Father's Day is coming up and this year I'm making a conscious choice to make sure I acknowledge it in a way that I never have, by owning my truth.  You see, I grew up without a father, even though one was in the house.  Makes no sense, right?  But this was very much my life.  In order to prevent confusion let me define the terms I'm using here.  Father refers to my biological father.  Dad refers to my stepfather. Let me go ahead and say here that you may want to brace yourself because it gets a bit confusing and I've got quite a bit to share. So here goes...

I have vivid memories of sitting in my 5th grade classroom being addressed by Child Protective Services.  They were talking to us about speaking up if someone was hurting us.  Now that I think about it, I'm not really sure why they were there.  Maybe it was customary, or maybe they had a tip.  But nonetheless, I was sitting there weighing my options.  If I say something, they might be able to help me.  But if they can't how can I ever go home?  This time she might kill me for real.  I sat there with fresh welts on my body from the night before.