The Second Moon of Adonis

"It is much easier to become a father than to be one."

Kent Nerburn, Letters to My Son: Reflections on Becoming a Man, 1994

I was blessed with one of the best sets of parents a guy could ever have, and I feel grateful every day for what they've given me. They encouraged me to learn, supported me in everything I decided to do, and always made me feel like I was special and loved. That's really why I want to adopt. I want to be the person for some kid that my parents were for me.

It could have turned out a lot differently. I was born into a family that, before I came along, consisted only of my single mother Marlene and a mentally unstable grandmother. My mother will occasionally talks about the guilt she would feel when she had to go to work, leaving me with her mother all day. She's never clearly explained what she thought would happen, and if anything ever did I don't remember.

To be honest, though, I doubt my grandmother would have ever done anything to harm me; I was always her favorite. She was very clear about that, even after my younger brother and sister came along. At Christmas, if she gave each of her grandchildren $20, she would pull me aside later and slip me another 20 when they weren't looking. Still, even if Grandma loved me, Mom had almost no money, no real prospects, and there was no father figure in my life at the beginning.

Marlene Mitchell had recently started a job as a secretary at a company called Newell Color Lab in Los Angeles, where she was very well-liked by everyone, including the owner of the company, Newell Morris. He liked her enough that, even though she was a new mother and single (something a bit less socially acceptable at that time than it is now), he introduced her to his son, Bob.

Bob, of course, ended up being the man I think of as my father. I never knew him as anything else until I was 16 years old, but by that time I really didn't care that he wasn't my father biologically. He'd taught me to play baseball and how to ride a bike, gone on Cub Scout outings with brother and I, and bought me my first razor. He'd been the strong, intelligent, caring man I'd admired, and wanted to be like, my entire life. In many ways, I am a lot like him, and I'm incredibly proud of that.

That's partly why this adoption is so important to me: I had a guy come into my life who, despite the fact that I wasn't his own child, always loved me as if I was. He protected me, provided for me, and gave me an example of what I could hope to be when I grew up. I can't think of anything more important that I could with my own life than to be for someone else what my father was for me.