2 SISTERS. 1 FATHER. WHAT A DIFFERENCE.

On my fourteenth birthday I woke up to find my parents gone and a note on the kitchen table that said: “At the hospital.”

A SURPRISE ADDITION 

 Two days after that, I got my first glimpse of my ‘birthday present’—my youngest sister. I had been hoping for a pair of bell-bottom jeans. I would be in college before she hit kindergarten. It was weird. It was kind of cool. My sister still ‘chases’ after me in a race she is happy not to win. I will always be older. I tell her I will always be wiser. She believes the latter is another one of my fictions.

We’re different in more than age. I’m a writer on the West Coast; she founded SCRAPS KC (Kansas City, MO), an incredible non-profit that funds homeless outreach. Yet there are many ways in which we are the same, twin-like in our mannerisms, speech, and looks.Then there is the one thing in our lives that is exactly the same and wildly different.

DAD

Every year Father’s Day arrives like an encore to our birthdays. Our dad has been gone almost twenty year, and while we shared him we experienced him differently.

I grew up with the younger version, the one who chased dreams and wasn’t sure if he was worthy of catching them. The dad who had a lot of mouths to feed and worked two jobs to get it done. The father who was drafted into the Air Force, sacrificing a fledgling medical practice to serve his country, moving his family from Missouri to Alaska in 1954.

My sister’s version of dad was more seasoned, settled, and confident. The salad days were behind him. He was a well-respected doctor. He smiled more. He looked at his younger children differently than his older ones. I had less freedom and less time with him; my sister had a modern dad willing to let his girl find her wings. Our shared experience was this: dad was always steady, protective, and proud of us. He was a man of principles and faith. We were safe and loved.

REALITY V. FICTION

It was Father's Day that got me thinking about fictional fathers. Usually I write about a mother's influence (mostly evil moms even though mine was a doll). When I revisited The Witness Series, I realized that I shared my version of dad with another 'sister', Josie Bates, and he plays a huge role.

Josie's father hasn't got a name or a face. He doesn't speak a line of dialogue, yet his influence on Josie is undeniable. He is the shadow in her heart, a whisper in her ear, the presence hovering near to give encouragement or comfort. I never addressed his feelings about anything—not even his wife’s disappearance — and Josie never confronted or blamed him for her mother's abandonment. Like me, she read between the unspoken lines and understood that whatever her father did, he did it for her.

When her father passed, Josie took up the search for her mother and found the horrible truth of what happened to her— and how much her father sacrificed for both her and her mom— in Forgotten Witness. The experience deepens her respect for the man who raised her, and I can say the same as I look back on my dad's life. Father’s stay the course. Children sail in their wake. And so it goes.

THINGS LEFT UNSAID

 I never told my dad how much I appreciated him. That kind of conversation wasn’t in our wheelhouse, much like Josie and her father. Still, the character of Josie's father reflects how personal the inspiration is for these books, and how deeply a parent’s example ripples through a child’s life. The secrets fathers hold often come to light too late for us to recognize they were kept to protect us.