On Having a Dad

When you have a dad who didn’t have a dad, in some ways, you don’t have a dad.

When you have a dad who didn’t have a dad, in some ways, you don’t have a dad.

Those words came to me one morning. I printed them prominently, in all capital letters, on the first page of a blank journal I was using at the time, to collect my thoughts, about boyhood and manhood and fatherhood.

On other mornings, I read over those words, wondering if they …