by Jean Widner
My adopted dad was Yoda.
All of 5’6”, he was round, mostly bald, and never terribly physical. He had large-ish ears that stuck out broadly on the sides of his head. He always sported a plaid, traditional English cap when outside. Completing the costume was the brown bathrobe he wore, inside or outside the house. Even in the summer.
Momma and I picked out his bathrobe one Christmas when I was still little. She purchased it in a darker brown color because he wore so much of it. This was the early 70’s after all, and the ensemble matched our orange, paisley-patterned carpet, dark wood paneled walls, and I’m sure there was an avocado-colored appliance somewhere in the house.
But regardless, my mom bought his first brown robe and then some dozen or so years later, when I was a teenager, I got him a nice soft terrycloth and velvet one. Also in a dark brown color that he wore until it was completely rags. So, it really was my fault. I’d doubled down without conscious awareness. Yoda, my father, he was.
The sight of Daddy in his robe became famous in our neighborhood. He only mowed the lawn on Sundays alternating between the front and back yard each week. So, every other weekend, the neighbors got the visual treat of my dad, with his English plaid cap, a cigarette dangling from his lips, the ragged bathrobe, and two short legs underneath pushing the mower around our front yard. Meticulous at his task, he moved back and forth, rarely missing a blade of grass.
That was pretty much how he lived his life: orderly, organized, and habitual. I’m the same. Raised as his, I am also not. Adopted from birth, I became his first by the need for survival, and then because I loved him. Playful and an educator by trade, he genuinely loved kids. Loved me.
Daddy met people where they were. He didn’t put on airs or try to be something he wasn’t.
I’ve often said that my parents got more right than wrong in how they framed my adoption. When thinking about Father’s Day and how to honor the men who do the job, Yoda and his wisdom came to mind. In reviewing many of this character’s best lines, sure enough, I found symmetry between the wisdom of Yoda, fatherhood, and adoption.
“TRY NOT. DO. OR DO NOT. THERE IS NO TRY.”
This is the most universal dad phrase of all time. Men strive to provide for their families and push themselves, and those around them. One of the great yin-yang differences between male and female energy is the way they raise us. Mothers protect. Fathers play to win. They want us to focus our efforts and succeed as much as we can. It may be different in the ways they will treat their sons from their daughters but letting us fall and teaching us to stand up again is one of the most important skills we can learn.
Whatever I did, my dad supported me. He wanted me to try new things, and once something stuck, he encouraged me to do the best I could. Clarinet, piano, dance, or soccer made no difference. Show up. Don’t make excuses for yourself. Give it your all! No try, just do. And he was always right there, cheering me on from the audience or the sidelines.
What was hilarious to me as I got older was how much more physical I was than my parents. By my teen years, I was already as tall as they were. This was when my adoption started to really ring home to me. I was different from them. I liked activities and was good at things they had no proclivity toward. Fortunately, they celebrated my differences and never shamed me. I knew I was lucky in that regard with them as my adopted family.
“TRULY WONDERFUL THE MIND OF A CHILD IS.”
Daddy embodied this. He often said he preferred the company of children to adults, and I knew he meant it. He was the hands-down favorite parent for all my friends. Growing up as I did in the late 70’s, my dad had a pop-culture icon to model himself after. For those who remember Happy Days before they jumped the shark, “Mr. C. (Cunningham)” was who daddy strived to be. And he won that role handily, second only to Yoda.
He genuinely liked us as kids, even in our teens. Instead of merely tolerating, he treated us universally as though we mattered. To him, our conversations weren’t just mindless drivel or hormonal drama – he heard us, saw us. Knew that our forming selves needed room, patience, and guidance. We needed both Mr. C., whom we could talk to, and Yoda, whom we therefore listened to.
“ATTACHMENT LEADS TO JEALOUSY. THE SHADOW OF GREED, THAT IS.”
Daddy was mine, and I was his. And I was proud of that. But he was never jealous about our love for each other or how we had come to be a family. He held space for my other parents before there were words for that.
I did the typical rebellious adopted teenager rant, “Someday I’m going to go and find my real mom!” It didn’t faze him. In fact, his response was, “Great, I hope you find her! I’d love to meet her someday…” delivered with a wistful tone.
My parents would openly say to me that my mother was young and relinquished me because she didn’t have any choices. She could not have kept me, given the ways of the world at the time. Daddy was a quiet feminist of his era. What that meant in my rebellious moments was not only that my zinger of an “insult” about my “real family” fell flat, but it also told me he wasn’t afraid of the truth, and that he didn’t shame my mother and genuinely cared about her. It meant a lot at the time, and more so as I’ve grown.
Adoptees often fixate our attention towards the mothers who relinquish us rather than the fathers, deep in the fog of our minds. In no small part that is because of biology. But also, if we had had fathers, why would any child be placed for adoption? That thought is still confusing now.
I thought about my natural mother but rarely expressed my curiosity about her. My father was a more distant consideration. I wondered at times, was the sex that created me consensual? Was he a good guy or a bad guy? I also wondered who my first mother was and thought about how afraid she must have been. How terrified I would feel were it me.
I knew I had a winner in the dad category as it was, and decided that for now in my young life, that was good enough. My story with my adoptive mother is complicated, but Daddy was my respite and my stabilizer, so I focused on my wins and denied my losses. Something that both Mr. C. and Yoda would have been heartbroken to learn. I now wish I’d found the words to share it.
“MANY OF THE TRUTHS THAT WE CLING TO DEPEND ON OUR POINT OF VIEW.”
Both life and adoption are like this. You cannot see the whole of an adoption story without understanding everyone’s point of view within it. They are often vastly different. And men tend to blend into the background. They are stoic, labor on, and taught never to complain or show weakness. We often look through the men in our stories rather than stop and see them. Hear them.
The father who created me is still unknown. So far, even the search angel I worked with has been unable to unravel that spaghetti bowl of DNA. But I plan to give it a try again soon. I know several adoptee friends who’ve had wonderful reunions on their father’s side. I’d love it if that became a backdrop to my own story, but the universe has its own ways of allowing what one will know, and when or why.
“YOU MUST UNLEARN WHAT YOU HAVE LEARNED.”
Growing into the person I am today, with adoption deeply integrated into my story, meant unlearning much of the pretty little pictures I grew up with in my head. Created by the false expectations of those around me, as an adult, it’s better to see clearly. Understand what serves me well, and release that which no longer does. I think that is the ultimate wisdom we can possess. We can learn to trust the people and forces around us that we cannot control, and also work to improve or challenge the ones we can. Do not try. Do. Show up. Be yourself. Give your best, whatever that looks like. And…
“MAY THE FORCE BE WITH YOU.”
Thanks, Dad. And you, too, Yoda.
Jean Widner is a domestic adoptee born in 1965 and the author of The Adoption Paradox: Putting Adoption in Perspective. When she isn’t writing she is paying the bills as an internet marketer and if it’s hot in Las Vegas she is working from her camper van in cooler weather with her husband and dogs.
AKA invites you to hear from members of the extended family of adoption and the surrounding community. While we take great care in curating the content, please know the opinions of the authors we invite to share are theirs and theirs only. Some of the content shared here may be emotionally activating depending on your personal journey – therefore, please be sure to practice self-care and seek the support you may need.