by Andie Anderson

Created on: April 25, 2008

I was adopted when I was an infant, and the legal process was final when I was two years of age. My parents may have told me I was adopted when I was about five years of age but I didn't really know what it meant.

My adoptive father was a saint. He was forgiving, loving, full of fun and humor, and I could do no wrong in his eyes. He taught me to be forgiving, loving, full of fun and humor and I strived to be a child he would always be proud of. My father never told us of the horrors of World War II when he was a private in the Pacific Theatre fighting against the Japanese.

My brother and I would ask him to tell us about war stories since we loved watching Bataan, Combat, Rat Patrol, and anything dealing with war. There weren't many good shows on tv growing up in the fifties and sixties and that's pretty much what we watched, John Wayne movies about war. My father would only tell us about the funny things that happened during his time in the Phillipines, and the exciting things like him catching malaria, and eating out of his army helmet and the horrors of eating Spam, but he would never tell us about death, killing, sadness, or lonliness. My father was a proud, hard-working man and loved to make a story out of everything and every trip was an adventure. Just going to the hardware store was an adventure. My father grew up during the Great Depression and only had a high school diploma but ended up as Vice President, district manager of thirteen banks in Long Island, NY. He never complained that he couldn't go to college because he supported his parents on his bank teller wages or that his father was a 'functional alcoholic' who was linstrumental in building the Robert Moses State Parkway, that his father was a construction worker that would disappear after work and spend his money on booze. My father was a proud but quiet man but he could laugh until he nearly cried. When I was little I would hide in the house and he never tired of trying to find me. I still remember the strange odor of moth balls way back in the closet where I would crouch ready to say, "Boo" when he opened the door.

My father wasn't of the same DNA as I but he was a wonderful person and in my eyes, the epitome of what a father should be, strong, faithful, loving, adventurous, kind, and loyal. You don't have to be related to someone to love them beyond eternity. My father has been dead 18 years now but I still remember everything as clearly as if it was yesterday. Thank God for VHS videos because I can go back in time and wipe a tear away and laugh as well at the things of the past, birthdays, anniversaries, and just plain living. My stepson remembers my father as being a kind man who treated him equally as well as his own children.

These memories of my father carry on with my children.

Learn more about this author, Andie Anderson.
Click here to send this author comments or questions.