Tom

This is likely the first of many things I will write about my stepdad but recording all the things here as they come to me.

Stepdad is a weird word. Maybe fitting for some circumstances where a mom remarries and brings a new father figure into her children’s lives. But it never felt right for what Tom was to me. Step implies something is removed, a gap, a distance, a replacement – but Tom was my dad as much as my biological father is my dad. He came into my life when I was 5 and I grew up in his house, woke up every morning of my life from 6 into adulthood to his good mornings, to him shuffling in the kitchen asking what I wanted for breakfast. It was his face I saw when I got home from school every day, his voice I heard in the house when I was being lazy on weekends in middle school, he was the one who told me to be nicer to my mother when I was an insolent teen. Tom raised me. He was my father as much as my dad is my father. 

Until recently I mistakenly never thought his traits could be mine because he wasn’t my biological dad. How blindsided of me. Our environment and the people in it shape us just as much as our ancestors do. And so I know now that my kindness came from him, my sense of humor, my desire to always want to find something light in a situation, to make people feel safe and ok, my warmth. Tom is part of me forever, his traits show up in me just as though they were genes coded in my cells. 

Tom loved dried apricots, sausage and peppers, yebeda, and pistachios. When I was younger I remember our house was always stocked with those little boxes of black licorice with the panda on them. The first time I tried licorice was with him and I immediately hated and loved the salty bitter molasses taste on my tongue. I ate more just to experience what he loved so much about that treat. He loved beets in any form, and always told me the best thing to wash my hands with was fresh lemon juice. Every holiday growing up our house was fully loaded with bags and bags of pistachios - the shells in bowls all over the house - I am sure he showed us all the quickest and best way to open a pistachio and I can hear his voice telling me how these pistachios were the best pistachios. He gave them to every employee at his company. I wonder if they received those bags with joy or eye rolls, I wonder if they knew how much the boss liked this gift too - how it was truly him giving something he loved. I remember him telling me about all the things to eat to avoid cancer - spirulina was abundant in our household - in powder and pill form. Dried apricots kept cancer away too.

Tom loved drinking martinis with me. It was our thing and every time I came home to visit and we went out to eat he wanted to order martinis “Chrissy! Let’s get martinis!” it didn’t matter if it was 11 am or 6 pm. A Vodka martini up with olives, slightly dirty sometimes an espresso martini after a meal. The first sip and the big smile.  

Tom loved a bargain and when we moved into his house before my mother made it a home, he had full sets of dishes taken from hotels in Vegas. He would order room service and keep the plates, walk the halls to collect what he needed to finish off a set. Not because he couldn’t afford his own dishes but because he loved a deal and he thought he was giving the casino enough of his money anyway so he may as well help himself to the dishes along with the robes. 

Going to restaurants was always an adventure - middle school me looking away when he and my mother filled their bags with packets of sugar and Splenda from the table - sometimes he’d take a spoon or a teacup he liked. Mostly just to make us laugh and see if he could get away with it. When I brought a boyfriend home one year in my 30s and we went out to dinner he convinced him to take some tomatoes from a display at the entrance of the restaurant - it was a hazing of a sort - and I can still hear Tom’s laughter in the parking lot shouting his approval of my confused boyfriend who likely never stole a thing in his life. 

Tom taught me my state capitals, he made me make flashcards, and then we would go on drives and he would test me on all of them. I have a vivid memory of driving somewhere with Tom and him quizzing me again and again until I got all 50 states right - and then his proud voice booming “All right Chrissy! You got it”. My Dad paid for my school but Tom cared about how I performed - he put in the hours of checking my homework and helping me study and asking about my classes and looking at my report cards. He came to my sports games and yelled from the sidelines. He cared so deeply and I could feel his pride when I brought home good grades and showed him my writing. He wanted me to succeed, he was always rooting for me. 

Stepdad doesn’t really do it, it doesn’t capture who Tom was in my life. He was my dad, is my dad, will always be my dad. His big voice will always boom in my head. His beaming smile, his bear hugs. I can hear his voice ringing in my ears I love you Chrissy, I love you so much - I hope that sound never fades, I hope my head holds onto that as long as it can because right now it’s so clear - as if he’s in the other room, I hope time doesn’t steal that sound.