by Amber Mathis

Created on: February 24, 2009

I'll never forget that haunting day. The day my dad got the call from his best friends wife. At the time i was pregnant. He and my mom had picked me up from a friends house. "Doug wanted you to know that if there is any chance that Amber could be his daughter he wants to be there for her and be allowed rights to see his grandchild." she said. My heart almost stopped beating when i saw the look on my fathers face when he heard what she had to say. He could hardly speak a word other than a grunt that almost sound like the word "what." I was horrified and because I was pregnant I was extremely emotional. I burst into tears when he hung up the phone and told my mom and I what she had said.

When we got home i jumped out of our minivan as if it was on fire and all I could thing of doing was walking. "Walk it off, Amber," I told myself. "Do not let your parents see you cry over something so ridiculous." But i couldnt help myself, the tears just came pouring down. I walked around our yard for a while and dad came out to talk to me. He said that Doug had called him just a few minutes after we arrived home and explained it a little better. My mom had supposedly told her best friends son, who was also Dougs child, that there was a slight chance that I could be his daughter. It was a small fling just before she had met my dad and found out she was pregnant with me. Because I was so close to eighteen they were giving me the choice to do a DNA test.

Before i knew it was two in the morning and i was trying to make the hardest decision of my life. My dad came to my room and sat down beside me on the bed. "No matter what choice you make you will always be my little girl. I watched your mother grow big with you inside her. I felt you kick her when you wanted to be noticed," and with a smile and the gleam of a tear in his eye he added, " and I got to watch my beautiful little girl grow into a woman. You'll be a mother soon yourself and you will see that some decisions aren't the easiest to make. Your mom kept this from you only to protect you." I put my hand on the buldge covered by my shirt and right then i made my decision.

I chose not to take the test. It doesn't matter if Doug is my father. Anyone can be a father but only a real man can be a dad. And the man i wanted to be in my childs life was sitting beside me. He had been with me and my siblings all of our life through thick and thin. He would always be there for me. If Doug was really concerned about being in my life he would have spoken up sooner and tried to have been there through my youth like the man i call dad had always been. I will always be his little girl.

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