Fatherhood

My father died when I was ten. My parents divorced when I was two. His own father had abandoned him. Fatherhood, in my family, was something that happened briefly and then stopped.

I was raised by women, and it taught me to see a thing from more than one side, which has been useful my whole life. But as a kid I looked at all dads with deep suspicion. A father was a general nuisance, an odd man who lived in the houses of my friends. Necessary for a little while, I figured, and after that the mom could run with it. I thought that until my early thirties.

Then I met my wife. Then I met her father.

Dr. Sebastian Sora showed me what a father could be, and then, without ever making a lesson of it, how to be one. I have three kids now. When I don’t know what to do, I still look for him. He is the light I steer by.

These photos are dedicated to him.