lot of learning to do. She loves me, though, and I love her back, and she has patience for miles when it comes to me.

Actually, I've probably learned more about what not to do, while being a spouse and (future) parent. Don't lose your interests, your friends, your hobbies. Don't sacrifice so much that you become resentful. Don't forget to make time to be with your wife. Don't let a day go by when she doesn't know how much she's loved by you. Don't let your children think that you don't have a past. Don't let your children think you're a mystery.

There were no real male figures in my life that I could look up to. My grandfather on my dad's side died when I was young, and we were estranged from his family, so I don't know my uncle well at all. On my mom's side, HiGuy as he gets called, has always been a goofy, fun fellow, but after my grandma died, his emotional presence in my life hasn't been great, and my mother's brother, Brian, wasn't particularly available as a role model, either. His son, Michael, was treated like the golden child in the family because he was the only boy (and I can't count the number of times I thought to myself "Hey, what about me!").

So, with no tradition, no rules, no tips, to be inherited, what am I left with? Is this why I feel like my masculine identity is a fraud? I look the look, walk the walk, talk the talk, but I feel as though I don't own it. My identity in this way feel as though it is scraps of my friends and other lesbians I've seen, stitched together into something that feels like it might fit. The pieces I've picked up from my dad fit in here. I call Billie "dear," like I heard my dad say so many times over the years. I still ski when my sister snowboards. I know how to grill onions, steak, and fish.

I know my mom took up a lot of my and my sister's attention growing up. The emotional wedge she drove in between my dad and I (unwitting as it might be), is going to resound through the rest of my life. I know the way to fix it is to talk to my dad, bond with him, learn about him, but honestly, I have no idea how to even start.

*I guess I also learned how to lay a brick patio and install hardwood floors, but that's not really very hard.