Charlie is officially a High Schooler

Graduation was lovely. I didn't cry quite as much as I thought I would, but it was a close thing. He got two awards! One from the Mark Newbie PTA - that was his grade school. Every elementary school picked two students who had gone to that school and awarded them for outstanding achievement, and Charlie won. He got a certificate and $50.00!

Then he got the Presidential Award for Academic Excellence. He got that after the 5th grade too, but this time it's signed by a president I actually like.

The principal of the High School welcomed them as the class of 2015. THAT made me cry.

Father's Day

My mother left my biological father when I was around 2 years old. We never talked much about it, for various reasons, but the biggest reason, she always said, was because I had been in the hospital for a long time with a serious kidney problem, and he never came to see me. That was the final straw, apparently.

I have on memory of him from childhood. He'd taken me somewhere, and I was riding on one of those mechanical things that go back and forth. He'd pretend like I was about to hit him, and jump away, and I'd laugh and laugh, and then he'd do it again.

I never missed him, though, because when I was 3, my mother remarried, and, though I remember the wedding, and I remember calling him 'Steve' he was, from that moment on, my dad. When I was 6 he formally adopted me, mostly I think because the school still called me by my original surname, and I insisted on using his. That was, as far as I knew, my actual name.

My dad was, and is, a great father. He's the most easy-going person I know. It takes a lot to get him angry, and he is predisposed to like pretty much anyone. He's also really funny. The dinner times I remember and the ones where my father would have us all laughing the entire time.

His one big flaw was in ever thinking he could teach me maths. He's really good at it - he was an accountant - and it was impossible for him to understand that I couldn't see what he was seeing. To him it was simple, to me, so much jibberish. Those were our biggest arguments.

I also remember the first time I ever went out with a boy who was driving. We, me, this boy (who I did eventually date, but we weren't dating at the time) and 3 other friends were going to see Fantasia. My father, on discovering a teenager was driving, almost had a heart attack! He grilled me on everything; where did this boy live, who were his parents, how did I know him? When we were outside the movie theatre that night, we were all expecting to see him drive by to check up on us. The perils of being the eldest.

My dad is a good dad. I'm so very lucky to have him in my life.

Happy Father's Day, Daddy!