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eventually gave up in a sense. I put it over to him to come to me.

That was a huge mistake as the following couple of years were Christmas only. Even though we lived in the same town, he couldn't see me on a regular basis.

I was active in sports for my entire life, and excelled. I played football, basketball, and baseball throughout my childhood and high school years, and he never attended a game. In contrast, my stepfather missed only one in the years he was in my life.

I joined the Army for four years, and never got one phone call or letter. All through basic training, and through my career in Germany, I never heard from him, save the couple of phone calls I made to him.

Then, one Sunday afternoon in 1992 or so, my Dad showed up at my doorstep. He had just come by to say hi and see how I was. I wept there on the front porch. It was wonderful. Every Sunday for a month, he visited like clockwork, and I couldn't believe it.

The Monday following that fourth week, I got a phone call at work. My father was very sick and I needed to get to the hospital. I rushed out the door, and hurried to his side. He had collapsed that morning with a stroke.

Needless to say, every emotion known to man coursed through my body, as I contemplated his possible passing.

He did not pass away, but was paralyzed on his right side, and could not speak. He would be home and wheelchair bound for the rest of his life.

Tons of arrangements had to be made, and I agreed to come and stay with him a couple of times a week to try to lessen the load on his wife. Little did I know, I was opening myself up to all the member's of his new family who saw only a son that had little to do with his Father.

The tensions grew more and more, and it became a real battle to even be in that home. None of his new family knew the hurts of our past, nor did they care. They simply saw what they wanted. My Dad had changed in his later years, and was very good to his new family, much like my grandfather had turned over his new leaf so many years before.

That did not transfer over to his relationship with me. That is, until just before his stroke. We were just starting to get some idea of who we were. And bang! He is struck down with the stroke.

All of these things conspired to help keep me away more and more. And that same distance I referred to earlier with my grannie reared it's head. I started visiting less and less, which made the visits I did make even more uncomfortable. I never knew my Dad to begin with, and now I knew

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